The Link Between Mind and Fat

Think negatively, protect symbolically, be authentic... we're definitely getting closer. We firmly believe that it originates from within. However, how? Without the hocus pocus component, how can we relate an interior state of mind that has gone awry to actual obesity?

The biological connection is discovered. We learn the destination of those resistive ideas and sentiments as well as the harm they manage to cause along the route. Or at least it's what I tried to do!

I was interested when I initially heard that being overweight was all in the head. "How precisely would that work?" I couldn't help but wonder.

While jokingly discussing our shared experience of being overweight, my friend said that he had read a book that claimed gaining weight was a sign of protection. It seems that our negative mental thought patterns were the cause of our collective obesity!

I questioned if he was discussing a biological relationship that actually influenced our metabolism or something more symbolic on a psychological level. I had lost trust in the conventional understanding of obesity at the time, so I was looking for something more profound. The fields of medicine, athletics, and science propagated ideas that looked too universal and unfair to everyone on the planet due to genetics. Every book or diet plan that came out seemed to have a brand-new, ground-breaking theory explaining how and why we all gained weight, but no single theory addressed all possible scenarios, such as the reason why weight loss occurs during a romantic relationship.

I poured myself into the concept that my thoughts and feelings could be the cause of my weight because I found it intriguing. I worked on my affirmation skills and delved deep inside myself to find any mental triggers that might be affecting my weight.

While I first welcomed this novel idea and continue to do so, I was dissatisfied and angry when I was unable to identify the exact thought or emotion that caused my weight to fluctuate.

I could observe fluctuations in my weight from week to week, but I was curious about the precise mechanism enabling this. Where did the relationship lie?I thought to me, "How could a feeling affect fat?"I was unable to pinpoint a specific idea or emotion, which prevented me from having the intimate control over it that I so much wanted.

It took me two solid years of wondering and speculating before I became pleasantly pregnant. In the initial months, I began to lose weight in the area around my thighs, which had previously remained stubborn no matter how rigorous an exercise regimen or diet I followed. I knew that I was changing on the inside, but once more, I was unable to identify the exact ideas or sensations that matched my thighs.

I didn't follow the common practice of new mothers and cherish their alone time with their infant after my child was born. I got up, weary and worn out, and forced myself to return to my former life while balancing the responsibilities of parenthood. Moving to a foreign nation that was both culturally and linguistically distinct from my own caused a scene to shift, which made me start doubting my identity. Despite what I ate, my weight began to gradually rise because I had not fully recovered from giving delivery. It was temporarily restrained by a decent, tight diet, but as soon as I stopped, it failed me.

One day, as winter 1997 was drawing near, I stood motionless for a minute and looked out the window. I was with myself, all by myself. I was aware of my senses because, despite the fact that I remained motionless, I felt as though my muscles were attempting to prevent me from moving. I was not moving, but they were busy trying to stop me. I seemed to be 'tensing up' for no apparent cause at all.

Shortly after that epiphany, I realized that the fat I had gradually gained was only accumulating in the places where my muscles were straining. Is there a potential connection?I pondered.

I continued to observe this peculiar event during the ensuing weeks. It didn't take long to realize that my own emotions and ideas were what was causing my muscles to tense up. I took this discovery as a divine intervention because I was in a desperate attempt to reduce the weight I was acquiring. I instantly started to calm my emotions and thoughts. I was curious to see if there was a way to turn this around. Is it feasible to reduce weight by unwinding?

It was clear that I had lost weight after about a month. I was ecstatic. Neither had I changed the way I was eating nor exercised. I wasn't under any stress or on any medicine. The only noticeable difference was that, mentally, I had started to de-stress and let go. "Explain that!" was the idea that crossed my mind.

It was amazing. I had noticed that the amount of body fat I had would fluctuate according on how much my muscles tensed or relaxed. I could never lose or gain body fat in the same places where my muscles contracted or relaxed, no matter how much food I ate or how hard I worked out.

But the excitement was accompanied by bewilderment. Having never heard of anything like this before, I was perplexed and questioned if I was just delusional. I concluded that asking was the only way to find out. However, who could I ask who was living in a far foreign nation from an English-language library?

My instinct told me that the solution lay on the Internet. Initially, I looked for papers about weight gain, muscles, stress, metabolism, or anything that would explain this weird feeling I was getting. Upon realizing that my keyboard was nowhere to be found among the piles of printed materials and reports that seemed to lead nowhere, I had to consider the possibility that others might not have noticed what I had begun to notice. I was unable to locate a single document that explained this peculiar occurrence.

As the months passed, I would hesitantly ask as many individuals as I could if they tensed up a lot and if so, where they may be doing it. I gradually began to believe that the only people who tense up all the time are overweight people, and exclusively in the places where they are fat. I knew immediately that this was a phenomenon that needed to be investigated when more and more of the thin people I asked did not understand what I was describing as the feeling that results from tensing up.

I started a quest of discovery into the mechanisms that cause tensing up through my own self-experimentation and sensitive introspection. I came to the conclusion that when we are in opposition to the very action we are taking or plan to take, a mental conflict occurs. The realization that we resist our behavior when we are afraid or find it difficult to unwind and be ourselves furthered the erosion of this concept. I investigated every part of my body mentally, perceiving intuitively which activity was being resisted by tensing up and how to reverse it so that I could resume being relaxed and authentic.

I truly had to start over when I decided to learn more about biochemistry because I had little interest in science in high school. I had put myself in a difficult situation. The fact that this remark had not been made by anyone else did not mean that I should give up. However, there were moments when I felt completely out of my league poring over piles of scientific papers and searching up nearly every word in order to understand what they were saying.

This apparently straightforward event turned out to entail a lot of moving parts. Still, it made me wonder one very clear thing. Was this just another way to put on weight, or was this the only way? If the latter, then why hadn't anyone recognized this earlier?

I had to constantly remind myself that there was a legitimate regulation in place for this happening. I had seen it with my own eyes and had personally experienced it. All the literature I read about the origins of obesity concerned theoretical or situational connections between various factors.

After establishing a psychological connection between the regulation of tensing up and this activity, I looked into the precise ways in which this activity could affect the accumulation of fat in particular regions. Day after day, month after month, I relied on my gut feeling to direct me to the appropriate reference material.

I had to know what wasn't making me tighten up in order to figure out what was. I quickly discovered that I was not on the right path when a specific trail became too challenging to follow or did not provide enough information. In these cases, I followed the hints that were apparent to me. Key words seemed to be calling out to me with an odd force.

My mind started to buzz noisily whenever I had some free time, becoming ravenous for details and fresh hints. Having not received any training in the medical sciences, I would lie awake at night wondering why I should be the one to see this phenomena.

Looking back, though, there were benefits to it. I would not have begun my life in blissful ignorance if I had received a formal education. Thankfully, I was not deceived by any previous notions about what could or could not be accomplished medically. I simply had faith and anticipation that I would discover the solution, and gradually the puzzle pieces began to come together.

As soon as I assembled a textbook hypothesis, I realized that, in order to convince people to pay attention, I would need to locate current evidence to back it up. I think the hardest aspect of my research was this. I would pore over both recent and out-of-date books for hours on end. When the fragments of my textbook idea began to fill in the gaps, contradictions, and open questions raised by the most recent scientific reviews and research, I knew I had made a breakthrough.

By now, I realized that I had seen enough evidence in my own body to report this observation to others, despite the growing mass of anecdotal evidence, facts, and implications around this very real physical occurrence. Whatever the cause, all the evidence I needed to believe that I could lose weight and keep it off without dieting or working out was there.

But in the end, this trip became an experience of believing in myself because I stood up and said what I really believed in. I saw my experiences grow and mature into a phenomena as I learned to have faith in them. I poured all of my love and energy into learning more about this phenomenon and convincing myself that it is real and should be accepted.

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