Welcome to Day 5 of the 5 Day Carb Challenge

Day 5! Can you believe it?  That went by really quickly (it always does!).

So listen, you made it through the first four days; you got the food stuff down.  I incorporated the four food-related issues that I thought were the most important to taming those carb cravings over the past four days. So, how's it going?  How’s that working for you?  I would love to hear from you with your food wins!

So today, we're doing something a little bit different because instead of focusing on the food, we're focusing on the main lifestyle factor when it comes to carb cravings, which is stress. 

The Reason Why We Stress Eat - Running From the Bear

Stress is so intertwined with carbohydrate cravings and blood sugar, it's crazy.  I know you probably already know that stress is bad news. You know that stress can make it hard to lose weight and all those things. 

But there is a physiological reason that we stress eat. There's a reason that we crave carbohydrates, and it's very similar to the blood sugar roller coaster that I was teaching you about in the last four days.  (Carbohydrates digest so quickly down into sugar which goes into the bloodstream creating the blood sugar spike and then the crash.  After that, the carb craving rears its ugly head. )

With stress, it's fascinating, because we evolved to deal with very different stressors than we have today.  The stress response that we evolved to have doesn't fit with the way our lives work now, which is a huge problem.  Back in the day, our stresses were physical stressors. 
Stress was caused by being chased by a bear or a lion or whatever the case may be. What your body developed was a reaction where it was able to channel all of its resources to pull its stored energy into the bloodstream, resulting in increased blood sugar levels.  That way we would have the energy to either fight off that stress or flee it. Fight or flight, right? 

Insulin would then take the sugar to the working muscles which need it to keep working and power the fight or flight response, and so you would have the enormous amounts of energy you needed to hopefully survive the situation.

Back then, stress was all about survival and so secondary processes like digestion shut down during stress, so all energy could be conserved for surviving the stressful situation.   After the stressful event, after you survived, then the stress response ended, and everything went back to normal, and life was all Kool & The Gang. 

Now Stress is Different -- But We Still React Like We're Running From the Bear

If you picture stress now, it's very different because it's usually emotional stress.  Instead of a bear wanting to eat you, it's more like your computer crashed or your boss is yelling at you (because s/he is stressed!), or you just got that phone call you’ve been dreading.  

Okay…  so you're probably already putting together the problem with this regarding carb cravings and stress, right?

The same response happens when you’re stressed, whether it's emotional stress or whether it's physical stress. That same sugar is liberated and sent into the bloodstream. But you don't need it; your body isn't physically working the way it would with physical stress.

The sugar is re-stored as fat, mainly in the belly due to a hormone called cortisol.  This triggers, you guessed it, the blood sugar roller coaster and the subsequent carb cravings.  So, not only does stress make us crave carbs and store fat, but it places that stored fat in the worst place possible:  your belly.

And Sometimes We're Under Constant -- and Chronic -- Stress

The other problem with stress is that emotional stressors don't normally end quickly. 

Sometimes emotional stress can go on for days or weeks or months, and your stress response never really goes down, so there's a constant cycle of high blood sugar, fat storage, and carb cravings. Your adrenals (which are responsible for manufacturing stress hormones) eventually burn out.  We're not going to go down that rabbit hole today though, that's a whole different topic.  But it's important to know how bad this situation is. 

One of the key things we need to realize is that stress is not a situation; it's not a specific outside external factor. What we need to remember is that stress is our reaction to that outside factor.  You are in control of your body's stress response.  It may not feel like it, and truth be told it takes time to be able to take control, but in reality, you have the power to lower the stress response. 

This is an important skill for the sake of your health, but for this challenge it's for the sake of your carb cravings.  I'm giving you two ways to manage stress in your manual. These are my two favourites, because they're easy. They don't require spending money on anything; they don't require time-intensive activities because --  let's be real -- we're all busy.  

One of the options is meditation through a free app.  The other one is gratitude practice.  Now if you're not into 'woowoo' things, these might sound a little hokey.  You might be thinking, "You know, I'm just not the person who does that."  I get it. I was the same way, but study after study show that when we do these things, we lower our stress hormones. And so for me, if science tells me it's real, then I will give it a try.  (Okay, and also my husband convinced me, too!  He’s into meditation.)

When it comes to meditation, I get that it sounds really daunting -- and I have a hard time being quiet in my own head for any period of time whatsoever.  I found that apps really do help. There is a free app that I outlined right there in the manual called HeadSpace you can get on your smartphone. 

The Headspace app has quick, guided meditations, so you don't have to devote half an hour to sitting alone with your thoughts.  Having just five minutes of deep breathing and clearing your mind of stressors is amazing for bringing your stress levels down.  Some people run through a meditation every night before bed. Some people will choose to do it when they're having a stressful moment.  There's no right or wrong way to do it.

The other option I've given you, and I love this one, is a gratitude practice.  It's such a fantastic thing to incorporate into your life, because it changes and can change the whole spin of your day from negative to positive, no matter what's going on. 

Gratitude practice simply involves writing down things that you're grateful for.  Just pick three to start, things that on a fundamental level you are grateful for.  Make them specific so you can picture that exact thing. Write it down. And then every day, you start your morning by repeating those things that you're grateful for out loud, into a mirror, or even just in the shower, somewhere you're going to be able to soak it in and not just skim through it. 

You can repeat this every day before you go to bed, too!

The point of a gratitude practice is that no matter what happens, you start your day on a positive note thinking about the things that make you happy and grateful in life.  From there, the things that may affect you negatively may not impact you as negatively because you're coming from a positive frame of mind.

And then again at the end of the day, if you've had a long hard day and by the end of it you're overwhelmed and stressed, reminding yourself how fortunate you are and how happy you are in your life, you stop that stress and negativity in its tracks. 

Pick one of the strategies or both (you can never do too much when it comes to stress) and incorporate them into your life.

Wow!  So that officially wraps up this five-day challenge!  I hope that this was valuable to you. I hope you've been able to see that there's a physiological basis to cravings and make the connection that when you change the way you eat fundamentally, you can change so many other things in your life that seem unrelated, like carbohydrate cravings and energy crashes.  

I want to say a huge thank you from the bottom of my heart.  I know that your time is so valuable -- and I know there's so much out there, and it's really hard to know what to pay attention to, and what to give your time to.  I feel grateful that you enrolled in this challenge and that you gave your time to me over the last five days, and I hope that you found it worthwhile and valuable.

If you have any big wins and you want to share, I would love to celebrate them with you!  So please just go ahead and share those in the group or hit reply to your email today!  

~Coach Suzanne