New Year's 2011: Resolution to Be Less Stressed and Lose Weight

Lucky Little Travelers, www.luckylittletravelers.com , is a new website dedicated to family travel.  Please check our website for family friendly destinations, travel tips, and packing for children.  We are currently building, so if you don’t find what you are looking for, please check back with us.  Reduce your stress and take a vacation with your family.  Fewer people travel in the month of January making it less expensive to fly.  Site-seeing attractions are, also, less crowded, thereby less hectic.

Stress and Weight Gain

There is a relationship between stress and gaining weight.  Weight gain is an indication of stress, especially if we have not changed our diet.  Emotional eating, cortisol and lack of exercise are contributing factors.   While some stress can be a good thing, it can motivate, stimulate, and actually push us to get a task completed; too much stress can cause the body harm.  Recognizing stress is important, because then the cause can be identified and dealt with.  There are techniques that can be adopted to increase energy and lose weight.

Make a mental note that the feeling of being overwhelmed or exhausted at the end of each day is stress that you are feeling.   It is important to recognize the effect of stress.   To decrease and combat stress:

1.        Incorporate a walk someplace in the day.  If there isn’t time for a walk some kind of stress reduction technique such as meditation.

2.       Cutback on Caffeine.  Realize that the caffeine, from to many cups of coffee or soft drinks, is not an energy substitute.

3.       Stop eating fast foods, most have almost no nutritional value, and your body knows when it needs nutrients.  Sweet and salty cravings are a signal of stress.  Prepare for this by having  good healthy snacks around

4.       Stop skipping meals with the excuse of being too busy to eat.  It will only produce more stress and exhaustion. 

5.       Make sure to get enough sleep.  Sleep deprivation can produce exhaustion

6.       If you find yourself eating when you are not hungry, make an effort to wait 15-20 minutes to give yourself a chance to sort out the emotional difference between true hunger and stress related emotional eating.

Most of all make add to your New Year’s Resolution:  Be Kinder to Yourself and Others.   We might find that if we give ourselves a break and admit that we are only human and can only accomplish so much in a given day we will decrease the stress that we put on ourselves.