Secret #4 Reduce Your Stress to Reduce Your Belly Part 1

It’s 6 am on a Monday morning and you’re jolted out of your not-so-restful sleep by the buzz of your alarm clock.  You hit the snooze button a few times—you just can’t seem to get your butt out of bed!

Just as you start to fall back asleep, your alarm sounds once again and this time you have to get up because now you’re 30 minutes late!

You jump out of bed like Wonder Woman and quickly take a shower, do your hair and makeup, and throw on your clothes all in 30 minutes flat.  You have 10 minutes to get to work, and it takes 25 without traffic.  Forget breakfast—there’s no time!  You grab your coffee, though.  I mean, how else are you supposed to wake up?

On your way to work—to a job you no longer enjoy— you contend with the usual traffic of morning commuters.  As you’re getting on the highway, someone cuts in front of you while you’re enjoying your morning java.  You slam on the breaks and spill some coffee on your new khaki capris.  You now have a nice brown stain decorating your right thigh.  Great!

You get work 20 minutes late and you have a pile of paperwork awaiting you.  One of your colleagues is out on maternity leave and you have to pick up the slack while she’s gone—you’re basically doing two people’s jobs, but you’re only getting paid to do one perosn’s!  When you think about this it makes you hate your job even more!

An hour into your morning you start to crash as you come down from your caffeine high and serious hunger pangs set in.  Since you didn’t have breakfast yet, you grab a chocolate donut (ok, two) from the employee lounge (after all they’re free) and another cup of coffee to energize you for a staff meeting in 10 minutes.

You sit in the meeting while thinking about all the things that need to get done at home: the electric and cable bills are due (mental note: pay those online tonight), the lawn needs to be mowed, the house needs to be painted, and you still need to pre-order and pick-up a pot roast by Thursday because your parents are coming to town this weekend.

You leave the meeting with 3 missed phone calls: your dry cleaner has called to let you know your items are ready for pick up, a friend has called to remind you about Friday night cocktails at Joe’s Bar and Grill, and your mother has called to remind you that, yes, she and your dad will be there Saturday for dinner and should she bring anything?

You decide to work through lunch to finish what seems to be a never-ending project, but require a couple more cups of coffee because, by this time, you have crashed for the second time!

Your workday finally comes to an end, and you leave the office by 5 pm.  You’re exhausted, but you know that you need to get some exercise, so now it’s time to hit the gym!

You do your usual 30 minutes on the treadmill while reading an article in Shape magazine about how Kelly Osbourne lost 50 pounds and keeps it off! Wow!  She only works out three days per week!  I can do that, you tell yourself.  Despite your efforts walking on the treadmill at the gym five days per week, you haven’t seen any changes in your body, so you decide to mix things up with some resistance training and give the workout in the magazine a try.  I mean, if Kelly can do it, you can do it too!

After your hour-long workout you are eager to get home, but first, you have to go to the grocery store to pick up dinner and get gas because now your car is on empty.

As you sit in the tail end of rush hour traffic the gaslight comes on.  You’re praying that you make it to the station on the fumes you have left.

By the time you get home, it’s just after 7pm.  You’re cooking dinner (well, you’re waiting for the frozen pizza to cook) while simultaneously finishing a work-related project for the following day.

When the buzzer on the oven sounds you load your plate with three slices of pizza—you’re ravenous!  After all, you’ve only had 2 donuts and 5 cups of coffee all day!

You plow through dinner while continuing your project. While you're munching through your third piece of pizza your stomach starts to turn and indigestion sets in and you’re really gassy.  Ughh!  You don’t feel good!

After dinner you have to clean up the kitchen a bit and finish your project.  You only have about an hour’s worth of work, or so you estimate.

WRONG!.  You end up sitting in front of your computer for three hours wrapping up your project.  By the time you finish it’s almost 11pm.

You decide after a long, hard day you deserve some down time, and to relax, you have a glass of red wine while watching the evening news.  You learn that a young child as been murdered by his own mother, there is a rapist on the loose in a neighboring town and Osama Bin Laden has been assassinated.  Nice happy thoughts before bed!

By 11:30pm you get ready for bed and before you know it it’s midnight!  You get into bed and watch some more TV.  Re-runs of the Golden Girls are on, YES!

You fall asleep around 1am, only to wake up 2 hours later to go to the bathroom.  You hop back into bed, but you can’t fall asleep because you have tomorrow’s “to do list” running through your head.  And oh yeah, you forgot to pick up your dry cleaning and pay the electric and cable bills tonight!  Shoot!

You toss and turn for another 30 minutes, and finally fall asleep by 3:30 am.

Before you know it, it’s 6 am and the alarm clock is clamoring once again!  It’s time to start another day, and it’s ONLY Tuesday!

Does this scenario sound at all familiar?

Maybe you’re thinking this is a walk in the park compared to your schedule because you have children, a spouse and pets to think about too!

The reality is, we all experience stress.  It’s unavoidable.  And believe it or not, our bodies are meant to deal with some degree of stress.  It’s when we experience stress overload that our bodies become imbalanced and we gain weight and develop health problems.

The key to achieving amazing health and a fit bod (including a flat tummy!) is learning how to effectively reduce your stressors to balance your body.  And it’s a lot simpler than you might think!

The Different Forms of Stress

Before you think about how to reduce your stress, you need to first understand really what stress really is.

The scenario described above hits some of the major stressors we face every day.  And those stressors come in four different forms, most of which you can control.

1.  Mental Stress

• Worrying about what you need to get done
• Focusing on what you don’t like about your life
• Rushing all the time
• Taking on more than you can handle
• Working too much
• Holding on to feelings of anger or resentment
• Thinking negatively about yourself
• Being verbally or mentally abused
• Setting unrealistic goals

The list goes on.  I’m sure you can add to that list, but you get the idea! 

2. Physical Stress

• Exercising too much or not enough
• Doing the WRONG kinds of exercises for your body (I used to see this a lot when I worked at a gym as a personal trainer)
• Not getting enough rest (note: your body doesn’t respond well to exercise when it’s fatigued)
• Falling or receiving a blow to your head

3.  Dietary Stress

• Eating a lot of processed foods
• Drinking soda, coffee, alcohol and juice (pretty much anything but water and organic, caffeine-free tea)
• Consuming too much or not enough for your body’s nutritional needs
• Eating foods in the wrong proportions for your body type
• Not drinking enough water

4.  Environmental Stress

There’s all kinds of environmental stressors we’re bombarded with every day!  They generally fall into two categories: chemical and electromagnetic.

Chemical Stress

• Pharmaceuticals
• Agricultural chemicals like pesticides, fungicides and fertilizers
• Toxic household and personal hygiene products
• Mercury fillings
• Cigarette smoke
• Industrial supplies like paint and glue  

The list is endless! 

Electromagnetic Stress

• Computers
• Cell phones
• TVs
• Microwaves
• X-Ray machines

They’re everywhere!

How Stress Impacts Your Body

As I said before, our bodies are meant to deal with a small degree of stress in emergency situations—we’re literally designed to do so!

If someone cuts in front of you on your way to work, your body needs to be able to respond quickly so you can prevent an accident.  The system that activates is called your “Fight or Flight Response” or Sympathetic Nervous System.

The problem is, most people live their lives like everything is one big emergency and their Fight or Flight response stays on all day!

Here’s what happens when you’re in a constant state of Fight or Flight:

So what is the solution to managing your stress better?  Stay tuned for Part 2 next week to find out!

Your friend and coach,

Melissa