The human body has an amazing system intact to regulate a wide variety of outside stimuli. One of those all-too-common stimuli we face in the outside world is stress. Ahh yes, that horrible feeling that overcomes us at work, with the children, or when the weight of the world just seems too heavy to take. Nobody is immune to it, as it is something we all fall victim to eventually.

The reason I mention stress in the context of this book, is because stress plays a powerful role in how we deal with quelling our worldly problems. In other words, when we are stressed out we eat…and we eat a lot. When the body is placed under increased levels of stress, our brains release a stress hormone called Cortisol. What this hormone does is help your body deal with an outside level of stress. Your mental alertness is elevated, your heart rate speeds up, and you endure a “racy” or jittery feeling. This is the body’s way of mobilizing for more stress. Unfortunately this Cortisol hormone uses up large stores of saved energy to cope with the outside havoc.

When the body’s stores of energy are depleted, the body then shifts to a craving stage in order to recoup its short-term losses. As a result you crave rich, carbohydrate and fat laden foods (e.g. ice cream, chocolate, and potato chips) These foods are ideally suited to fueling your body’s stress reactions. They are quickly absorbed into the blood stream and provide temporary relief for what your body is enduring. The keyword here is temporary. In other words your body does not need these foods, it only craves them. This is where the concept of realization comes into play once again. You need to know that the Cortisol in your brain is doing all the talking for your body, and not your stomach. It is only your overwhelmed brain that is craving these decadent foods.

As an alternative to over-indulging in these Cortisol-driven cravings, try “under-indulging them“. What do I mean by under-indulge? To under-indulge is to eat the foods you crave yet in long-lasting and small quantities. An ideal way to under-indulge is to try enjoying something like hard candy, sugared chewing gum, or shelled sunflower seeds as a relief to these cravings. I always store a bag of sour hard candy in my desk as a means of coping with the stress of work. It is an excellent way of giving your body what it wants (the fat in the seeds, or the sugar in the gum), yet in insignificant quantities. The 45 calories in a few hard candies, or the 5 grams of fat in the sunflower seeds are relatively small amounts when compared to a disastrous fast-food meal, or a full serving of a dessert. I would love to recommend bringing a bag of carrot sticks or rice cakes to work, but the thought of quelling stress with these types of foods (as other books will recommend) is simply unrealistic. I doubt a zip-lock bag of dry cheerios has ever restored anyone’s mood to one of happiness. Get real.

And to highlight an aforementioned point about stress eating: Be fully aware of when you are eating due to stress and when you are eating due to genuine hunger. You will be amazed at how The Fat Mentality will steer you into ruin during the most stressful of times. Overcome this pattern by realizing what is driving you to eat in the first place.