Anyone remember Aesop.
He of the fables we studied at school.
You know, The Tortoise And The Hare, The Honest Woodcutter and so on.
One thing old Aesop said that rings truer than ever is:
“A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety”
Now he may not have known quite how smart he was with that bad boy.
It’s been shown now that it’s not just ‘what’ you eat but the state the body consuming it is in……
That dictates what happens with that food.
How much is used as energy, how much ends up in fat stores, how readily existing fat is released and so on.
It’s been shown that been in a stressed state while eating WILL cause more fat storage than eating the same thing while less stressed.
It’s due to several factors, but primary amongst them is the cortisol levels in the body.
Cortisol is, as they all are, an essential hormone.
But it can act against us.
Causing more fat storage.
Particularly on the stomach.
We once heard this summed up perfectly by Dax Moy (the world’s most expensive Personal Trainer):
“If there’s one thing worse than eating a plate full of crap, it’s a plate full of crap on a bowl of cortisol”.
If you’re going to eat some rubbish, you’ll be better chilling out and enjoying it.
You’d obviously be better still not doing it.
But if it’s going to happen, relax.
Stressing not only won’t help……
It will actually make it worse.
And you’ll generally find the less you stress about food……
The easier it becomes to make the right decisions.
Exercise is always great for helping with stress, of course.
Meditation too.
Doesn’t need to be cross legged, humming away.
Just a conscious effort to slow the olde brain box every now and again.
Get’s easier with practice.
Get the stress levels down and it all becomes easier 🙂
Stress is, of course, one of the things we try and help our ninjas with – check myrise.co.uk/briefing-meeting if you’d like to find out more about becoming a ninja 🙂
Much love,
Jon ‘Working on not letting the kids stress me out’ Hall and Matt ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’ Nicholson