PsychologyRocks!: The Psychology Of Slim

Can you think yourself thin? Well it does appear that you can think yourself fat so it stands to reason that the opposite may also be true.

It has been shown that Psychological stress does affect food choice either over eating comfort foods for some or starving yourself when unhappy or under pressure. Andrew Steptoe of St George's Hospital Medical School studied university students both during the normal academic year and during a few days before major exams. Shop workers were also assessed four times over a six-month period covering both high and low workload periods.

The findings were that psychological stress affects both the amount and choice of people's food. Students food intake altered predominantly among the anxiety-prone and socially isolated with others being less affected. Generally the change was to increase fat intake.

Today I watched a powerful documentary called "Hungry For Change" and was fascinated by the strong emphasis that was put on psychology and on having the "right state of mind" in order to be successful in losing weight effectively. The evolutionary psychology and biology used in the film was sound and I found myself being persuaded by their arguments.

“Hungry For Change” gives us scientific explanations about why we eat what we eat, based on the chemistry of food and implying - no stating, that some foods can be as addictive as heroin. In fact it actually uses an analogy of feeding some foods to your children being like shooting them up with the drug! It also gives examples of ways to change eating behaviours, with experts in their fields guiding the viewer throughout. This film's message is that plant-based diets non-processed natural foods are what our bodies have evolved to eat and the high processed diets that most of us are eating at the moment are making us overweight, chronically tired, ill and ultimately killing us from diabetes, heart disease & cancer amongst other things.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MvAM97VDE8]

Dr. Christiane Northrup an esteemed physician explains in the film that “the concept of loving yourself is key to all of it,” and suggests a daily mantra to reinforce a positive opinion of yourself. She even suggests that the benefits this are supported by hard scientific evidence. Her recommended mantra is “I accept myself unconditionally right now.”

Rightly the program does not put forward that 'wanting' something enough can make it happen, which of course we know is not the case, it does however provide the view that if you can accept yourself as you are 'warts and all' then that will open the door for changes to happen. Ultimately it is made clear that this still doesn't mean that hard work and effort is not needed, but it does imply that the psychology of change could be more significant than once thought.

The idea is that we see ourselves both as who we are now, and still 'love' ourselves, but also realise that we are not treating our bodies in a way that supports that love of self. We should also picture our bodies the way we remember them to be, when we younger perhaps, and realise that if we look after our bodies by only putting into them fresh, non-processed organic produce then we will not only become healthier but we will begin to look like our ideal selves once again. The emphasis is more on health than on weight, but the two things of course do go hand in hand. So maybe we should get away from the old idea of "We are what we eat" and realise that it may be that "We eat what we are" and maybe we can 'think' ourselves slim.