Don’t just survive… THRIVE!

 

What do you think of when you hear the word, “therapy”?

Chances are, the words that run through your head are not positive ones. Words and thoughts usually connected to therapy have long been attributed to weakness not strength.

But what if I told you the opposite was true?

What if I told you that by getting therapy, you could actually feel better mentally and lose weight?

Sounds crazy, huh? Well it’s definitely not!

Everything begins in the mind. The mind is the power unit, the main control, the hub and chief power center. If you want to change something about your life, you must first start with your mind.

When I was going through my toughest time in life, I didn’t talk about it. I kept everything to myself and let it all build up. Every little thing seemed too insignificant and I had way too many other things to think about. I was always on the go and always had a never ending list.

Eventually though, that build up of a million “small” things became an overflowing dam of chaos. I started to notice I barely slept anymore. I slowly lost my appetite and started gaining an alarming amount of weight. Cardio made things worse and I started to get too tired to exercise as well. I noticed my face began to swell and my eyes began to droop. I started getting acne and oily hair, flaky skin, depression, light sensitivity and my emotions were a mess.

I could no longer keep calm during the smallest inconveniences. My stress level was out of control. I would fly off the handle off little things like traffic. I remember sitting at a stop light crying because someone slightly cut me off. I knew I was not ok. I knew something had to change.

I had gone through so many traumatic events and never once sought out any help. I kept it all on. That’s what a powerful woman does right? “You’re Super Mom!”, I would hear constantly. I don’t think people realized that this encouraged my unhealthy coping mechanisms and didn’t help them.

How could I reach out for help?

Why should I?

I’m supposed to have it all figured out. And if I didn’t, I was weak right?

I would often sit on my phone scrolling through articles about how to pack healthy lunches for the kids or how to achieve more at work. I viewed myself as a powerhouse that would never quit. I prided myself in how strong I was. But inside I was crumbling.

All of that hardcore stress was chipping away at my health. Where I thought I was excelling, I was actually failing.

Being “strong” and independent all of the time wasn’t making me better, it was making me weak.

It wasn’t until I couldn’t take anymore and couldn’t get out of bed anymore without crying that I finally sought help. I found a therapist reluctantly after my doctors ordered me to go. They were concerned my body was at the bridge of complete failure if I didn’t.

I never realized that being overly dependent meant I was weak. Asking for help and being vulnerable is what made me strong.

Together, my therapist and I worked through the hard stuff. Slowly everyday we chipped away the layers. I learned to put one foot in front of the other slowly every day.

I started to notice the sun shined a bit brighter, life started to seem a bit easier and the world looked more beautiful.

As I began to feel less stressed, my body began to change too. The bags started disappearing from my eyes, my swollen belly started to go down, the acne started to disappear, my appetite started to come back, the salt cravings eased up, exercise didn’t wear me out and the weight finally started to come back off.

If you are struggling to lose weight and have had or have a stressful life, therapy will help!

 

Here are the 10 Ways That Therapy Can Help You Lose Weight

1. Drop in Cortisol

A rise in cortisol massively contributes to stubborn belly fat and excess weight. When you are stuck in a chronic fight or flight mode, your cortisol levels are elevated. By working through your stress and managing healthy coping mechanisms with therapy, you can help reduce the cortisol production in your body. This, in turn, will help you drop excess weight!

It is almost impossible to lose your cortisol weight while staying in a stressful state. You have to face and deal with the stress of you want a change.

2. Change or Eliminate Addictions

What happens when we are stressed or dealing with trauma? We need a coping mechanism to handle it. Without the proper coping mechanism, we can turn to unhealthy options.

Any addiction is hard on the body and can cause a rise in cortisol and weight. By going to therapy, you can work through your trauma and stress in a healthy manner. This will help you eliminate the need for coping mechanisms like unhealthy food, alcohol and other addictive substances. When you eliminate or lower your need for unhealthy coping mechanisms, your cortisol will drop and your weight will too.

3. Change Coping Mechanisms

What happens when you go to therapy? Do you sit there and complain to a “paid friend”? Yes and No. A therapist’s job is to teach you how to work through life and its stressors in a manner that will benefit you! They will teach you to process trauma and stress differently than you are already.

You will notice slow subtle changes as you begin loving yourself. You’ll realize that you don’t rely on your coping mechanisms as much as you once did. You will start to notice that you want to love yourself and your body. You will want to treat yourself well and nourish your body with healthy options.

4. Set Healthy Boundaries and Create Self Love

When you go to therapy, you will start to understand what it means to have healthy boundaries and keep them. This in itself is an amazing accomplishment! Having healthy boundaries and learning that “No” is indeed a complete sentence will really change your life.

When you realize how much you put yourself through with a lack of boundaries, you’ll start to love putting your foot down for your happiness and peace. This, of course, lowers cortisol by reducing stress. And cortisol affects your body weight. By implementing boundaries you’ll also have way more free time to enjoy yourself! How does that sound?? You’ll have the time to get a bubble bath, go for a walk, go fishing or even start that craft project you’ve been wanting to do. Release that dopamine and enjoy!

Not only will you feel better, you will start to see who is toxic in your life. It will be so much easier to see all of the toxicity that has plagued you for so long. You will be able to get rid of people that are toxic and form better/healthier friendships and relationships. This will help keep your stress level optimal and manageable too.

5. Form New Healthy Stress Relief

Stress relief can come in all shapes and sizes. But there is healthy stress relief and unhealthy stress relief. The unhealthy stress relief is a form of coping mechanisms that keep your body on high alert and just mask the problem. This is not good at all. This keeps your body addicted to cortisol and addicted to the unhealthy levels of hormones.

Unhealthy coping mechanisms can be mindless snacking, alcohol consumption, drug consumption, staying up late scrolling on your phone, hiding away and avoiding human interaction, binge eating, lack of exercise and the list goes on. These coping mechanisms don’t do anything to solve inner turmoil and certainly don’t do your body any favors. By adding all sorts of chemicals, your body has a hard time getting the nutrients it needs. This stresses the body out and keeps that cortisol raised. Your body is also unable to flush out toxins and excess salt so

6. Adjust Mood and Balance Hormones

When you are stuck in fight or flight mode, your body is a mess. Your mind cannot establish what is a life threatening emergency and what is a small inconvenience. It is common for your mood to be out of control when you have too much cortisol pumping through your veins.

The high levels of cortisol also will take charge of your body and make it neglect all other functions. Things like blood sugar regulation and hormone production get a back seat. When you start to feel less stressed, your body can relax and no longer feel overwhelmed with survival.

Your hormones will start to regulate and your whole body will start to rest and return to normal.

7. Maintain Stress Levels and Lower Cortisol

Therapy not only gives you a chance to work through stress and trauma, it helps you learn how to deal with stress. Stress is a part of life and will always be there. Therapy gives you the tools to handle it better than you have been. This enables you to never get stuck in that awful state again.

8. Boost Dopamine

What is Dopamine? Why do you need it to lose weight?

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter and hormone that is used for learning and motivation. Dopamine also plays a key role in appetite.

When you are able to boost dopamine levels, it can help you feel less hungry and soupy the cravings that come with a stressful life. Eating less saturated fats, processed sugars and u healthy snacks will definitely help you lose weight.

Going to therapy will teach you how to process daily stress better. This will help you develop healthy coping mechanisms and teach you how to manage stress by doing things like keeping a daily list or journal.

Crossing tasks off a list is an easy and effective dopamine hack.

Other ways to increase dopamine are:
Helping or assisting others
Going for daily walks
Getting enough sunshine
Getting enough sleep
Listening to relaxing music
Meditation and therapy
Eating a balanced diet

9. Better Sleep

Look up any weight loss program and they are going to recommend you get a good night’s sleep. It’s all too common for adults to lose much of their needed rest every night. Why is that? Well, if you thought”stress”, you would be absolutely right.

Stress can really disrupt a person’s sleep pattern. So many things can plague our minds as we enter into adulthood. And if you have a bunch of unhealed wounds and trauma, that just becomes a heavy baseline before the daily stresses even get added to it!

Now imagine all of that stress on top of stress, mixed with stress. How would anyone sleep?

And what happens when we don’t get enough sleep? Well to start, the body cannot recharge and reset for the next day. So the body is sluggish and not up to speed. Add to that all of the tasks and chores that a person needs to focus on and it can make things very hard!

By getting therapy, you will learn how to unclog previous traumas from your subconscious. This allows you to focus on daily stresses with a much lighter and easier approach. You would be surprised how much old traumas effect every single thing you do, every day!

When you get a good grasp on how to let go of the old clogs in your mental health, daily stressors are much easier to handle.

You will also learn healthier ways to handle any stress as it comes your way so that it doesn’t become stuck and lodged in your operating system! How cool is that?

After all of that, you will be able to finally have peaceful rest and quality sleep! This will allow your body to be energized and not depend on any caffeine.

10. Better Diet

It’s no secret that eating healthier can help you lose weight and live a healthy lifestyle. But how do you get there? How is it possible to change your eating habits and stick to it?

By going to therapy and learning how to navigate the world and it’s stressors, you will no longer run to unhealthy food options as a way to cope. You will start to develop healthier ways of dealing and working through stress, thus eliminating your desire to cope with sugar and processed foods.

Not only will your desires change but your cravings will. A body in a constant state of stress will naturally crave sugar and salt. It has to do with hormones and body chemicals. When you eliminate the stress, you destroy the cravings.

Cravings are not the only thing you need to change for a diet change though. Loving yourself enough to WANT to nourish your body is a huge step as well. By getting therapy and learning a lot about self-love, you’ll notice that you will start to WANT to care for your body. You will start to desire nourishment and care instead of destruction.

Remember that going to therapy is prioritizing yourself and your health and you are worth it!

Thrive don’t just survive!