Stress Solution, Part 1

Hello!

As you may have experienced, stress makes it harder to lose weight–not only because it can affect your appetite and will-power, but also because it can raise your blood sugar. How? Adrenaline.

Adrenaline helps prepare your body for the Fight-or-Flight Response (i.e., exercise), which includes raising your blood sugar. High blood sugar is great if you need to outrun a predator, but bad if you want your fat cells to open up and let out some energy to burn. You body doesn’t know whether your stress comes from your job or a hungry tiger chasing you, so it errs on the side of survival.

What can you do about it?

1. Exercise more when you are stressed: Give your body the physical activity it prepared for. You’ll be surprised how energized you are, with the help of your adrenaline.

2. Eat less carbohydrate. When your adrenaline is already raising your blood sugar, you can compensate by eating foods that don’t raise your blood sugar as much, like proteins, veggies and a little healthy fat, like nuts or olive oil. You don’t need to eat carbs when your blood sugar is already high from adrenaline.

Hope you don’t need this week’s tip. 🙂 All my best,

Jill