Just Strong

Handling Stress without putting on weight

Recent studies indicate that eating food is an easy way to suppress chronic stress and depression. Unfortunately, eating food to alleviate stress may lead to weight gain and health issues in the long-run. As long as you keep your stress eating under control, it may not affect your body as much. But, if external events such as a big change in your life cause you to experience chronic stress, your formerly benign stress-relief eating strategy could cost you your self-image, your shape, and even your health.

This Is How You Handle Stress Without Putting on Weight:

If you have experienced several big traumas or a series of small traumas, especially during childhood, your brain may have learned to overreact. If that is the case, the smallest perceived threat can produce an intense stress response.

The human brain has not evolved to handle modern society’s sources of stress. It knows survival instincts and the flight or fight response but has forgotten how to release it.

Before I started healing past traumas, I was in freeze mode most of the time. I would numb myself and feel nothing or I would feel extremely intense levels of stress despite the lack of major external stimuli. If you’re experiencing similar erratic surges of stress, I strongly advise you to contact a matrix reimprinting practitioner like myself and use all the techniques I’m going to mention below.

If your stress levels range from medium to low but with a few peaks during the day, you should be able to manage stress eating on your own with just this advice

Here are the simple strategies you can use.

Exercise 30 to 60 minutes three times a week:
Do some cardio-training, something that will make you sweat and move your body quickly. I like to jump on a rebounder or perform some fast-paced exercise. Your goal here should only be to enjoy yourself and relieve stress. Please make sure you’re fully present to what you’re doing and that you’re focusing on every movement you’re making. This will give you faster results and train your brain to concentrate on what it’s doing. This will be most helpful if you tend to have obsessive thoughts.

If you can’t exercise that often, try to practice brisk walking, use the stairs, and do 10-minute workouts daily instead.

Stop eating sugar:
Sugar will increase your anxiety levels by creating highs and lows. I have written a very thorough article on the subject. Read it at How to Stop Eating Sugar

Stop eating or drinking stress-triggering foods and beverages:
The first things that come to mind are coffee, tea, chocolate, colas, and other high-caffeine drinks. You can still use very dark chocolate to stop your cravings—if you’re not addicted to it, of course. I stopped drinking coffee when I stopped smoking. I was convinced that they were helping me get through the day but now, when I look back years later, I know they were only making me a nervous wreck.

There are several easy ways to stop stress eating from ruining your shape. The most obvious one is to keep your stress under control. However, you can go much further than that and find new ways to respond to life’s challenges and keep your weight down.

http://laurahoussain.com/how-to-stop-stress-eating/

Superfood Trends to Watch

…and just what is a “superfood” anyway?

Who wouldn’t want to believe in the concept of “superfoods”? The idea that the vast expanse of nature has secret nutritional resources that can easily help us with a number of ailments if only they can be discovered and harvested, is definitely enticing.

It certainly seems like we’ve just been blind to treasure troves of exotic berries, nuts, and grains when these popular superfoods were unknown to the West until now. Açaí berries, for example, only gained fame outside of Brazil within the last decade.

It’s often their otherness that makes these foods so appealing. Quinoa, particularly popular among vegetarians and vegans, does indeed provide a decent protein source – but then again, so do many common beans and nut varieties.

Açaí berries and goji berries are packed with phytochemicals, a plant compound which does seem to have a positive effect on a person’s chances of heart disease and brain deterioration. That sounds fancy, except regular old blueberries and strawberries have lots of phytochemicals too.

https://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/the-truths-you-didnt-know-about-superfood.html

Tackling Vitamin Deficiency

A healthy diet can provide all a growing body needs, but the reality of our busy lifestyles and sometimes finicky eating habits can lead to vitamin deficiency. Knowing what to look for is part of the battle. In this article we’ll try to help you detect nutritional deficiencies. Also note that symptoms are actually better indicators of nutritional deficiency than signs (In medicine a sign is objective while a symptom is subjective).

http://positivemed.com/2013/05/20/detecting-nutritional-deficiencies/