James Carville, progenitor of the delightfully pithy policy advice, "It's the economy, stupid!"
Whether you’re trying to finance buying a killer gaming rig or just making ends meet on a tightening budget, pinching pennies makes sense. By the same token, a lot of quick, easy, inexpensive foods suck if you’re trying to eat healthy. Stressing out about all the crap life has thrown our way, in addition to the bad things stress causes all by itself (high blood pressure, digestive issues, and so forth) has been shown to cause a desire to eat bad food, too. Put the three together in today’s economy, and there’s yet another scapegoat for the undermining of people’s weight loss efforts: the economy itself.
Tempting as it is to go off on a lengthy diatribe about where that particular basket of fail should come home to roost, let’s try and get a handle on what the fallout means for us, and what we’re trying to do for ourselves, at least as far as it comes to lessening gravity’s embrace.
Fretting doesn’t burn many calories, but it does make us want to eat stuff to quell the anxiety. Whether it’s the short-term chemical boost from having a snack, or a pattern of stress eating, it all adds up. Fortunately, there are many ways to try and cut down on the stress level. Beyond the eight listed there are a lot more options — stuff like getting enough sleep, for instance. MSNBC ain’t us, and there sure seemed to be a heavy gender bias in the articles we saw on their site (maybe they just don’t care about us guys and our health. Bastages.), so it’s not surprising that they didn’t suggest anything more strenuous than walking, or hobbies that involve, you know, blowing the bejeezus out of somebody else’s digital minion. At least they did mention blogging as one outlet; hopefully, that means we’ll be alive and well to keep you entertained for a while yet.
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