~ Healthy Weight Loss

The most important thing to remember as you begin any weight loss plan is that there is no quick fix or magic pill that will help you lose your extra pounds and keep them off.
The most successful weight loss plans combine

• healthy eating,
  
• balanced nutrition and
  
• regular exercise to help you lose weight.
  

Often, people find themselves in a perpetual diet cycle, always thinking they have a few pounds to lose, or yo-yo dieting – losing weight and then gaining it right back, only to start dieting again. By putting more emphasis on improving your health, experts agree that you can raise your overall self–esteem, resulting in healthier eating habits, long-term weight loss and improved health.



Successful weight loss over the long term will likely include:

• adhering to a healthy lifestyle (including nutritious foods and physical activity),
  
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• making changes in the way you think about food, and
  
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• paying attention to reasons why you eat (emotions, boredom, or reward vs. actually being hungry).
  

To lose weight, you must eat fewer calories than your body uses. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to eat less food. There are many ways you can continue to enjoy foods you like while working towards your weight loss goals, creating and maintaining a healthy lifestyle:

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~What level of stress causes problems?

There is a relationship called the Yerkes-Dodson law, and that is the relationship with stress and performance and efficiency. As stress increases, there is no doubt that performance and efficiency and good health increase. In other words, when we have a deadline, we are more proficient, we perform better. But only to a point. Then performance and efficiency start to decrease. It's like an inverted U. So the more stress, the worse the performance, the worse your efficiency. Because most of us are on the down side of that curve, that's why we are burning out.

So what are stress symptoms? What are the symptoms that one can recognize when the stress begins to exceed our capacity to handle it? I'll talk about four symptom categories: physical, behavioral, emotional, and cognitive.

Physical symptoms:

• Headaches
  
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• Indigestion
  
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• Stomach aches
  
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• Sweaty palms
  
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• Sleep difficulties
  
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• Dizziness
  
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• Back pain
  
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• Tight neck and shoulders
  
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• Racing heart
  
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• Restlessness
  
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• Tiredness
  
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Behavioral symptoms:

• Excessive smoking
  
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• Bossiness
  
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• Compulsive gum chewing
  
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• Attitude critical of others
  
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• Grinding one's teeth at night
  
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• Overuse of alcohol
  
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• Compulsive eating
  
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• Inability to get things done
  

Emotional symptoms:

• Crying
  

• Nervousness
  
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• Anxiety
  
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• Boredom (there's no meaning to anything)
  
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• Edginess (a readiness to explode)
  
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• Feeling powerless to change things
  
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• An overwhelming sense of pressure
  
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• Loneliness
  
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• Easily upset
  

Cognitive symptoms:

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• Trouble thinking clearly
  
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• Forgetfulness
  
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• Lack of creativity
  
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• Memory loss
  
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• Inability to make decisions
  
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• Constant worry
  
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• Loss of sense of humor
  

It's clear that stress can either cause or make these symptoms worse. Obviously a person might be anxious or depressed, and medications obviously are in order. But stress can certainly make the condition worse, and in some cases actually cause it. So either way, the harmful effects of stress are present.

 by:Herbert Benson, MD, founding president of the Mind/Body Medical Institute.  

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