www.MindYourOwnWellness.com – Free flow of holiday treats at work or at your friends’ parties – chocolate, cheesecake, soda, pop, chips and dips, deep fried foods – Yummm!!! The more you eat, the more you will gain – Yes, the gain is not money in your pocket; but weight around your waist and butt. How do I know? – Been there, done that for years! See Alex’s before and after pictures – http
Posts Tagged ‘Diet’
Holidays’ Diet Tips! Free Food Everywhere…
Thursday, September 2nd, 2010Stress Relief – Choose A Good Diet To Manage It
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010Good food habits can bring about significant stress relief. Most of your stress is often attributable to taking wrong foods. Stress relief and food habits form a vicious circle-the more bad foods you take, the more you get stressed up. When gulping down your burger or your pizza or sipping your cup of hot coffee, did you ever realize that you are yourself contributing to your own strain? Read on to know more.
The Stress Builders
Stress relief is mostly hampered by our foods we like most. Check out:
When taking this foodstuff, satisfaction and stress relief was uppermost in your mind. What you got instead was more stress. Coffee, tea, sodas, chocolates contain caffeine which triggers release of cortisol, the stress hormone. This sets in more anxiety and lowers your concentration levels and disturbs your sleep. Total caffeine restriction may lead to withdrawal symptoms, so gradual reduction of caffeine containing foods can better your stress management. Give it a start.
You crave for more sugar when worked out. A hasty intake of sugar calls for hectic insulin activity. The effect is short lived. You get irritated and depressed at times. There is no effective stress relief. On the contrary, excessive insulin activity eventually lowers insulin levels resulting in diabetic conditions. Sugar to drive away your stress is an absolute no-no.
If sugar is bad, salt is no good either. Salts raise blood pressure and high blood pressures may lead to strokes. Excess salt intake makes you all the more emotional. Fat and salt are the worst offenders in building stress. Fatty foods make you obese. You lose your agility and feel let down. This can affect your cardiovascular systems. For getting true relief from stress, stay miles away from salty and fatty foods.
The Stress Busters
Stress relief can be best achieved through intake of good and healthy food. Try carbohydrates, whole grains, plenty of vegetables and fruits. Studies have shown that these foods boost release of brain neurotransmitter serotonin. Dubbed as the ‘happy hormone’, it makes you cheerful and lively. Your anxieties and worries are set to rest. The saying goes that a cup of rice or spaghetti or a baked potato can cool you down after a tiresome day. Get the best in stress relief with these good foods.
Let the good foods knock out the bad ones from your life and help you to get real stress relief.
Summary
For effective stress relief, you should phase out foods and beverages containing excessive sugar, salt, fats and caffeine and go for more carbohydrates, grains, vegetables and fruits. The later varieties induce release of ‘happy hormones’ that help you to control stress and live cheerfully.
Dieting Your Way to Stress Relief – The Right Diet Can Make All The Difference
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010Stress is now an inseparable part of your life. It is everywhere – in the workplace, in the home front, in social circles, everywhere. Getting stress relief is uppermost in everybody’s mind. While you try out several techniques, you often fail to appreciate the importance of food in effective stress relief.
Stress Relief-Misplaced Concepts
Ironically, foods that you like most impair your stress relief systems. Stressed conditions are associated with some reduced levels of feeling-you feel irritated, anxious, depressed, demoralized and exhausted when stressed. Most often they indicate low blood sugar levels. What you think you need to boost up your morale in these situations are some livening foods-chocolate, alcoholic beverages, carbonated drinks, coffee, fatty foods etc. But, actually, with taking of these foods, you set in a damage process within yourself that offsets real stress relief. The extra charge of sugar or caffeine induced stress hormone, cortisol or increased levels of adrenaline with gulping down a peg or two of whiskey may hike your spirits for the time. But, these are short lived. You once again revert to the reduced levels of feeling. This time you feel more let down. Instead of getting relief from your stress, you end up adding more stress.
True stress relief is seldom obtained through ‘charging’ foods. Instead, you get more harm. Read on:
If you are thinking in terms of real relief from your stress, then, shun all these foods.
Go in for foods that encourage stability and do not cause rampant fluctuations in blood sugar, adrenaline and cortisol levels to derail your relief initiatives.
Stress Relief-Make a new Beginning
Start with a wholesome breakfast. Take it regularly. Eat plenty of carbohydrates like brown rice, buckwheat pasta and brown bread. Try whole grain cereals, fruits and vegetables. Your blood sugar levels would remain normal. Add fiber content to your diet. They help in digestion and bowel movement. Go for fish and chicken instead of red meat.
And see the beginning of a new life with stress relief.
Summary
Stress is everywhere in life. Overcoming it is the key to happiness. Right diet helps in stress relief. They make our systems more stable. Foods that give a temporary high should be avoided as they harm us more.
The Stress Buster Diet That Helps You Manage Stress
Monday, February 1st, 2010In today’s uncertain world, many of us can benefit by learning techniques to help manage stress. Many are aware of the need to control stress levels for a good reason. Stress is linked not only to depression, but to other life-threatening diseases including cancer, heart disease and lung disease.
Harmful internal toxins are created during times of high stress. When overly excited, angry or afraid, your body releases chemicals throughout. Ever felt butterflies in your stomach every time you think of a certain person or circumstance? This is the release of harmful internal toxins.
As these extreme emotions happen to many of us on a daily basis, these chemicals are released daily as well. They will build up over time. Now you have the daily emotional issues and the built up internal toxins that add to and hold in fear and stress.
Added to these toxins are the chemicals in processed and junk foods. The wrong foods can create a vicious cycle; as you stress you create internal toxins, then add external toxins from foods so you feel worse, so you stress and create more internal toxins, and the cycle continues. Our health and wellbeing is in jeopardy and managing stress becomes even more important than ever.
One of the easiest and most cost effective ways to start managing stress levels is by watching the foods you eat. Have you ever eaten foods that make you feel tired, fatigued or even cranky afterward? Perhaps you have noticed that when you eat lighter foods, you are more alert and have more energy.
Unfortunately, many of us eat the wrong things (like “comfort foods”) or don’t eat at all when we are nervous, upset, anxious, or depressed. This normally leads to a cycle of further depression and feeling out of control.
Since stress is both emotional and physical, it is during these times that we should take special care of our ourselves. Start taking care of your self and start stress management by making some changes in your diet. It is more important than you might think. Here’s why…
Foods that you eat can help or hurt your wellbeing, both mentally and physically. For example, caffeine and sodium can raise your blood pressure, while sugar can cause “the blues.” Many processed and junk foods contain these substances in high amounts, which can alter our feelings and, in turn, make life seem harder to deal with therefore more stressful.
At the same time, the wrong foods may cause your body to create excess insulin and higher cortisone levels, which are associated with depression. These can be created by over-eating or eating excess white flour, excess white sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, caffeine, aspartame, monosodium glutamate, and so on.
Many processed and packaged foods contain these in excess amounts. Because of this, it is best to avoid these during stressful times. They can make you feel more hopeless without the energy to change your situation.
On the bright side – there are physical aspects of stress that you can easily control. Consider this – the nutrients in the food you eat can help your body produce dopamine and serotonin for your brain, which are instrumental for feelings of well being and relaxation. These nutrients are found in whole, unprocessed foods such as whole grains, fresh fruits and fresh veggies. Some of the best food examples are tomatoes, bananas and brown rice.
Essential nutrients that are needed for healthy brain function can also be found in EFA supplements (essential fatty acids), green superfoods and balanced proteins such as sprouts and nuts. Each of these provides the nutrients necessary for your body to function properly, which helps to stop the stress toxins from building up and keeping you down.
Start your cycle of stress relief and manage your stress starting today. You don’t need a prescription, just a new grocery list. Treat yourself to a healthy diet so you stay healthy, happy and get stress relief during these modern times.
