This Leptin hormone has really grabbed my attention. It answers some serious questions for me about food addiction and stress eating.
So here’s another installment on Leptin from Board Certified Clinical Nutritionist Byron Richards. Listen up and then do some research of your own.
Enjoy.
Stress is such a tough opponent and it gets tougher as we get older, especially for those of us who already have a problem with food addiction or emotional eating in general.
Stress can not only make us eat uncontrollably. It can change our metabolism in such a way that it’s even harder to lose the weight.
Here is a video I found on YouTube that has some great information about metabolism and stress. I hope you enjoy it.
Stress is everywhere in our lives today. The digital age has us moving at the speed of light with our bodies trying desperately to keep up.
Growing up, I hardly remember hearing about stress. In fact, women were thought to have it so easy that for decades we were not even considered to be at risk for things like heart attack. What did we have to be stressed about? What, indeed?
The cost of going to a doctor has risen to the point that many will not seek medical help unless they believe they are dying. Fear is a big motivator.
And why should they go to the doctor when they can go to a local drugstore and get pills for just about anything? They take the pills and if the symptoms subside, they’re happy.
Food addicts self-medicate too. When you are lonely or feeling depressed, the stress of that loneliness or depression might send you off frantically in the direction of the refrigerator or a nearby store.
While food addicts sometimes have a stash, it’s not like the person who hides the bottle of Scotch in the clothes hamper.
Sometimes we have only healthy food in the house. When stress strikes, we might have to go out and buy something less healthy.
The stress of the moment and the use of food as a coping mechanism are joined but not in a planned way.
Like other addictions, no one wakes up in the morning and says, “I think I’ll be an addict today”. Stress makes it happen.
Unbridled, uncontrollable stress–even if it’s just for a short time–is the driving force behind self-medicating with food. You self-medicate long enough and you become an addict.
You break up with your boyfriend or girlfriend, you stress, you eat. The experience causes you to recall similar emotional predicaments and you feel like a real loser. You eat some more.
“Why does this always happen to me”? More crying, more stress, more eating. Sometimes you have to eat a lot before the feelings of loss, anger, failure, worthlessness, depression, and so on, disappear. They do eventually disappear and you stop eating.
That’s how it is for the person with a food addiction. It’s better than some things, or so we tell ourselves, but it isn’t really.
Eventually, it would be nice if our hearts would heal and the symptoms would go away.
“Self-medicating” is a label that somehow makes stuffing down our feelings with food okay because it has a name and therefore a legitimacy.
Unfortunately, it’s just a mental stopover on the journey to uncovering the source of the problem that put you on the path to food addiction in the first place.
Once you can identify that starting point, you can embrace self-discovery and learn to let things be what they are.
You will be able to release yourself from the stress of the past and there will be no further reason to self-medicate with food.
Sometimes you just have to walk away. Easy to say, hard to do. Many if not most food addicts are fat. The problem with that is that we have a hard time walking away from food.
You have a food addiction, you get stressed, you get upset, and you eat. There is no walking away from food when you’re a food addict. If you could do that, food addiction wouldn’t be a problem.
Still, that doesn’t mean you can’t fight the good fight against fat, one of the “side effects” of food addiction. And you can walk away from fat.
In fact, walking is the easiest way to take off those extra pounds. I don’t mean speed walking or pounding the pavement so hard that you fall to the ground grabbing your gut after 30 seconds.
I mean easy, slow at first, constant paced walking while breathing in through your nose for four steps–it makes your stomach stick out when you do it–and out through your mouth for two steps–you’ll feel your stomach tighten. It’s a good feeling.
Don’t worry about how many calories you are burning. Just walk, and focus on your breathing.
Walk every day if you can. If you can’t walk outside, use a treadmill if possible. Most of all, be consistent so walking will become a habit.
Start with five or ten minutes if that’s all you can do. Don’t overdo, especially at first. You want your daily walk to become a habit so you will do it every day.
Start small and work your way up to 45 minutes or an hour. That’s all it takes, but if you want the best results, you have to do it every day.
Not to worry, though, because as your body gets used to this new invigorating activity, you will feel better, sleep better, and have more energy. Pretty soon, you’ll want to walk every day.
Measure your progress in inches, not pounds. You will be amazed at how this simple activity, when done consistently and thoughtfully, will change your life.
Walking is great for coping with stress, and when you breathe properly, walking will be an aerobic activity which burns fat rather than an anaerobic activity which burns sugar.
You want to burn fat. So lace up your most comfortable and supportive athletic shoes and hit the road.