Making Time for You

The pace of daily life often makes it challenging to fit in time for your own fun, relaxation and rejuvenation. Yet research shows that people who sanction regular “self-care” time are more successful losing weight and keeping it off than those who don’t. Why? First, those who are chronically busy and stressed, be it from work or caring for others, are apt to feel tired, overwhelmed, angry and/or out of balance. These feelings tend to cloud motivation and trigger regression to old eating habits, such as relying on convenient food-on-the-go, eating to soothe frayed emotions, and succumbing to cravings at the end of a long day.

Furthermore, stress also has a detrimental physiological effect on weight loss. Stress trig gers the release of cortisol, a natural hormone produced by adrenal glands as part of the human “fight or flight” response. Cortisol prompts a short-term decrease in appetite and
mobilizes stored fat to be used for energy to “go to battle.” But after the acute stress response, cortisol causes an increase in appetite to replace the burned fat as the body prepares for the next “battle.” Even worse, stress-induced cortisol weight gain usually settles around the waist, the most dangerous place to carry extra pounds as it can lead to metabolic syndrome, diabetes and heart disease.

So there are compelling reasons to start putting your needs first. Here are simple steps you can take to carve out time in your schedule for yourself—just as you’ve done in making time for your JumpstartMD weekly appointments.

For each time increment below, list activities you enjoy that leave you feeling relaxed and rejuvenated. For now, don’t consider the viability of doing them in your current schedule. Just identify things you enjoy that could be done within these timeframes.

• 10 minutes: (e.g. listening to music, calling a friend)
• 30 minutes: (e.g. going for a walk, napping, reading a book)
• An hour or longer: (e.g. weekend date, hanging out with a friend)

Renown business consultant Jim Collins suggests that having a “Don’t-Do-List” is just as important as having a “To-Do List” so people can free up time for truly important things (in your case, self care). Consider all that is currently on your plate. List anything—however large or small—that you could move to a “Don’t-Do-List” if you were to make self-care a bigger priority.

Based on time freed up in Part 2, which activities from your list in Part 1 can you do on a daily, weekly and monthly basis?

• Daily (or a few times per week)
• Weekly
• Monthly

For this week, pick at least one activity from the list you created and enjoy it! At your next appointment, be prepared to discuss the following questions with your counselor:

1. What activity(s) were you able to do?
2. How did you feel afterward?
3. To what extent did it help you stay focused on your weight loss goals? 4. Is this activity reasonable to fit into your schedule on an ongoing basis? If so, how often?