Thoughts from a Behavioral Counselor
Stress Management and Food
This week I would like to talk to you about the link between food and stress. The world we live in is far different from the one for which our original stress management tools were designed to deal with. Certain parts of our brain were designed to let us know through feelings of stress and anxiety when there was a threat present in our environment. This initiated our basic stress management mechanism called fight or flight. When it is activated there are a number of physiological changes that occur in the body including:
- The release of hormones that shut down non emergency services such as the digestive and immune system
- Blood pressure escalates
- Blood flow is increased to the large muscles of the body to get us ready for action (we experience this as constant muscle tension)
- Finally there is less blood flow to the frontal part of our brain, (which is in charge of our ability to reason and think critically) and instead blood is diverted to the more primitive parts near the stem of the brain (where more of our instinctual and habitual responses are stored).
The problem is this system was designed to help us either run away from the source of stress or attack it – we usually resolved the threat in our environment fairly quickly and then the fight or flight system shut down and our body returns to it’s normal state. Our modern world is a never ending stream anxiety that can rarely be resolved through fight of flight – stress with our boss usually can’t be resolved by fighting or fleeing as we need that job for the house payment.
Food has been experienced as a source of calm since early infancy – when a new born cries it usually finds comfort in either being held, having its diaper changed or being fed. Food provides psychological calming and physiological level releases chemicals in our brain that have a calming effect. It is not that we can never use food to deal with this stress it is that we must limit it’s use. There are three core strategies that can be used to manage stress and they include;
Ø Finding alternatives to food to help sooth and calm us down – some examples include physical activity, meditation, yoga, or any activity that takes our focus off the stressor and allows us a period of relief from it
Ø Many times it is not the stressor that produces stress it is how we interpret that situation thus the Israelites looked at Goliath and thought he is so big how can we defeat him while David’s response was he is so big how can I miss him – we must challenge our thoughts and interpretations of a stressful situation and see if they are truths or are partial or full distortions
Ø Finally some situations must have resolution and the longer we avoid a choice the more stress we create – thus if you are in a destructive work situation you must at some point get out or take responsibility for the fact that it isn’t the job it is the choice you make to stay in it that is the true stressor.
I hope these thoughts prove helpful and I am looking forward to communicating to you in a few weeks
Randy Brandeis MSW
THE POWER OF ROADBLOCKS
I would like to discuss the power of roadblock issues. Within the structure of a weight management program the initial building block for achieving success is a physiological intervention – alleviating hunger and low blood sugar as contributing factors for emotional eating and or other behavioral associations with eating (movies and popcorn). As most of you already know this intervention includes:
- Consuming calories regular intervals (4-6)
- Distribution of daily calorie allotment in an equitable manner throughout those intervals
- Strategic use of protein to provide satiety and blood sugar regulation for 3-4 hours
Coinciding with this task you are also advised adopt a consistent physical schedule (nothing new there). Which will provide one with additional muscle mass allowing us to burn calories more effectively. It also allow for extra calories and creates a tendency we have observed that physical vitality seems to be directly associated with appropriate calorie intake. However in many instances these changes only allow for a partial loss of weight before either a lengthy plateaus is experienced or regain of weight. It is at this point you must consider the possibility that there are certain roadblocks facing you. What do I mean by that you may ask. Roadblocks are obstacles in our life that prevent consistent implementation of the above-mentioned behavioral changes. These roadblocks can be emotional, cognitive, behavioral or situational. For example I have been seeing an individual who has implemented many of the nutritional and physical behaviors, however consistency is interfering with further weight loss, but still has allowed her to sustain 50-pound weight loss. During her time in counseling she began to work through the issue that was causing a lack of joy in her life – in this instance she has had a lifelong role of being a caregiver and pleaser to the point that many of her own emotional and physical needs were not being met. Once she made the decision to set boundaries with others that were demanding of her time she began to lose weight on a consistent basis. What are the roadblocks that prevent you from:
- Providing your self with the time required for self-care?
- Fuel the need to eat food to manage stress or emotions?
Resolution of these issues requires a commitment to change and confronting fears or discomfort that has prevented resolution in the past.
I hope this blog proves helpful and I hope you have a pleasant and relaxing Labor Day Holiday,
Randy Brandeis MSW
Avoiding a sense of suffering when managing our weight
My comments this week are the result of some thoughts that I had while reading material on a form of psychotherapy.
The author contends that many times our motivation to enter counseling is to help reduce the pain and discomfort in our life.
This is of course true for many of us who seek to resolve weight management issues, which are indeed the source of discomfort and pain at both a physical and emotional level.
However we must be careful in how we define discomfort and pain, as these qualities are an appropriate and normal companion to anyone’s life experience.
• For example the son of a friend of ours lost his job with Bank America when they closed his office in Dallas. They were expecting their first child in four months and we might say that they as well as my friend are going through a life occurrence that we have come to expect
The same holds true for when we take on the task of managing our weight in a more effective manner – that is there will be some painful and uncomfortable experiences.
• For example there will be times
o In social situations when we are not going to be able to eat what others are so freely consuming,
o Where we will experience a certain degree hungry as we attempt to lose weight,
o Where our weight loss may lead to some uncomfortable comments by friends or family members who feel threatened or jealous.
However, one never is required to suffer with these tasks. What do I mean by suffering?
For example in that social setting where we are not able to eat what or how much others might be –
• One could consider this an unpleasant task
• However suffering can take over this experience when we tell ourselves that it is unfair we can’t eat as feely as others
• Or we feel like a victim because “we have to” watch what we are consuming.
The fact is fairness has never been a part of the life agreement and we don’t have to do anything – it is our choice.
It has been my experience that those individuals who learn to make peace with the fact that the choice to master the management of our health and weight will encompass some painful or uncomfortable tasks are far more successful in the long run.
Randy Brandeis MSW
Weight Loss Plateaus – part 2
Today’s focus is how to resolve a weight loss plateau
The first task is you have is to gather the data necessary to define whether the plateau is physiological or behavioral in nature. This can most effectively be gathered through the use of a food and exercise journal – there are websites that offer free tracking services for both food and exercise activity. We also recommend purchasing an inexpensive digital food scale to assist in assessing accurate portion sizes. It is absolutely imperative that you achieve an accurate accounting of the calories/energy you are taking in and expending so that a determination can be made as to whether the plateau is behavioral or physiological in nature.
If your data indicates that your calorie intake and exercise expenditures are on target then two adjustments are to be made:
- The first involves a leap of faith and increasing your calorie intake a small amount – by doing this you can fool the body into thinking that it is not starving and your metabolism gets fired and begin to burn energy at a higher level
- The second involves your body and how it has adapted to your current exercise to resolve this situation – resolution involves the FITT principal and stressing your muscles in a new way which in turn will burn more calories
- Frequency: change how often you exercise – if you are already working out 5-6 days change another factor
- Intensity: For aerobic exercise add short intervals of increased speed or stride or add elevation – For resistance training increase resistance (if the last two repetitions of the last set of a given exercise are not difficult)
- Time: Workout fo longer periods of time
- Type: Try a different type of exercise as they use different muscles
If however your journal reveals you are taking in more energy or expending fewer calories than would allow for consistent weight loss there are some strategies you can implement
- The tendency to over consume at a meal or eat impulsively between defined meals and snacks is nine times out of ten created by having to few calories earlier in that day. Take the portion of the day where you are getting the fewest calories and increase your intake – Remember any living organism when denied adequate nutrition will over compensate when that energy is available.
- Decrease in time dedicated to physical activity is also a common factor of instinctual drift as crisis and demands of our time to other areas of our life usually leads to a lapse in our newest habits such as exercise
- When demands on our time is driven to alternative areas of our life remember honoring the exercise habit is far more important than the quality of quantity of that activity – cut the time you workout in half and give yourself the chance to keep the behavior alive
- Increase the time slowly – let yourself live the reality that a little time and energy can always be redirected from an area of our life that has required higher levels of our time and energy.
- Make exercise more convenient – for example I know of a lobbyist who created time by walking while he was waiting for legislators to get out of meetings or sessions.
- There are a number of psychological factors that can be contributing to a weight plateau and they will be discussed at another time
WEIGHT LOSS PLATEAUS
Weight loss plateaus, are a very common, unfortunate, frustrating occurrence whenever we are in the process of losing weight. These are best experienced as we would a warning light on the dashboard of our car, which of course is an indicator that there is something occurring that requires our attention. Weight loss plateaus are generally caused by one of two factors (sometimes they can be in combination).
The first is the metabolic adaptation to your current diet and exercise regime, which can be classified as a natural biological response of the body. It is important to remember consuming fewer calories than you need to maintain your weight puts your body out of homeostasis. Our body eventually figures this out and determines that something is out of whack. Its response is to trigger complex cascade of chemical processes intended to blunt further weight loss – that is your body slows the rate at which you burn your reserve energy stores. Our body always puts self-preservation first. It is not that you will stop losing weight but rather it will be slow and inconsistent in that process.
The same thing holds true for exercise. When we first start to be physically active our muscles have to work harder then normal and there naturally is an increase in the calories expended both during and after that movement. However once our muscles specific to this activity get stronger there will be less of a caloric expenditure during exercise and recovery is much faster as well. This metabolic adaption does not necessarily stop weight loss as much as it slows it down and makes it inconsistent. As one experiences this process there is a tendency, (especially with those that have a long history of poor weight management), to become frustrated and disheartened. There is strong tendency to begin to chaotically go from strategy to strategy and if the plateau continues long enough there usually is a cessation of their efforts.
The second cause is the accumulated changes in existing exercise & eating routine that Increase calorie intake and or decrease calories expended. These are behavioral in nature and in many instances we are not aware of these occurrences. These involve the natural and documented tendency to underestimate what we are consuming at some points in our waking day and overestimate at other times. We live in a “super-size me nation” – which makes it difficult for the most disciplined person to get a true sense of portion and if they do it is more importantly difficult to sustain over time. In terms of physical activity our responsibilities intensify in one area of our life and suddenly we are not as consistent with our workouts – they are less convenient and we have less time. There is concept known as instinctual drift that will over time bring us back to our habits and behaviors as we go through life which places more responsibilities in front of us or places bigger portion sizes at us. Now that we have defined the problem our next step is to develop some strategies that can get us back on track – I will explore this issue at my next entry to this blog (in two weeks)