By Katie Welborn, Nutritional Therapy Practitioner

I want you to imagine for a moment a bucket full of water, and that water represents the stress in your life.

I’m talking about things like your job, your family, your busy schedule. Your bills and your deadlines. Your hobbies, your marriage, homeschooling your kids. A freaking pandemic! Your poor eating habits, your sweet tooth, your nutrient deficiencies, your dehydration. Your workouts, your lack of adequate sleep, your constantly overloaded brain.

Chances are you are doing okay in some, or even many of these areas mentioned above. But sometimes life finds us with a very full stress bucket - and it begins to overflow. You might know the feeling... I sure do.

So what does this have to do with nutrition? Well, there’s probably not enough space in this caption to fully explain this, but... Under-eating, overeating, blood sugar spikes, deficiencies in vitamins minerals and fatty acids, yo-yo dieting, and inflammatory foods are all major contributors to your stress bucket!

Stress is not always a bad thing, and some stress is necessary. But as with anything in health and wellness, we must maintain a delicate balance, or we run the risk of tipping the scale and dumping our bucket.

If you have a very full stress bucket, it is that much more important to make sure you are supporting yourself through proper nutrition and adequate food. If you have been struggling to “lose those last 10 pounds” unsuccessfully, your stress bucket might be to blame. You might consider working with a nutrition professional who can help you monitor your nutrition in addition to other lifestyle factors and health markers, and help you keep a close eye on your stress bucket.