Health and Fitness With Sungano Shingirirai Venge: Stress can contribute to weight gain

I am talking about fat found in your veggies, nuts, oily fish, avocadoes and many more.  These are good fats and they won’t make you fat.  These should be part of your meal every day because they encourage your body to burn fat around your middle section, thereby reducing the chances of having a big tummy.  These fats also help your body to effectively absorb essential vitamins and minerals.  This will improve your body’s ability to concentrate, avoiding any afternoon energy dip, the feeling of sluggishness, lethargy and fatigue.

I have spoken so much about food but I cannot stop now because I can not still separate the idea of getting a fit and healthy body, without considering a well eating habit.  Well, before I get into details about this matter, I would just want to thank and at the same time answer a question which was brought forward by one of my dear article readers in Gwanda.  The question was “how does a cardio exercise such as skipping help you to effectively lose the tummy?” 
As I mentioned at the end of the last article, you cannot separate these two — losing weight and losing your tummy.  The idea of exercising is to increase your metabolism and therefore burn more fat or calories.  The more fat you burn, the more your body will reduce its size.  Because your body is one complete structure, ie your arms, legs, shoulders, back and your tummy.  If you start losing weight or fat on any part of the body, you will lose everywhere including your tummy.

I had mentioned skipping and jogging as this can be performed anywhere, any time, wherever you are in the world, without the need of any complicated gym equipment.  I can prove this to you guys.  Look at boxers everywhere in the world, they use skipping as their tool, to control and maintain their body weight and improve their fitness.  No boxer’s workout will be complete without a jog or skip.  Sit-ups are meant to strengthen not necessarily to lose your tummy.  What you need is to lose the weight so that you lose your tummy.  I hope this will make sense to you. 
Back to our subject, when you are stressed, or when our bodies get stressed, they react differently.  Some will lose weight, but many will gain weight because of various reasons, and this increases the chances of getting high blood pressure, heart failure and strokes.  Most people either don’t eat at all or they eat too much, or drink without boundaries when they are stressed.

Most of us have been stressed at some point and time in life.  Because of various reasons, like family matters, work related issues, partners, children — no matter how much we solve them — they are usually a cause for concern.  In this modern day life, it’s pretty hard to escape stress. There’s also the issue of money worries, traffic blues and living with people who don’t appreciate and are not honest. The list is endless.

But I am not going to talk much about these kind of stresses.  What I can talk about for now is the bad eating habits that stress our bodies.  The food we eat and the way we eat it has got a huge impact on our stress levels on our bodies. 
According to some studies, the stress hormone cortisol, which our bodies release when anxious, causes our bodies to dump fatty deposits all over our bodies and more on our tummies and waist.  So some foods will calm down our bodies and help to lower the level of cortisol and reduce the amount of fat deposited around our tummies.

However, some foods will do the opposite and cause our bodies to be more stressed.  I will list some of these as we go by, because today I just want to focus more on the body eating habits which stress our bodies and result in us gaining weight or fat.

(1)    On and off dieting
Popularly known as the yo-yo diet, continuous swinging between starving yourself and eating a lot of food wreaks havoc with your blood sugar levels and digestive system.  When you load your body with food after hours of starvation, your body won’t burn it effectively because your metabolism will have been affected by many hours of no food.  So when your metabolism slows down you will automatically gain weight.  So just don’t rush to lose weight, take it easy, maintain a healthy eating plan, the weight will eventually fall off and you will be able to maintain it.

(2)     Long periods without food
This normally affects a lot of business people.  They never think of food when they are chasing business deals.  By the time they think of food, they will have skipped three or more meals.  When your body is starved it stops burning the food because your tummy has got almost nothing.  But when you finally take food, you are more likely to eat the wrong food, because when you are too hungry you always crave for fat and sweet foods, which provide the body with instant energy.  But it is very obvious that you will put on fat when you crave fizzs and doughnuts.

(3)     Skipping your first meal
Breakfast is very vital. It kick-starts your day.  Skipping will stress your body.  Take something small, but should provide the body with quality carbs.  If the worst happens, take a fruit or nuts.  And breakfast should be taken within one hour of waking up.

(4)     Eating too fast
Digestion starts in your mouth.  If the first stage of digestion is not done properly, it will affect the other digestion stages and stress your stomach.  Improperly digested food will cause the creation of gases and bloatness, causing your tummy to look big.  Don’t eat when you are rushed and anxious.

(5)     Not drinking enough fluids
Dehydration is very much stressful to your body.  Keep hydrated by taking 2-3 litres of water a day.  A drop of lemon in your water will add flavour and make your water cleaner.  Remember, seventy percent of our body is water.  And pure water has got no calories and it will never make you fat.

(6)     Eating too much refined foods
Fibre improves your digestion process. It also cleans your system as it runs down your intestines when passing out.  So too much refined foods will stress your tummy and result in inflammation of the gut, thereby increasing the size of your tummy.

I hope you got some sense on how a stressed body can easily gain weight.  Remember it’s never too late to start.  Age is just but a number.  A journey of a thousand miles starts with one step.  And the step can only be done by you. Don’t be afraid of criticism, because to avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing and be nothing.
God bless. 
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