Is Eating Right All The Time Causing You Stress?

Posted by Nick Niesen on October 26th, 2010

Stress can stop your weight loss goals about as much as eating
a family size bag of Nacho chips and a 2-Liter bottle of pop
can.

My approach to weight loss was in gaining my health. Losing
300 pounds was not the first thing that occurred to me, but
rather ?what could I do to get healthy and eat right?. It was
a very strange approach given that I was obviously clinically
obese and immediately needed some quick weight loss.

I had no idea that our body used food in a very specific manor
and that we could improve our energy levels by working with
the body, not against it. There were some very specific rules
to follow, so being the good student I followed them. It
became a religion for me and as I preached it, I made many
people quite crazy. I became an outcast because I had to
prepare my food differently and would not eat with the gang at
meal times. My food was prepared differently, eaten
differently and eventually I even came to ask food servers to
use different spatulas to flip my ?veggie burger? from the
grill.

I followed the rules and I increased my energy. I began eating
better and my energy levels increased enough that my weight
loss began and I started to become lean and healthy.

Then the stuff hit the fan

Well, it hit their fan, not mine.

Friends began to talk behind my back about wanting the old Rob
back. In one instance, I was held down on a couch while cola
was poured into my mouth against my will. They wanted their
old funny, fat, life of the party friend back, not this health
nut with all these food rules.

I think I first became aware of being stressed about food at a
birthday party I was asked to attend. It was a time of
celebration, but do you want to know what I was thinking?

?Do I or don?t I have a piece of cake??

?This is totally processed, unnatural food. No fiber, no
wholeness and it contained sugars, lard and all kinds of other
crap?.

I had a whole bunch of thoughts about how this would affect my
weight loss goals, my health and my eating habits.

I was weighing the thoughts of being socially acceptable
against the health choice of having this one little piece of
cake. I thought about losing them as friends if I did not
accept the cake and weighed it against the impact this poor
food choice was going to have on my body. I had already lost
friends because of my food choices and I really did not want
to lose more.

I?m sure you?ve been there yourself, having to make a decision
based on your social status vs your health. It?s a very quick
thought process, but you notice that your blood pressure goes
up, your heart begins to beat faster, you begin to sweat? you
know what I mean?

I ate the cake.

I felt like crap.

I felt like crap on many levels and I was stressing about this
excessively. I felt bad that I had to make that choice in this
manner. I felt bad because the sugar was surging into my
blood and I felt bad because I ?thought about this way too
much?

At some point, you need to let go of it all.

There is energy in food; in the love and people around you
that prepared the food and the circumstances in which it?s
eaten. Never eat a meal when you are upset or sad because you
should be enjoying the meal and taking in all the goodness in
what the earth has brought to your body. Take in all that
goodness and let go of all the stress.

Eat naturally as much as you can and increase the amount of
whole foods in your diet. Make a choice to remove processed
foods and beverages such as cola?s, fruit juices, coffee and
traditional teas. Eat with a smile on your face and give
thanks to everyone involved in bringing the meal, the
nutrition and that energy into your body.

Then when the time is right, have fun and enjoy the health
you?ve created.

There was a very dramatic shift in my life, my health and my
weight loss when I made the choice to enjoy some foods again.
I began to break my own rules and live my life. I began to
have fun with food and fun came back into my life.

Let go.