Fight Fat After Forty: How to stop being a stress eater and lose weight fast

Description

It is not only food that can make you fat in midlife - so can stress. After the age of 40, the accrued stresses of a lifetime and the inevitable onset of the perimenopause begin to take their physical toll on a woman. This toxic stress builds emergency fat inside the body and leads to bad eating regimes, particularly in the over-forties. In this handbook clinician and scientist Pamela Peeke explains her plan for fighting stress-eating and shedding "toxic weight" for ever. She offers a three-pronged approach of stress-resilient nutrition, stress-resilient physical activity and stress-resilient "regrouping" (keeping motivated). She also helps you identify your stress profile and eating pattern and offers a healthy eating programme to suit your body. A weekly exercise and stress-reducing programme is included.

Dr Pam Peeke MD, MPH devoted three years to investigating the link between stress and fat at the National Institutes of Health as a senior research fellow. She is an internationally recognised expert and speaker in the fields of nutrition and stress as well as the newly evolving field of integrative medicine. She regularly appears as a science and health news commentator and has appeared on Oprah. She is Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the University of Arizona Medical Centre.

'Fight Fat After Forty explores the physiological changes that affect women at midlife. If you're a woman over 40, you are undergoing physical and emotional changes, declining metabolism, fat deposits at your waistline, decreased energy, mood swings, food cravings--do we need to continue this list? Now pile on chronic, long-term stress (which the author terms toxic stress), which hits women between 40 and 60 and leads to self-destructive eating behaviour. "Uncontrolled or toxic stress keeps the refuelling appetite on, thus inducing stress eating and weight gain," Peeke explains. The stress triggers are constant, so the body never gets to turn off the stress response. The weight gained from this chronic, toxic stress--toxic weight--settles inside the abdomen and is associated with heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Peeke explains the association between stress and fat gain, and describes the stress/eating cycle ("the itch you can't scratch"). Then she teaches tools for "regrouping": formulating and following a contingency plan of nutrition, exercise, and self-care. Next are suggestions for a nutritional plan tied to stressful times of the day and an explanation of food needs after age 40. In the final chapters, Peeke nudges us to exercise to relieve stress, reduce body fat, and benefit overall health. Peeke is a highly regarded scientist and clinician who studies the link between stress and fat at the National Institutes of Health. She's also Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and works as the Medical Director of the National Race for the Cure for Breast Cancer.' - Joan Price, AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW