Stress and weight loss

ashbabe25 wrote: »

JeromeBarry1 wrote: »

Walk outdoors among grass and trees for 30 minutes. That's a great way of reducing stress. Don't even treat it as exercise with power and vigor. Just stroll. Meditate, if you're able. Pray, if you wish. Ditch the bf for your health.

I do can do all but the last one. That's more complicated than I wish it was... eventually though.

Eventually?

So if youve already decided hes not the one, then why stay and be stressed out and deny him the chance to move on and meet his right person?

2.8 pounds in a little over a month isn't really that low, especially if you don't have a ton of weight to lose

try2again wrote: »

I'm confused... your original post said that stress was making it difficult for you to lose weight, and your next comment said stress makes you sick & so you eat way less than normal?

Stress actually has a major factor in the increase of certain chemicals in the blood, primarily corticosteriods (although they're not the only ones) - these lead to the retention of water and of fat (as an evolutionary device that would assume you were stressed due to poor survival conditions).

So you can be eating less and not dropping weight consistently.

ashbabe25 wrote: »

choppie70 wrote: »

I would give my left boob for stress only three days a week! I do get it though, stress is stress!

I teach (no stress there!), I am also a teacher leader, on several committees - I work 60 hours a week. I am also working on my NBPTS and under a deadline. I am also a mother, a wife of a man who works overnights, a homeowner, a doggy mom.

I also have health issues (not related to weight) and have been diagnosed with anxiety disorder. I am also a stress eater.

My saving grace is MY time. I make time each day for ME. My daughter and husband know that is sacred time and do not bother me. I walk, do an exercise video, read in bed, take a loooong shower - whatever I want to do for me!

I stress almost every day. But the major stress is 3-4 days a week usually. I live and work with my bf (which has its pros but lately the cons outweigh them) and my son who is a college student and works part time lives with us (I mean, he's lived with me his whole life so..)

I don't do exercise videos when the bf is home because he would make fun of me relentlessly if I did, I stick with those on weekends when he's working. I will do short workouts at the office on my lunch hour the two days a week I don't work with him.

I'm a renter and this apartment has been the cause of much stress lately between an incompetent landlord who repairs things in a halfashed manner and so last weekend we had no shower at all and again today the shower wouldn't shut off and I have the landlords son and plumber right now back and forth through my apartment trying to get to the bottom of the issue.

My bf is high strung and when things don't go his way he carries on and on causing my anxiety to go through the roof (I especially loved being woken up at 6:15 this morning because th shower wouldn't turn off and he didn't know how to cut the main water off and my hands haven't stopped shaking since because he texts me constantly "venting") He goes on and on on how we need to find a new apartment. Ah, yes. While I agree with this it's not easy to do so, it's expensive and we just don't have the money to put two months rent down as a deposit plus an additional month if we need to use an agent, apartments in this area run 1900-2200 so yeah. Money is always the biggest constant stress.

It sounds like maybe weight loss shouldn't be your first priority right now.

That being said, you have lost 2.8 lbs and that is perfectly respectable, as another poster pointed out. Exercise doesn't matter so much as accurately logging your calorie intake (even if you don't think that you're eating that much), but it definitely would be useful for stress relief.

I'm right there with you. I'm going through a divorce, parenting my too smart for her own good and incredibly willful 16 month old mostly by myself, dealing with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue, and being broke as a joke. I find hypnosis helps A LOT both with stress and with emotional eating. I listen to an 8 hour hypnosis every night and listen to binural beats during the day

It sounds like a difficult, and stressful, situation, and I feel for you. There are things that sound positive, too, though.

1) 0.5pound loss per week (you might be losing faster?) is great progress. That's my goal, actually.
2) Your son is old enough to be helpful, share some responsibilities (vs. being completely dependent).
3) It's easier to move on from a rent situation than a jointly owned home with the bf.
4) It's easier to leave a job that doesn't provide benefits like health insurance than one that does.

In the short term, is your bf receptive to making your relationship better? E.g. when you say something like, "When you vent/yell, my stress levels shoot up and I feel it in my stomach," does he respond with compassion? How would he respond if you confided you were struggling with stress right now? Would he ask how he could help? If directly addressing your main point of stress could improve the situation, it is worth doing in the short term, no matter what you do long term.

If directly addressing the problem makes it worse, that tells you something pretty significant about this relationship. Especially if he is a controlling personality type or isolates you from job prospects or a community of support, that's a huge red flag. In that case, investing energy in finding other job prospects might be the next most direct way to address the stress. I know, a job search can be super stressful, too. But only short term!

The comments questioning if weight loss is your top priority are wise. You might feel better faster by taking small steps to address the biggest stress points first. On the other hand, sometimes being able to control one small thing (your intake) amid a complicated stressful situation is one small thing you can feel good about every day. Either way, I feel for you and wish you the best.