When stress levels get high there are a couple effects that occur in your physique.
#1 You will find that the scale goes up, but this isn’t body fat. If you are sticking to your protocols it’s just inflammation and water weight and will go down in time.
#2 Something will slip when stress gets too high. You might find yourself coping with food and getting off track with macros. You might feel unmotivated to train and skip a few days, or maybe you show up to the gym but you just go through the motions and your intensity isn’t there. Or maybe you’re in a contest prep and your macros and training are 100%, but your mental health takes a toll making you more tired and irritable and eventually burning out.
#3 If stress doesn’t get mitigated and gets too high for too long your body could stop responding to your protocols. If you are in a weight loss phase and this happens you may need to go back on maintenance calories for a while until everything stabilizes again.
So how do you overcome stress and mitigate it so you don’t experience these effects that if unaddressed could slow down your progress?
This is where developing your mindset comes in! If you are living in a place of only doing fitness out of “discipline>motivation” or “this is a chore” or “I have to do these tasks everyday” you are setting yourself up for high stress levels even without the stressors of day to day life!
When your mindset operates out of fitness is a privilege that I GET to do.I do this to take action in loving myself daily. By checking my boxes I am showing up and giving myself everything I deserve! That mindset operates out of motivation and gratitude 90% of the time and discipline and going through the motions only 10% of the time when needed on the hard days. This is why we emphasize making gratitudes a daily practice!
Once this mindset is developed your daily tasks are going to transform into cravings. They are going to keep you grounded and actually make those other life stressors less stressful.
Coping Tools:
Stress Eating-If you tend to stress eat the best way to get out of this is through creating other outlets of comfort for you to cope with.
Here are a few that I use: Take a bath
Go on a walk Journal Always go to sleep earlier Get out of the kitchen and away from the TV, do something creative that you like Stretch or do yoga Do 5 mins of deep breathing on youtube
Choose one of these next time you have stress cravings and you will slowly start to retrain your brain to cope in other ways other than food. It will take some time for your brain to retrain so have some grace for yourself and keep practicing.
Suppressed Appetite- If you struggle with losing your appetite when stressed remember food is fuel! You deserve to have energy and strength every day. Drink juices for carbs or protein shakes if you need to to get calories in. And prioritize training hard at the gym to increase your appetite!
Stress Exhaustion- If you are solid on your macros and training, but high stress is taking a toll on your mental health this is a time to prioritize sleep. Get a minimum of 8 hours and take 20-30min naps during the day. This will help your mood and heal your body internally. Also make time to do things that make you happy and relaxed like getting a pedicure, or calling your most trusted loved one to have a deep conversation with, whatever fills your cup make it top priority and make time for it so you can get back to living your best life!
Plan Ahead- Most of the time when we get stressed out it’s because we are feeling out of control and overwhelmed. The truth is that you ARE ALWAYS in control of your life with the exceptions of death or illness. You either choose to manage your time or you choose to not manage it. Plan your days out the night before! The busier you are the more important and detailed this will need to be. Use tools such as time blocking and meal planning to ensure that you get every single thing done the next day. Overwhelm is just a mindset. It can be easily conquered through planning, sticking to that plan, and trusting yourself that you can do everything that needs to be done when you put your head down and ignore distractions!
In Summary: There are always going to be bumps in the road and excuses you can find to not execute on your better every day. Every day you will have the choice to either lean into the pain and grow from it or run away from the pain and stay the same. When you choose to grow you will not be perfect. And that’s okay! Give yourself grace and remember our mistakes are the most effective at teachers. As long as you keep trying, keep forcing the growth, and keep pushing yourself to your next level, you will get wherever you want to in time!
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