Loneliness, at any time in your life, is a threat to your health, contributing to depression, illness, and obesity. Tough truth in an increasingly older, isolated and overweight population! Yet finding social strength in groups and activities, as well as practicing good self-care, helps offset this situation.
When you are alone and struggling, the thought of doing anything to take care of yourself feels monumental, as if you were trying to climb a mountain with rocks tied around your ankles.
Food, particularly sugary carb-rich foods offers a lifeline because it makes you feel good immediately. It is the one thing that makes you feel better fast.
The trouble is, gorging on sugar, hiding out in darkness, and essentially becoming as inert as a boulder, only makes matters worse.
Add to this the fact that such behaviours contribute to illness, obesity and depression and you have placed yourself in a vicious circle of isolation, declining health and depression. Did you know, for example, that within minutes of consuming 3 teaspoons of sugar, your immune system is depressed and stays that way for hours afterwards? Did you also know that cancer has a favourite food? It does! It loves and survives and even thrives on sugar.
I have had my own battles with loneliness. Never have I felt so alone as when both my stepson and my husband passed within a year of each other. Then, when I thought it couldn’t get worse, I was forced to close down my late husband’s business, discovering, ultimately, that there was nothing left of our former life, financially or otherwise. It’s a devastating experience to be utterly wiped out and alone.
There were plenty of reasons for me to succumb to my old habits that got me overweight, ill and depressed. But, this time, I didn’t. This time, I used these 7 strategies to overcome and even prevail. What’s more, I know you can too. This is for every one of you who has ever suffered in silence. I hear you and I know you can come back better than ever.
7 Surprising Reasons You Are Overweight And The Strategies To Overcome Them
REASON #1: Your emotions are locked deep inside you. You don’t express them and think it is better to bury them so as not to rock the boat. In TCM – Traditional Chinese Medicine – unexpressed emotions are the source of all disease, including cancer.
SOLUTION: Practice tracking your thoughts in a journal, on your computer or through a recording. I do this every day for about 15 minutes. Pour it out, without edits, for best results. Join a discussion group. Practice emoting!
REASON #2: You are stressed out, so much so, that you can’t sleep properly, choose to ignore your health and hardly eat but when you do, it’s off the chain carbs and processed foods.
SOLUTION: Learn to relax. Place as much importance on at least one hour of your day in which you can climb out of stress mode and completely chill out. Start with 1 hour and go from there. Use a guided meditation to get you there faster. I like the Headspace App and it only takes a few minutes.
REASON #3: You like the quick fix of alcohol and sometimes drugs. They keep you comfortably numb.
SOLUTION: Avoid alcohol and recreational drugs. As much as these are quick fix stimulants, they have a downside too. They are addicting and make you crash. They also numb you from dealing with your emotional self. (see Reason #1). Find AA programs to help you combat a serious addiction and replace your dependence on these by Eating and Drinking Clean (H20 anyone?).
REASON #4: Consider what you eat. Chances are you reach for refined, carb-rich, sugary foods that give you a sugar high, especially when you are feeling lonely and isolated. The downside is, refined foods deliver a health low, depressing your immune system, making you overweight and ill and often cause further depression. Science shows that dementia and Alzheimer’s, now called Diabetes Type III, is due to sugar disregulation in the brain.
SOLUTION: Eat Clean. Nourishing yourself with clean, whole, nutrient dense, well-sourced, properly prepared foods, delivers a complete profile of nutrients for optimal health. Explore my site to learn more about how to Eat Clean. Living foods deliver living energy so powerful you can feel it.
REASON #5: You have become inert. You don’t like to move and often don’t feel well enough for exercise.
SOLUTION: Exercise regularly. Humans were built to move. We do best when we are in motion. Science proves that exercising 5 – 6 days a week at a Maximum Heart Rate of 65% or higher, is better for our brains. We feel, look and think, more positively. Do it for your brain not your butt.
REASON #6: You are isolated from your environment. Cooped up inside the 4 walls of your home, you don’t get out, you don’t feel the wind and you don’t connect with the powerful, healing energy of nature.
SOLUTION: Get out in nature. Reconnect with the world around you. Smell a pine forest. Dip your toes in the cool waters of a lake. Walk a trail. Hike a mountain. All of these things reawaken your cells and create feelings of optimism. Start with a gentle walk, every day, for 30 minutes.
REASON #7: You don’t know enough people and don’t feel connected to the universe.
SOLUTION: Join a group with similar interests to yours. If wellness is on your mind, or simply feeling better than you feel right now, join one of my 3 membership programs to connect with other folks like you, with wellness on their minds. You will discover motivation, workouts, menu plans, recipes and even make friends. Together we can move mountains. (read last week’s blog on Geminschaft for more on this subject)
It is my greatest wish to have you join my Eat Clean Revolution. We can heal together.
Remember, I am always listening.
Tosca
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