How Important Is It To Ensure My Emotional Health Is Stable As I Try To Lose Weight?

February 1, 2009 -- Question: How important is it to ensure my emotional health is stable as I try to lose weight?

Answer: There are two sides that are important to look at when thinking about your emotional health in relation to trying to lose weight. First of all, there's the possibility that emotional health has contributed to the weight gain. The fact that maybe you use food to cope with negative emotions or stress and so forth. So learning new ways to handle negative emotions and stress, like getting massages, taking some time to meditate, self soothing, things like that is very important.

It's also really important to recognize that you don't have to be in perfect emotional health to start a weight-loss effort. What you want to really do is look at the other side which is that weight loss can be stressful; you have to add new things into your life. And take that into account by just adding new things gradually that'll improve you health and once you get used to them add in a little bit more until you've got a comprehensive health plan.