Stress Dieting

Stress eating. Oh have I been guilty.

In my defense shame, it's not stress eating specifically. It's emotional eating, but I digress.

We all know that stress is harmful to the body. It makes you sick, and some would even put it this way. Stress kills. Scary.

I'm not into scary. I don't care for it one bit.

I'm also not into stress or the calories that tend to come with it. It's not healthy. It's harmful. Oh yea, I said that already. :P

You get the point.

Here's my concern. If stress is harmful with or without the accompanied binges, isn't it fair to say that stress is harmful even in dieting? Let me explain.

I have stressed about the number on the scale, ridiculously. I have weighed myself every day, a gazillion times a day, and that's just plain torture. Weight fluctuates, and it's supposed to. Hear my heart. Weighing in is not the problem. Weighing in can be a useful tool. But is the obsession and stress of the scale helpful? No, it's not.

Is counting calories helpful? Yes.
Is stressing over every calorie eaten helpful? No.

Despite my lack of eloquence, I think you get it. I hope you get it.

I don't know if stress kills, but I know stress sucks. So I am saying goodbye to stress dieting. I'm saying goodbye to the way of living that has the tendency of causing me undue stress at this moment in my life. After all, reducing stress is part of a healthy lifestyle, right?  It's not to say that I will never weigh myself, but right now I can't quite handle it without adding stress. Therefore, I refuse to do it...for now.

I won't call myself a vegetarian, but I will only eat meat on a very, very rare occasion. (no pun intended) I won't say that I am gluten free, but I will try to cut my intake of gluten little by little. More importantly, I just want to live healthier on many levels. That means reducing stress, eating healthier (not necessarily less), moving more, and getting more sleep. That also means growing in my relationship with Christ. It means somehow getting out of my shell of social awkwardness and working on developing the relationships with all of the wonderful people that I am surrounded by.
It means liking me, accepting me, for who I am.  It makes me smile to think that there has already been significant progress in all of these areas though some more than others.

God is indeed good.