IT’S estimated that 75 per cent of people suffer from moderate to high levels of stress – and stress is very much linked to yo-yo dieting. So my Week Five Boot Camp blog is dedicated to discussing the causes of stress and what you can do differently to help your Slimpod and Chillpod work even more effectively.
In my video below I mention how food choices change under stress and I suggest a couple of things you can do to give your pods a helping hand.
Let’s look at that research I mentioned. Studies at Montclair University in New Jersey, USA, provided fascinating evidence about the effect emotional anxiety can have on what we eat and how much we eat.
The first experiment demonstrated that stress causes changes in food choice away from healthy low fat foods (in this case, grapes) to less healthy high fat foods (M&Ms).
The second experiment found that more women than men report increasing their food consumption when stressed. Here’s a key finding that might explain why you’ve found it so hard to lose weight on diets all these years.
Seventy-one per cent of those people in the study who reported increasing their food consumption when stressed were dieters. Yes, 71 per cent!
The foods they reported overeating when stressed were things they normally avoided for weight-loss or for health reasons – such as high-calorie, high fat snack foods.
Why? They told the researchers they did it to make themselves feel better.
I’m wondering if that sounds familiar as you read this blog.
Stress eat, stress eat, stress eat!
Here’s what I want you to think about…
If you’ve been on diets (and who hasn’t?) the evidence shows that you’re much more likely to react to stress by eating more and grabbing sugary snacks or fatty food.
And what makes people stressed when they try to lose weight by conventional means? Being on a diet, of course!
The calorie counting, the constant weighing, the worry about putting on a pound or two, the pain of feeling hungry, the guilt when you give in to temptation, the isolation of eating differently to the rest of the family…the list of things that cause stress are endless.
So think how good it feels to be losing weight with a Slimpod. Once its magic start to kick in, you’re immediately freed from the stress you were under when you were dieting.
Being able to think positively about your new freedom is an important factor in dispelling the dark diet clouds from your life.
If you’re in our Gold programme and are listening to a Chillpod as well, you’re getting a double benefit. Life suddenly becomes more relaxing – losing weight becomes fun.
If your stress response is to comfort eat or consume sugary snacks, then this week’s task is to identify one “stressor” in your life and think about how you can change the pattern of behaviour that’s causing it.
Get your free stress ebook
By the way, if you haven’t got a copy of my free ebook about stress then I’d love you to download a copy now. Just click on the cover.
Please leave a comment below because I love reading what you write and I know it helps others too. Feel free to share this page on social media as well.
See you next week!
