How Stress Effects Your Weight

Choose alternative coping methods to deal with stress for better weight loss results.

Stress is hard on your body, but it can be devastating when your goal is to lose weight. Though we can't completely cut stress out of our lives, we can learn how to handle it differently to get a different result.

When you choose to eat over stressful situations, you are choosing the consequence of not losing weight. Your metabolism will slow down to a crawl and any other efforts you are making will be in vain. You'll also add more calories than you think, even in a short period of time.

Try tracking your calories for a week and see how many calories you really are consuming due to stress eating. You may be surprised how fast a bag of chips, some pretzels, a handful of peanuts and a dish of ice cream add up to. But it is so easy to consume all of that just standing at the pantry trying to push down the stressful feelings.

A good free online program is www.sparkpeople.com. This site allows you to track calories, exercise, water intake and more while setting up personal weight loss goals that are completely doable.

To get a different result, you have to choose a new reaction to the stress. Pick up a new hobby, keep your hands busy with a craft, chew sugar-free gum to keep your mouth busy, talk a brisk walk to clear your head, make new friends or read a book. Whatever you choose to do should be fun and effortless and take your mind off of both the stress and the food.