How Stress Could be Sabotaging Your Weightloss Goals

I must tell you, since beginning this blog and doing countless amount of research, stress-management has been at the root of so many healing protocols; be it immune system, hormonal, gut microbiome, or weight loss…

With this in mind, over the last year, i’ve worked some seemingly simple but very effective stress management techniques into my daily life that I really feel have made a difference on how I feel (and how I am making others feel around me).

First, I want to address how chronic stress could be sabotaging your weight goals. Then, I am going to help you manage this stress by my top 5 stress-management techniques. Let’s dive it…

How Chronic Stress Could Be Sabotaging Your Weightloss Goals

Okay, so let me preface. Stress isn’t necessarily bad… it can be an important motivator or survival mechanism in the event you find yourself in danger. When our mind signals our body that we are in danger, our natural stress response is to release hormones from our adrenal glands (cortisol) to heighten our focus by tapping into energy reserves for fuel to allow us to flee from danger.

The trouble is… we stopped running from bears in the woods decades ago and our body is responding in a way that signals your body to eat more than it “needs” because it’s thinking much more about survival than the stressful e-mail you just received or the crying baby that needs your attention.

Cortisol is needed, but high levels of cortisol overtime will contribute to those mentioned health impacts, especially abdominal weight gain! The problem is that we’re not actually in danger and our bodies are living in this fight-or-flight state chronically.

THIS is the magic piece of the puzzle – learning how we can turn off that heightened stress response when it’s not needed. – Nutrition Stripped

My Top 5 Ways to Manage Chronic Stress

1: Start with Your Diet:

I’m sure this isn’t a popular one but, hey, you are what you eat! The right diet can do wonders to reduce stress’s impact. When you eat whole, real foods, you restore balance to insulin, cortisol, and other hormones. Eliminate caffeine, alcohol, and refined sugar and eat on a regular schedule daily — this helps avoid the short term stress of starvation on your body & maintain an even-keeled mindset throughout the day (even when things go hay-wire).

Food is information that controls your gene expression, hormones and metabolism. When you eat the right foods, you balance blood sugar, restore hormonal balance and reduce stress’s damaging impact. – Mind Body Green

2. Meditation & Gratitude:

These sound cliche but try it for 30 days and tell me you don’t feel better… reframe your mindset to begin identifying what’s not wrong RIGHT NOW and pay gratitude to that.

Try something quick like the 5 Minute Journal each morning to prompt gratitude as a part of your morning routine. While you’re at it, make space for 5 more minutes each morning to practice meditation and make space in your mind to start the day on a clean slate. This will come in handy when you need it. Remember, meditation is a practice, so on those mornings you don’t think you need it… don’t skimp. You are practicing for those days when you need to make space to think clearly and effectively. Try guided mediation through the headspace app.

Meditation can give you a sense of calm, peace and balance that can benefit both your emotional well-being and your overall health.
And these benefits don’t end when your meditation session ends. Meditation can help carry you more calmly through your day and may help you manage symptoms of certain medical conditions. – Mayo Clinic

3. Exercise:

I don’t know about you but I almost always feel a little bit better after a good sweat. Cardio workouts with loud music help to literally let off some steam. While exercises like yoga help to quiet the mind. Find what works for you and stick to it. It helps me to stay regular with my workouts when I approach them as something that my mind needs rather than a means to getting skinnier.

Exercise is a powerful, well-studied way to burn off stress chemicals and heal the mind. Studies show exercise works better than or equal to pharmaceutical drugs for treating depression. – Mind Body Green

4. Supplement:

Try as we might, there are limits to what our body can do when we are deficient in certain vitamins & minerals. Check out my guide to supplementation for a deeper dive but to be safe: take a multivitamin and nutrients to help balance the stress response, such as vitamin C; the B-complex vitamins, including B6 and B5 or pantothenic acid; zinc; and most important, magnesium, the relaxation mineral (I love to take magnesium before bed).

5. Sleep Hygiene:

Lack of sleep increases stress hormones. Get your eight hours no matter what. Take a nap if you missed sleep. Prioritize it, and if you feel like you’re not getting high-quality shut-eye, find strategies to improve it. Some things I do before bed to help with quality sleep include; unplugged (no devises!) bath with magnesium bath salts, light music, diffused eucalyptus, magnesium supplements, sleepy time tea, orange-hue sleep lightbulbs in the bedroom, blackout shades, and I keep the temperature around 65F during sleep.

I hope this helped! If you have any suggestions in the rhelm of stress management please comment below or leave me a message on my instagram!

In good health,

Jess