Is Stress Causing Your Weight Issues?
posted on: September 30, 2020. posted in: Weight loss, Mindfulness
"Hey, I have a question and I don’t think there’s an answer really but interested in your take. If stressors and emotional baggage are major factors in weight issues then what happens when they can’t be handled?"
Hello and welcome to Rebelfit 
The short answer?
They absolutely can be handled, and how you handle them is going to be covered in great detail on our next mission »
The long answer?
We live a country with a very strong "diet culture" that tells us...
"If you are gaining weight, then you need to eat less, exercise more, and if you can't do that then you're greedy and lazy."
This has been the status quo for a very long time, and let's face it, it hasn't done much to reverse the obesity epidemic, has it? In fact, The World Health Organisation produced a game changing report two years ago that proved that fat shaming and diet culture actually STRESSES PEOPLE OUT and CAUSES OBESITY and ill health, not solves it.
So lesson number one?
Weight gain is a STRESS issue, not a FOOD issue.
So think...
"What's eating me?"
Not...
"What am I eating?"
And by "eating you" I mean creating stress that "eats away at you".
As always with Rebelfit, this is backed up by science. There is a wealth of research to prove that weight gain and obesity is nothing to do with the foods you eat and everything to do with how STRESSED you are.
For example, this study found that...
"Chronic social stress, often arising from poor interpersonal relationships, job or unemployment stress, poor self-esteem, and low socioeconomic status has been associated with obesity and its associated illnesses... Stress can also enhance weight gain and fat deposition through changes in feeding behavior. Chronic stress is known to alter the pattern of food intake, dietary preference, and the rewarding properties of foods."
In short? Stress drives overeating. Overeating drives weight gain. Therefore stress drives weight gain. Not greed. Not laziness. STRESS.
If that sounds confusing, here's one of my more polite analogies...
Stress is to weight, what heat is to hot air balloons. Just as the more heat you pump into a hot air balloon, the higher that balloon goes, the more stress you pump into your life, the higher your weight goes.
The name for this phenomenon is "set point weight". Stress raises your set point weight, driving you to binge more and exercise less, not because you are greedy or lazy, but because weight gain is a defence mechanism against stress.
In ancient times stress would have been a trigger, an "environmental cue" for our bodies to start laying down fat and gaining weight. But now, in the modern world, we experience a level of OVER-STRESS that is putting that into overdrive.
Think about it.
We have work stress, relationship stress, financial stress... we have stress caused by counting calories, points or syns... we have stress when we skip a workout... stress when we look in the mirror... stress when we turn on the TV... stress comparing ourselves to airbrushed models on Instagram... stress feeling like we can't keep up with the Joneses... stress driven by parenting... stress driven by the pandemic... stress driven by the government... stress driven by pretty much every element of our modern lives...
And there's our ancient brains thinking...
"Stress? Oh right! That's the cue for me to start binging, resting and laying down extra bodyfat! To prevent us from starving to death!"
So in our super-stressful modern lives, is it any wonder we have an obesity epidemic? And by repeatedly trying and failing diets, which is STRESSFUL, is it any wonder millions of people struggle to lose weight consistently? The very thing they're trying to lose weight with is STRESSING THEM OUT and actually driving their weight gain!
The solution is the answer to your question, and exactly what we teach people on our missions. STRESS OFFLOAD. Which is a skill that can be learned, practiced, developed, improved and mastered, in a way that...
a) reduces your overall stress, and therefore
b) reduces your set point weight, which then
c) enables sustainable weight reduction.
How does it work?
If you were in a hot air balloon that was rising uncontrollably, what would you do? You'd...
a) Stop putting heat in, and
b) Start letting heat out
Causing your balloon to drop naturally.
Stress offload works exactly the same. It's about practicing acceptance, mindfulness, being present and other mental skills, each of which allows you to turn down the heat and let some of that heat out, causing your weigh to drop naturally.
Our missions erase "eat less, exercise more" (a hugely stressful / weight gaining approach) and replace it with "stress less, accept more" (a hugely calming / weight reducing approach).
The good news?
It doesn't matter how much emotional baggage you have, how many sources of stress you have, or how out of control you feel about your weight right now...
Anyone and everyone is capable of learning Stress Offload and learning how to bring their set point weight down. But it starts by recognising that dieting is the biggest source of heat in your life, and you need to reject diets and diet culture if you want to bring your weight down.
Liam
p.s. And for those who want to learn about it, join us on Rebel Weigh™, launching this October! Book Now! »
