Curriculum for Weight Loss & Life’s Stressors

Photo by Jamie Brelsford

You want to lose weight…now what?

Did you know that stress can affect your weight, both positively and negatively?

Losing weight isn’t just about dieting or depriving yourself. It’s about cultivating a healthier, more enriched you!

Stress is directly responsible for causing habits that promote weight gain, lack of energy to enjoy life, and prevents you from getting a good night’s rest. It is also responsible for 85% of chronic disease, and costs American workplaces $300 billion annually.

But you can learn to manage life’s stressors, take control of your habits, sleep better at night, and increase your immunity…all while losing weight!

Section One: Stress 101 and A Gift From the Sea

What exactly is stress, and how does it affect you? The best way to manage stress is to know what causes it. You will do a few exercises to assess your stressors, which will set the foundation for your stress and management journey. You will also learn the physiology of stress, and the connection between the mind and body.

A Gift From the Sea: Journaling is an excellent, inexpensive way to express yourself, resolve problems, and increase self-awareness. It has been shown to increase immune function (especially important during this flu season we’re having!), which is an added benefit. You will receive A Gift From the Sea, and learn how to incorporate this simple activity into your daily routine.

Section Two: Sleep and Relaxation

Breath work: Learning to breathe correctly is an easy way to decrease stress, as well as a host of other ailments. It also helps the body relax and prepare for sleep.

Sleep: Not getting enough sleep has been proven to increase weight, and stress is likely responsible for those sleepless nights. Learn more about getting a good night’s sleep, as well as a simple, guided relaxation exercise that you can take home on CD.

Section Three: Nutrition and Stress

You are what you eat. The foods you eat influence your health and weight, but also your mood. Stress can cause you to overeat, even when you’re already full. You will also learn the difference between eating until you’re full and eating until you’re no longer hungry.

Time-saving cooking methods. Eliminate excuses to eat out, grab a bag of junk food, or otherwise sabotage your nutrition! Learn to plan ahead and have wholesome food on hand all the time. This method helps with portion control, and leaves you with enough time to do the things you enjoy.

Stress Management Resources

Photo by Jamie Brelsford

I’ve just posted some resources to help enhance your stress management knowledge and practice.

Recommended Books

Recommended Links

Recommended Relaxation

The Basics of Stress

Many people take for granted what stress does to them physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I’ve been there in the past, and it’s something I have to constantly maintain so I don’t fall back into the big trap of being that worn out, stressed out person I used to be! I’ve just posted an article called The Basics of Stress at Suite 101, which will serve as the basis of many more articles on stress to come.

Link Round-up: Once a Month Cooking

If you’re interested in Once a Month Cooking and you’re not sure why you’d want to consider it, start here: Reduce Stress With Once a Month Cooking

Looking for some good cookbooks to get started? These are my favorites: Book review: Fix, Freeze, Feast: Prepare in Bulk and Enjoy by the Serving, and Book Review: Don’t Panic–Dinner’s in the Freezer.

I’m not going to lie and say OAMC is easy. It’s not. But that “not easy” part lasts all of about one day of the month, and here are some things you can do to make it less stressful: Ten easy tips to make once a month cooking stress free

Organization is what OAMC is all about. You need to keep track of recipes, ingredients, and shopping lists. Cook of the Month is by far the best way to do that, and you can find them here: Cook of the Month, and find my reviews of them here: Cook of the Month makes once a month cooking even easier (part I) and here: Cook of the Month makes once a month cooking even easier (part II).

Happy cooking, everyone!

Cook of the Month Feature on Examiner

Wrapping up OAMC “week” is a fantastic website I found called Cook of the Month. I don’t know about you, but I’m always looking for ways to make things easier, and when I saw the recipe and shopping list features on this website, I was sold!

Check it out here:

Cook of the Month makes once a month cooking even easier (part I)

Cook of the Month makes once a month cooking even easier (part II)

And you can check out Cook of the Month’s website here:

Cook of the Month

Happy cooking, everyone!

Top Ten Tips to Make OAMC Easier

As we wind down Once a Month Cooking Week, I thought it would be fun to post things that have made my adventures in OAMC much easier. Trust me when I say I learned all of them the hard way (and what other way is there, I ask you??? ) and it pleasures me to no end to be able to share them with current and future OAMC-ers!

Ten Easy Tips to Make Once a Month Cooking Stress Free

What are your favorites?

Another Once a Month Cooking Book Review

Cookbooks are some of the most important tools a cook can have in his or her kitchen. They provide inspiration, and instruction, and having a variety of them help make you a well-rounded chef. You can buy them for any occasion, dietary need, or age group these days, which makes them even more useful.

When I began my OAMC adventure, I did several weeks or research before I settled on two of them: Don’t Panic—Dinner’s in the Freezer, and Fix, Freeze, Feast. The main reasons I chose these two were based on Amazon and Borders reviews (I read every single one of them, thank you very much!), and the fact that I didn’t have to cook the meat before I froze the meals. This might boil down to personal preference, but meat that’s been cooked, frozen, thawed, and then heated up again just isn’t my favorite. Plus, the time saved not cooking before freezing is a bonus. Most of the recipes for both might require simmering a sauce, steaming a veggie, or other minor preparations, but that’s pretty much it. And everything we’ve eaten has been fantastic

Benefits of Once a Month Cooking

After reading my review of Don’t Panic—Dinner’s in the Freezer, you may be interested in the benefits of once a month cooking, especially when it comes to weighing the cost:benefit of spending an entire day in the kitchen preparing food. Trust me when I say the benefits do outweigh the costs because you’ll probably spend an average 15 minutes preparing food every night for the rest of the month!

My latest article on Suite 1o1 discusses the benefits, and how OAMC can help you reduce stress—I know it’s reduced mine! I would love to hear from you; if you’ve tried OAMC, please share your experiences by commenting, either here or at Suite 101.

It’s Once a Month Cooking Week!

In a word, Once a Month Cooking (OAMC) rocks. I’ve been doing it for about five months now, and it’s saved me so much time and money and reduced my stress significantly. It takes about two days to cook for an entire month; one day to plan and shop, and one day to cook.

My family loves this. Every night they get awesome dinners that taste like I’ve spent the entire day slaving over a hot stove (ha ha…I won’t tell if you don’t!), and I know the food I’m giving them is nutritious. And the bonus? I make six portions so there are two left over for lunch the next day.

Please check out my first book review on Examiner for Don’t Panic—Dinner’s in the Freezer: Great-Tasting Meals You Can Make Ahead, by Susie Martinez, Vanda Howell, and Bonnie Garcia.

Stay tuned for an upcoming article on Suite 101 on the benefits of OAMC.

Quitting smoking with yoga part II is up on Examiner

Quitting smoking with yoga: physical benefits

This series has been a year in the making for me. It began as a project for my Contemporary Issues in Drug Abuse class, and took off from there. In my capstone class this last semester, I was able to use the concept from the term paper I wrote for the drug class, and develop a program for college students. It was so exciting for me to present the program plan to the class, and even more so when I got so many interesting questions at the end.

As a former smoker myself, the struggle has been ongoing. When I quit 10 years ago, I don’t think yoga was as main stream as it is today, and in the rural town where I lived we had one gym (which I can tell you did not have a yoga studio!). I gained so much weight, and there were days where I wanted to give up so I could be skinny and happy again. Ha.

The truth is that there is no easy way to quit smoking, but finding a way that is meaningful, and takes a holistic approach is the best way to go about it. Smoking affects all organs and systems of your body, so why should you just take care of one part (for example, just nicotine patches for the addiction), when there are so many components involved? That’s why I love yoga; it takes care of the whole person, and not just the neurotransmitters.

To read more on the physical benefits of yoga, visit me on Examiner!