These days, everyone’s stressed. Kids, traffic, gas prices, and work add up to a prescription for headaches and grinding teeth. Another side effect of stress is weight gain.

How Stress Makes You Fat

During ongoing stress, the body’s adrenal glands create more of the hormone cortisol than is normally needed. Too much cortisol can make you depressed, which can trigger comfort food binges. Cortisol also stimulates your appetite for fat and sugar and tells your body to store fat around your stomach. All of this combined is a recipe for weight loss disaster.

How to Reduce Stress

The best weight loss plan includes getting rid of stress. Stress may seem impossible to get rid of, but there are some things that you can do to reduce the stress in your life, making it easier to lose fat fast:

·        Exercise releases hormones that can naturally calm you. It is a dual edged sword that helps you lose weight by burning calories and de-stressing you. Find an exercise that you like and think of it as a treat away from your day.

·        Before bed, take five minutes to think about your day. Then, when the five minutes are up, imagine locking the thoughts behind a door and go to sleep.

·        Try getting a relaxing massage once a week. If you are strapped for cash, find a family member that gives great massages.

·        Use aromatherapy to fight stress.  Use lavender candles around the house and office to lessen headaches and frazzled nerves.

Once your stress is lowered, you will find that it is easier to lose weight…and not worrying about your weight is one less thing to be stressed about.

Combine these tips with regular use of a workout plan and a No Nonsense Muscle Building review, and you may find that you have less stress than ever.

Tags: Health & Fitness, Weight Loss

This entry was posted on Friday, November 7th, 2008 at 7:04 pm and is filed under Weight Loss. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.