It may seem completely unbelievable; but the truth is: Food does not make you fat. Of course we’ve all been told that eating fat makes you fat, or eating sugar makes you fat; but this simply isn’t true – and, at some level, you already know this to be the case. I’ve actually proposed a book called, “The Dunkin’ Donuts Diet,” in which I outline many of the points I’ve been talking about for a number of years – including the fact that I lost 55-pounds without giving up one of my favorite treats: Dunkin’ Donuts. But I’ll give you the secrets right now – in condensed form.
For starters, everything you eat is made of molecules; and molecules are made of atoms. All your body needs in order to manufacture fat is Hydrogen, Carbon, Oxygen, and a reason to make fat. Fats are Hydrocarbons; and the materials for these are readily available in practically any diet. Your body breaks down the foods you eat and then uses the materials it needs (or thinks it needs) in the way it thinks it needs to. A fit person eats a box of donuts and has one outcome; while an unfit person eats the same donuts and gains weight, for example. We’ve all seen this happen. But why does it happen?
Stress is the main reason people get fat; in fact, it’s really the only reason. For those of you, who think you need to consume fat in order to be fat, consider ice cream, butter, and steaks marbled with fat. You believe that you must eat things like this in order to get fat; but the fat in the steak, as well as the milk-fat in the butter and ice cream, were manufactured by a cow that lived on a diet of grass and water – not steak and ice cream. The same is true of the largest mammals on the planet. While some gorillas are meat eaters, they primarily eat a vegetarian diet; and gorillas are very big and very strong. There’s much more to the story of fat than just the food we eat.
What you believe about your body, and about the food you eat, has much more to do with the way your body processes and stores that food. If you see yourself as fat, or if you see food as a threatening thing that could make you fat, then there’s a good chance you’ll be fat no matter what you eat. How’s this work? Well, Cortisol – which is a stress hormone – is the chemical that helps your body convert undigested food into fat for storage. Whenever you are stressed, your body slows or stops digestion and produces chemicals – like Cortisol – to deal with the undigested food, and to store it in a form that will be usable later in case you need it.
The production of fat serves several other purposes, as well. Stress implies a potential threat; and the production of fat provides a layer of protection between you and your enemies – making you look bigger, or less attractive to them. Fat also insulates you from the elements and protects you from falls and other impacts. When your body is threatened – even if the threat is only in your mind – stress is the natural response. And producing fat provides a solution to several threats all at once – as well as dealing with the undigested food that you are carrying in your digestive system.
If you think food makes you fat, it probably will. There is a biblical saying, “As a man thinketh, so it is done unto him,” that speaks to this phenomenon; and industrialist Henry Ford echoed the same sentiment when he said, “If you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right either way.” What you think about will happen – in one way or another – so don’t make an enemy out of food. Visualize yourself as healthy and fit; and come to terms with food – it is an experience to be enjoyed, not feared or overindulged. There’s nothing wrong with eating a donut, in other words, unless you think there is.
