Reverse Stress Eating With These Tricks That Helped One Woman Lose 155 Pounds
Traffic, telemarketers, family spats, politics, tax audits, health woes… If life’s big and little stresses send you running for chips, fast food and sweets, you have that in common with Lisa Dove . “Between three kids and a demanding job, some days, I want a million Oreos,” laughs the Illinois purchasing supervisor, 50. “For a long time, when my stress went up, my weight did too.” It’s a phenomenon millions experience—and poor willpower isn’t to blame. There’s evidence that stress hormones increase blood sugar, trigger cravings for junk and even slow metabolism, per Ohio State University stress researcher Jan Kiecolt-Glaser, Ph.D. The good news: While we can’t eliminate stress, easy strategies can dramatically reduce its impact on our waistline. They worked so well for Lisa, she dropped 140 pounds in a year! Keep reading to learn soothing tricks to get slim.
Modern stress is extra fattening
Stress isn’t all bad. It actually primes us to escape danger. For example, it raises blood sugar so we have easy-to-access fuel. “In caveman days, you saw a saber-toothed tiger and burned sugar as you ran away,” explains Daryl Gioffre, D.C., author of Get Off Your Sugar: From Stress Eating to Strength Eating. Running also rids us of stress hormones, allowing us to relax once we’re safe. But what if a tiger stalks us for days? Ongoing stress stimulates hunger to make more blood sugar, and metabolism slows to conserve energy. Once the crisis passes, calm returns. At least that’s how it used to work…
Modern stress is extra fattening
Today, we face few tigers but lots of unrelenting mental pressure. “People can be in a stress state 100% of the time,” notes Gioffre. Blood sugar, cravings and stress hormones are often chronically elevated; this causes inflammation and a host of issues inside us that cause fatigue, diabetes and countless other health problems. Plus, unburned blood sugar is stored as fat—so we gain weight and feel lousy, which adds more stress. For Lisa’s part, she ended up a 297-pound diabetic who was always tired and secretly miserable.
What changed? The family’s puppy died. “It was during the pandemic, and we were all home. So I left the kids with my husband and started taking walks just to cry,” she recalls. “I couldn’t go very fast.” Yet her pace was life-changing.
Why movement is magic
Whether running from a tiger or walking gently, our muscles burn blood sugar as fuel, notes Food Junkies author Vera Tarman, M.D. , who has shed 100 pounds herself. Burning blood sugar lowers insulin, a hormone that stores fat and blocks fat burn. Dr. Tarman adds that exercise also lowers stress hormones and releases feel-good endorphins. So it’s no wonder multiple studies show exercise automatically cuts consumption of comfort foods like salty snacks and chocolate.
After a couple of months, Lisa joined Life Time Fitness gym and began taking fun dance classes. Fun is key. “Overexercise increases stress,” cautions Dr. Tarman. “Do what your body enjoys.”
More ‘stress fat’ busters
Experts also love these other great strategies Lisa relied on:
Talk it out
As walks lifted Lisa’s spirits, she felt inspired to confide in a therapist. “He taught me to pay attention to my body. I saw how connected it all is,” she shares. “Walks made me feel good; eating pounds of gummy bears didn’t.” She quit eating candy “like a zombie” and was happier with less.
An easy way to experience the effect yourself: One study found short “mindful-eating” meditations on a free app like Insight Timer significantly reduce emotional eating in 11 weeks.
Eat for comfort
Lisa knew she needed to shrink her portions but vowed to avoid unsustainable fad diets. “I decided to follow Weight Watchers loosely,” she says. “Their point system let me eat the same dinner as my family, so I didn’t have to cook twice or eat weird foods.” For simplicity, Lisa leaned on a list of “zero point” foods she didn’t have to measure—including produce, yogurt, seafood and poultry.
“Processed foods inflame and stress our bodies from the inside out,” notes Dr. Tarman. By -contrast, whole foods contain nutrients like antioxidants, probiotics and omega-3s, “that lower inflammation and reduce levels of stress hormones.” They’re true comfort foods!
Adds Lisa, “I didn’t give anything up completely because that always backfires.” See box, below left, for more about her liberating cheat meal approach.
Snuggle in bed
Lisa is working with her doctor to improve the quality of her Zzzs—a very smart move. For weight loss and stress management, hitting the hay is about as effective as exercise. According to University of Chicago research, if you snooze 7.5 to 8.5 hours per night, you’ll cut secretion of stress hormones by half while tripling fat burn. And it feels like a dream!
Real-world wow: From a size 26 to a 4!
??When Lisa first began changing her life, “I didn’t step on the scale a lot, but I felt great and I could tell weight was coming off pretty fast,” she says. After eight months, her progress slowed—yet after a year, she’d lost about 140 pounds.
She went to her endocrinologist to check in. “I was a full-blown diabetic for over 10 years and I was on four different medications. Slowly, we began eliminating them.” As her weight continued to drop—she shed 155 pounds in about 18 months—“I got off all the diabetes meds. I reversed the diabetes!” All her little steps to relieve stress brought her blood pressure way down too.=
“I’m not perfect by any means. But I think that’s the secret,” Lisa says. “Trying to be perfect stresses us out and sets us up to fail. Forget about being perfect, forget about giving up sugar or workouts you know you can’t handle. Focus on what you can do. Progress not perfection. Little things add up quickly. You’ll really impress yourself!”
For more from Dr. Tarman, join her free Facebook group ‘Sugar-Free for Life Support Group: I’m Sweet Enough’
Food + drink options that naturally lower stress
To try Lisa’s approach, you can loosely follow the program at WeightWatchers.com—or just use a free tracking app like LoseIt! or My Fitness Pal to set daily goals and keep portions on track. To reduce the urge to stress eat, limit sugar and processed foods (which can inflame and stress our systems) and consider incorporating any or all of the following options, which are -scientifically proven to be soothing.
Yogurt with fruit
Antioxidants in fruit and probiotics in yogurt are both proven to naturally lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol.
Hot or iced green tea
Green tea also has antioxidants that bring down stress hormones, plus it contains a highly calming compound known as L-theanine.
Simple salmon
Omega-3 fats in salmon reduce cortisol by speed-soothing inflammation, the body’s #1 hidden stressor.
A soothing treat!
Dark chocolate and popcorn boast polyphenol antioxidants that slash stress hormones.
Ingredients
10 cups popped popcorn
? cup dark chocolate chips (sugar-free, if desired)
1 tsp. coconut oil
Flaky sea salt, optional
Instructions
Spread popcorn on baking sheets.
Microwave chocolate and oil on high 15 seconds; stir. Repeat until melted.
Drizzle over popcorn. Add salt, if desired.
Cool 30 minutes.
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This content is not a substitute for professional medical advice or diagnosis. Always consult your physician before pursuing any treatment plan.
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