Your kids are screaming, the phone is ringing, someone is tailgating you and you’re 10 minutes late for where you have to be, and worst of all you have a headache that is right behind your eyes. Stressed? Thinking that this whole paleo thing is too hard and seriously right now all I want is a piece of chocolate (ice cream, peanut butter, insert evil food here)…Well, let’s think this thought through until the end.
If you grab that cookie, chocolate, whatever, is it going to make you feel better? Sure, at first you will possibly experience a euphoric buzz from the sugar because our brain secretes dopamine in response to extremely sweet things. It does this because it wants to reward you for finding some very calorically dense food and go after that again. However, our brain and body doesn’t know that this food, TODAY, is not rare…it’s everywhere these days. We are genetically built to put up with starvation to some degree so when we get a food that is PACKED with calories our body wants more and therefore rewards us with dopamine to make us feel good to keep going after that same food.
Ok so we grabbed the cookie put it in our mouth, consumed a hundred calories in less than 3 seconds…did any of your stresses go away? Is that dude still tailgating, phone ringing, kids screaming? Your headache didn’t go away either! The point is food does NOT make stress go away, it just numbs the stress temporarily. In the end this food will pack on weight and worst of all increases your cholesterol and sets you up for metabolic disaster that ends in medical bills the size of the national debt.
What you have to learn to do is to deal with the stress in a different way. The first step is realizing that, “Ok, I’m stressed out, what can I do about it?” This is all about being MINDFUL, know what’s going on inside and around you at all times. Don’t be REACTIVE; letting things affect you all day and then react to them by pounding cookies and cake. Anticipate the problem and identify the things that stress you out throughout the day. That way you can take steps to prevent them the next time. For example you have to pick up your kids at 3pm, sit in traffic, and deal with all the stresses that sometimes come with the territory that is children. Have a bite to eat at 2 or 2:30…Just eat something HEALTHY (nuts, seeds, fruit).
So when you get stressed identify the problem, eliminate if possible or try to deal with it before it arises in the first place. However, we can’t completely avoid stress, it’s a part of life so the next thing to do is learn to relax yourself. One of the best ways to relax is to practice BREATHING. Believe it or not most people do NOT know how to breath. Most people breath with their chest, a breath goes in their chest elevates and that’s it. That is not enough oxygen for your body, period. You have to take in a whole breath to where you are using your diaphragm. You can practice this by laying down on a flat surface and making your stomach rise and fall with each breath. This takes practice, try remembering to do this every time you walk over a threshold of some kind, even getting in and out of your car. Attend a yoga class, this is the same type of breathing they do for an hour or so; GREAT practice!
Don’t just use this when you are stressed though, breath like this all of the time! That is kind of preventive medicine for your brain so you’re not stressed and therefore will not eat evil foods. Remember food doesn’t make your problems throughout the day magically disappear. It only makes matters worse and one step further away from your goals of weight loss/good health and most importantly…from winning this challenge and a couple hundred bucks!