Is It Worth Dying For? – Robert S.  Elliot

So there’s a question for ya – Is it worth dying for? Whatever it is that  you’re constantly stressing over in your life… is it  really worth dying for?

Stress Kills and…  that’s No Fun!

Stress Kills – you’ve heard this before, right? Chronic stress creates more dis-ease in the body than essentially anything else you can “do” to yourself. Stress creates an increase in the hormone cortisol, which leads to that abdominal, omental fat, which leads to stress and poisoning  of the inner organs as they are  so close to the omental fat and are “fed” from it.

That’s just one example of how stress  can wreak havoc  in the body –  I haven’t even mentioned the emotional stress and turmoil you put yourself through by staying overweight, the constant stress and anxiety that grows out of your thoughts of:

• Disappointment in yourself for not taking action and getting the weight off
• Feeling guilty for continuing to indulge in bad habits, habits you know aren’t helping you live your best life
• Anger at yourself for lying to yourself, telling yourself that you will “start tomorrow” with new, healthy habits  while you never do

Chronic stress is the most dangerous type of stress because you are constantly (chronically) keeping your body under the amount of stress that your body would  be under  with the increase in adrenalin that is needed to flee a dangerous situation. This is chronic stress – your body is in “Danger Will Robinson!” mode when there is no immediate, physical danger being imposed.

There is no need to live in that kind of stress and it doesn’t do anything to  help you in a positive way (unless you really are being chased by a tiger!) however many live in  the “fight or flight” mode of stress every day.

Week Fourteen

We’re at week  fourteen in Lucinda Bassett’s Attacking Anxiety and Depression program, which  covers the fact that we always have choices in how we respond to life and  choices in  the attitude we choose to adopt. Week fourtenn also covers how simplifying your life greatly reduces the level of stress you carry.

When it comes to choices, it’s just like anything else you choose, such as when you make the choice to eat healthy foods and exercise. It’s also a choice that you make when you don’t eat healthy and exercise because by default by not choosing healthy actions you are choosing unhealthy actions. No matter how you might try to tell yourself otherwise, it’s all your own choice.

What’s great about the fact that everything that you have in your life is a choice, whether what you currently have is perceived as “good” or “bad”, since you are choosing all of it it means that you can choose something else!

Stress Junkies

Have you ever known someone who was a stress junkie? These are people who thrive on the fast pace, thrive on drama, on headaches, on having so many things on their plate that they never stop. They almost seem addicted to that high level of stress and anxiety in their life.

Chronic stress isn’t glamorous or  fun like it’s often portrayed in the media –  it’s dangerous and unhealthy. Chronic stress creates anxiety which leads to depression. Is it really glamorous to be highly stressed out and anxious?  It might sound  funny but there are actually so many movies and sitcoms that promote the busy, stressed out life as the “cool way to live” and at the same time portray characters who are relaxed and meditative as kooky and new agey. Wouldn’t it be neat to see a “cool kid”  character portrayed as  someone who lives in the now, meditates regularly, and is living consciously? Wouldn’t that be something?

What I Learned

What I learned in week fourteen is that this 15-week program has taken me longer than 15 weeks to complete, or at least that’s how it seems because I’ve been writing about it here at Fearless Fat Loss, lol. This gives me a good laugh though, and I love to laugh and have fun with whatever I’m doing – hey, if I can have fun working through a series on stress and anxiety then that’s pretty darn good. 😉

In all seriousness though, I gained the strong reminder that permeates most of what I think about and that is the fact that everything in life begins with a thought.

Read the Whole Series

This post is number 14 in a 15-week series, a self-experiment I’ve done on myself with Lucinda Bassett’s Attacking Anxiety and Depression program. In the introduction I wrote about why I decided to do this experiment on myself and share it with you and how exactly it relates to weight loss and overeating. You will also find links to each post in the series.

xxxxxx