Visualization for Weight Loss -The Gabriel Method

Appendix: The Chemistry of the FAT Programs

flight stresses. Your body should react differently to the threat of a predator than to the threat of starvation. Theoretically, the appropriate adaptive responses to these two threats are antago- nistic in nature. To say that your body is interpreting one type of emotional stress to be the threat of starvation is no less credible than to say that your body is interpreting the stress to be that of a predator. Both notions are based on the same fundamental, theoretical idea that our bodies perceive emotional stresses to be physical threats. The question has not been investigated thoroughly. And, in any event, given the nature of the question, it is largely unanswerable at present. However, if mental stresses can activate the fight or flight response, it is not unreasonable to assume they can also activate the FAT stress response. Both are programmed responses to phys- ical threats. Therefore, they should be the body’s programmed response to imagined threats as well. This offers a much more plausible explanation as to why emotional stress can cause weight gain in some instances and weight loss in others. Doctors and researchers frequently blame stress for sudden and drastic fluctuations in weight. The exact same emotional stress might lead to morbid obesity in one per- son and anorexia in another. The explanation that your body is simply interpreting the stress one way versus another is a much clearer one than the typ- ical explanations, such as a breakdown in the proper functioning of the HPA axis due to exhaustion, or the chronic activation of the HPA axis causing cortisol to stay in the blood stream longer. A more logical explanation is that different stresses in differ- ent people cause different stress responses. In the example of anorexia, the body is interpreting the stress as a constant attack by a predator one must escape from, resulting in extreme leptin sensitivity. At the other extreme of obesity, the body is interpret- ing the stress to be chronic, extreme starvation or cold weather. This gives a little more credit to the body’s ability to attempt to understand and differentiate one type of mental or emotional threat from another.

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