Stress Eating Makes You Fat

Are you a stress eating addict? Do you 'comfort eat' when you are stressed? How much is this 'coping strategy' costing you in terms of your looks, your weight, your health and your finances?

Long term persistent stress eating can lead to obesity. Comfort eating is often stress induced. It can be an attempt to self-medicate, an effort to escape from the stress of day-to-day living. Nuisance is, stress eating, and the resultant obesity, has its own devastating consequences. As a coping strategy it is sadly disappointing.

The opposite is equally true. Obesity or even being just a few pounds overweight can be humiliating and therefore stressful. Our society is very outspoken in its disapproval of weight gain and obesity. We worry too often and too much about our appearance. It undermines our self confidence; we are constantly a diet and we end up depriving our bodies of what they really need.

What would a diet look like that is both stress and weight reducing?

The old, boring mantra remains annoyingly true. To lose weight, one has to burn more calories than you take in. If you burn exactly the same amount as you take in, your weight remains stable. And a stable weight is better for your long-term health, even if you are a little overweight. Especially if you make sure that you eat healthily.

If you need to lose weight, do not succumb to the siren song of diets that promise 10-20kg of weight loss in as many days. Stress eating and starvation diets are self-abuse. You can lose weight and you can get rid of the unhealthy habit of stress eating. However, life is too short to spend three quarters of your waking hours obsessing about your weight and eating. The idea is to relieve stress with a healthy diet, not make it worse. Going on a very strict diet puts your body under tremendous stress.

For the maximum health benefit, you only need to lose 10 % of your weight anyway.

Respect your body! Give it lots of TLC and be patient with yourself. Instead of going on a gut-wrenching diet, find out how you can cope with stress without harming yourself. There are several excellent stress relief books, stress management coaches and stress busting workshops that can help you discover what works for you.

Do not allow stress to ruin your appearance, your health or your happiness!

Dr M de Clermont is the author of two popular e-books about stress and weight management and presents residential stress/weight loss workshops in the sun-drenched south of France. More info and a FREE report: How does stress affect your health? available at http://www.Relax-and-Rejuvenate.com/