October 12, 2022 / by Suzanne Ingleton / Weight Loss
Give yourself the gift of time
"Treat every moment as a gift, that is why it is called the present" - Deepak Chopra
A common thread that comes up when Im working with women is that they are invariably overwhelmed and in a daily battle to keep up with all the things they have given themselves to do, rarely getting through their never ending to do list, and feeling out of control, just surviving instead of thriving.
Does this sound familiar?
Well, did you know there is a name for this – It’s called Rushing Women’s Syndrome and it was coined by a Nutritional Biochemist by the name of Dr. Libby Weaver, and her book is a must read!
Our approach to helping women to lose weight is a very unique and wholistic one where we seek to get to the root cause of exactly WHAT is driving unhelpful behaviours around food, negative emotions and body image.
There are 3 areas that I’ve identified as being crucial to overcoming if my client’s main focus is to lose weight, and I want to highlight the effects on our body and mind of simply being Tired and Wired. This is in addition to the impact of being a Rushing Woman when it comes to our overall health, but in particular when it comes to losing or managing weight, and not giving yourself enough time to help your body and mind heal.
And these points are just a few pieces of the weight loss puzzle, however, the antidotes to these 3 main weight loss blockers will help you to get to where you want to go and to achieve results.
1. Stress
2. Rushing
3. Time
1. How STRESS affects your body
Stress comes in many forms, and sometimes we are not really even aware of it, other than constant worries in our minds. It could be:
Any of these stress levels in your life can alter your perception of time so it appears it is ticking by faster – thereby adding to the feeling that you have to do everything at warp speed!
When our mind and body are in a constant state of stress – either known or unknown to us at a conscious level, our biochemistry - will enact the survival response, telling the body to hold weight, store fat and not build muscle.
This is what’s known as the fight or flight response. It happens automatically without our awareness and can be very subtle, and very debilitating in the longer term.
Within moments our heart rate increased, our blood becomes sticky, oxygen and blood flow are diverted to the arms & legs for fighting or fleeing, and our digestive systems slows down and shuts down, cortisol and insulin are released into the blood stream.
What’s important to know if you are trying to lose weight and build muscle, is that if you are under constant perceived or unperceived stress….your body is creating fat, holding onto weight and stopping muscle growth!
All the things you don’t want when your goal is to lose weight and build muscle!
What’s the Antidote?
Relaxation! How do we do that quickly? By taking in a couple of long slow deep and gentle breaths.
There is a technique that is used by the Navy Seals in the Military to stay calm in stressful situations called Box breathing.
This is how it works – inhale for 4 secs, hold for 4 secs, exhale for 4 secs, hold for 4 secs & repeat until you have some clarity.
2. How RUSHING affects digestion
Are you a fast eater?
Did you know that fast eating creates the stress response in your body! This may feel like food won’t go down, or indigestion, food is just sitting in your gut like a brick, you feel gassy or bloated or you find yourself looking for more food even after you KNOW you’ve had a big meal!
There is a piece of the weight loss puzzle that many people don’t know about and it’s called the Cephalic Brain response – or the Head phase of Digestion.
So now we know what happens to our digestive system in our gut when we are stressed – it slows down and shuts down.
There is another part of digestion that is run by the head or the brain that tells us if we have had enough to eat.
Our brain needs to determine whether or not we have had a meal – and if it can’t – then it will signal “Hungry” to the body, and send you off looking for more food – which is part of the survival response – because we need to eat to survive.
This leads to eating more than you need and likely feeling overfull and uncomfortable within 30mins – but STILL wanting to eat!
What’s the antidote?
Slow down your eating. Be present with your meal and notice all the yummy things about it – how it looks, how much love went into the preparation, how it tastes, all the different textures in your mouth and how it all makes you feel! Eat at the pace of the slowest person in your home (if there is one)
Here is a technique to help you.
It’s called Breath Eat Repeat.
By slowing down your speed of eating, you will eat less food because you will be able to listen to your body and work out when you are full.
The end result will be that your brain knows that you have had a meal, you’ve eaten enough and your gut is happy to process the food – rather than stalling it.
3. Give yourself the gift of TIME
Do you have a To-Do List? What would you say your relationship with your To Do List is?
We all have 24 hours to get on top of our To-Do lists, and no sooner does something drop off…..another one or three appears!
Life gets challenging when you’ve over-promised & over extended yourself by constantly adding to your to do list, which can send you into a state of overwhelm.
So why are they so long, and why do we feel compelled to have the biggest and the longest one?
Because we are conditioned by outside influences from birth - & some say before birth – from parents, care givers, books, magazines, TV, FB, Insta, Linkedin, colleagues, friends & mentors. We have the influences of social media all around us, telling us that despite the busyness, it's revered & expected to be seen to be “doing it all” AND achieving miraculous things.
Of course, all this busyness and overwhelm is just putting us back into the stress response – where we are most likely to be living in an elevated stressed state without consciously realising it…..largely because we are brought up to be resilient, and just get on with it.
What’s the Antidote?
There will be any number of things you can do that suit your situation, but here are my 3 top tips.
Want to know more?
Come along to our special event @Speedfit North Adelaide where I will be talking about these 3 topics and listen to Munira talk about how EMS technology can speed up your results along with the power of slow to build muscle!
Book in via the link below...
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If you'd like to find out more about how I can help to transform the way you eat, think and live, book in your FREE 30 min chat and let's get you started on being the happiest, healthiest version of YOU!
I'm a fully qualified Eating Psychology Coach, Hypnotherapist, Time Line Therapist©, NLP Master Practitioner and a writer who has been featured in publications like Thrive Global and the Institute for the Psychology of Eating.
We will work closely together to determine the deep structure of your food or weight issue.
Losing weight is not about calorie restrictions, and in fact, we don’t even count calories or put you on a diet!
My team and I are here to act as your mentor, guide and coach and we will give you all the tools you'll need to reach your goal safely and successfully!
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