Visualization for Weight Loss -The Gabriel Method

The Positive Stresses

office and you find out that the stock market crashed, or that the client from hell is screaming down the phone and blaming you for all his personal problems, take the first available opportunity to do something physical right then and there, on the spot. Two minutes is all it takes. Walk up a few flights of stairs, or go out- side and move—react physically. What you’re doing is telling your body that the stress you’ve just experienced was a predator you had to run away from. Remember, it’s not the mental threat or the fear that matters; it’s the way that our animal brains interpret the threat. Is it some- thing you have to run away from quickly, or is it something chronic and ongoing that will make your body think that per- haps being fatter will help keep you safe? When you react by moving your body, your animal brain is more likely to think,“We don’t know what the threat is, but she’s moving. She’s not just sitting there taking it. It must be an attack. This has been hap- pening a lot lately, so we’d better start to get thin!” So when you experience a sudden stress, react to it immedi- ately. With two minutes of physical movement you will be turn- ing a negative stress—a stress that could otherwise make your body want to be fatter—into a positive stress, one that will make your body want to be thinner. NOTES 1. See C. Yamamoto, K. Yamanouchi, N. Sakamoto, S. Hayamizu, Y. Ohkuwa, and Y. Sato, “Improved Insulin Sensitivity in Carbohydrate and Lipid Metabolism After Physical Training,” International Journal of Sports Medicine , 7, no. 6 (Thieme, December 1986): 307–310. For more on how exercise lowers triglycerides, see L. Kravitz and V. Heyward, “The Exercise & Cholesterol Controversy,” IDEA Today 12, no. 2 (IDEA Health & Fitness Association, 1994): 38–42; W. L. Haskell, “The Influ- ence of Exercise on the Concentrations of Triglyceride and Cholesterol in Human Plasma,” Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews , 12 (Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins, 1984): 205–244. To read a more in-depth discus- sion about how exercise helps relieve stress and improve cortisol metabolism, see S. Talbott, The Cortisol Connection (Alameda, CA:

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