It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.

Stress can kill you, but in an older women stress is far more likely to drive her to comfort eating and hence pile on the pounds.  For most women less stress, or better stress management, is the key to sustainable weight loss.  Of course, for older women the menopause doesn’t help with controlling your weight at all.  There is evidence that there are changes in the brain chemistry of a menopausal woman that triggers a shift in her metabolism, causing her to overeat.

Looking for comfort food; cakes, chocolate, pizza, bread, burritos, donuts, (or drinking too much), is a common occurrence among woman of a certain age ~ of any age when stressed if it comes right down to it.  These high calorie foods and booze do pile on the pounds ~ particularly unsightly belly fat.  It’s all to do with insulin, and this energy dense stuff spikes your insulin levels, which only makes you want to eat more.

The environment doesn’t help much, there are countless fast food outlets, supermarkets promote more expensive energy dense foods, and there’s a bar on just about every street corner.  Rule #1 is stay away from fast food places, and rule #2 is that a woman on her own should never, ever go into a bar.

Associating unhealthy food and booze with good times is something your brain will program into itself, and rule #3 is that you must work hard to break that programming.  Eating unhealthy food and drinking too much booze doesn’t mean you are cool, in fact quite the opposite ~ you are perhaps pushing being an unattractive lazy person.

The really important thing for women to learn, accept, and practice is how to manage stress.  And usually it comes down to:

• Delegate More.  Stop letting your family and friends push you into doing everything for everyone.
• Be Creative.  People with a creative interest are much less stressed that those who don’t have that worry-free time.  Why do you think art therapy is such a big thing in rehab?
• Take a Walk.  Walking is bloody good for you; physically, mentally, and spiritually.  Aim for 10,000 steps a day.
• Talk to People.   And don’t go into a bar to find someone to talk with.

Some say that the change made them overeat.  And, that their happy place is the refrigerator.  All I know is that fat people often get very sick.

~

jack collier

jackcollier7@talktalk.net

regularly eat healthy and nutritious food

honey salmon in foil