Want to Lose Weight? Relax.

Image by Amy Messere via Flickr

So, you probably realize that you don’t get stronger while you’re working out, you get stronger when you recover from working out. But there’s another aspect of recovery that most people completely ignore, especially in our fast-paced, high-pressure society, and that’s mental and emotional recovery.

And what do I mean by that? Well, just like you recover from your workouts, you need to recover from everything else going on in your life.

You get up early, race to get the kids ready for school, hurry off to work, get stuck in traffic because it snowed and there’s an accident, which makes you late for a meeting. You get to that meeting and throw back 3 cups of coffee. Then you’re on conference calls all day and eat at your desk. You leave work late, white-knuckle the steering wheel as you race home before the kids go to bed, and then you eat a cold dinner.

Just like you did every other day this week.

Exercise is a stress that your body needs to recover from, and everyday life provides stresses that you need to recover from as well. The message here is you basically need to take some time to just chill out every once in a while. You need to recover from that other stress.

If you’re having trouble losing weight even though you think you’re eating right and exercising, well, Buttercup, maybe you should take a look at other areas of your life. What other things are contributing to a continual build up of stress and damage to your body? Think about that.

You need to recover, not only physically, but emotionally and mentally. Get enough sleep, take some time away from work, take some time on the weekends to just relax and enjoy yourself.

Don’t come home from work and jump right onto email to find out what happened on your hour-long commute home. Don’t get up early just so you can get on email and see what’s going on at the office before you get there. Don’t spend your car ride on your cell phone the whole way in, trying to answer messages and just get ahead of the game.

All you’re doing is creating a constant low-level stress response in your body, which leads to elevated levels of insulin and cortisol, and could spell doom for your weight loss efforts.

Dave Soucy is an entrepreneur, coach, trainer, motivator, husband, dad, and former fat guy. Learn more about him here.

Want to Lose Weight? Relax.

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