Are you or do you know someone who says " I just have to look at cheesecake and I put on weight". Well that just might be true!
How the body digests and assimilates food is significantly effected by the levels of stress being experienced. Stress is the body's response to any real or imagined threat. In evolutionary terms the threat was probably always real but in modern life a lot of the stress is created not from physical threat to our survival but by fears, change, worry, anxiety or negative self talk ( I am too fat, I am not good enough).
A threat kicks off an amazing physiological stress response in the body to allow us to flee or fight the threat. Blood flow is directed away from non- essential functions like the digestive system and sent to the major muscles and the brain. When stress is turned on... Digestion is turned off.
Cortisol surges through the body to put us on high alert and peak performance. Cortisol has strong associations with weight gain, especially around the stomach.
Insulin levels increase so as to metabolise glucose for energy. One of insulin's main roles is modulating the storage of glucose as fat. When there is too much glucose being consumed insulin increases and shuttles the glucose into fat cells for use later. Chronic stress means chronic high production of insulin which the body evenutally becomes resistant to....a precursor for diabetes and weight gain.
So you can see why stressing out about what you are eating, feeling guilty about what you are eating, or even the stress associated with sticking to an overly restrictive, low calorie, low fat diet can actually contribute to weight gain independent of the amount of calories you are consuming.
Conversely a potent and free metabolic enhancer is pleasure. Pleasure actually activates the same part of the brain that stimulates digestion and shuts down appetite. That's right, the same chemical that is triggered by satisfying levels of fat and protein in a meal also stimulates enzyme production to increase digestion and sends a message to the brain that we are satisfied....stop eating now.
Now the point I am trying to make is not to stuff yourself with ice cream or hot chips, but for you to think about how you stress about food. Being on diet can put us into a pleasure-denying mentality where we not only physically deprive ourselves of calories and good fats but where we don't allow ourselves to enjoy food....food becomes the enemy.
This no-pleasure, high stress approach almost guarantees failure. So this weekend rather than focusing on calories, focus on eating what makes you feel good (most often that is healthy nutritious food) but if you choose that to be ice cream, make it the best, creamiest, most fabulous ice cream you can get. And eat it slowly, enjoy it, and don't be guilty.
Don't ruin the pleasure you feel with lashings of guilt.....because guilt is fattening!
Have a groovy guilt free weekend.
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