Saying You Feel Fat Makes You More Likely to Gain Weight
From time to time we’ve all looked at ourselves in the mirror, after a particularly indulgent meal or just on any given Thursday, and thought, “I feel like a gross bag of potatoes,” or more simply, “I feel fat.”
And this tendency just gets worse during the holiday season, when all your social engagements center around food, copious amounts of alcohol, and extended family interactions.
But it turns out there’s a good reason to stop telling yourself you’re getting fat besides just trying to keep your self-esteem afloat before January rears its ugly head and your bout of seasonal winter depression sets in.
The more you tell yourself you feel fat, the more likely you are to actually gain weight.
Last year the Florida State College of Medicine released a study which showed that teenagers with a normal BMI who thought of themselves as being fat were 40% more likely to become obese before they turned 30.
The researchers explained this statistic is likely due to the fact that when people think of themselves as fat, they’re more likely to go on unhealthy diets, skip out on meals, start taking laxatives, and other supposed weight loss tactics which in reality just tend to lower your metabolism so you start to gain weight in spite of yourself.
Funny how the mind works, isn’t it?
Obviously learning this isn’t going to stop you from calling yourself fat entirely, but maybe it will help you not stress out about it too much.
A little weight gain over the holiday season happens to the best of us and if you’re really worried about it, there’s a lot more productive things you can do for yourself than trash-talking your figure.
There’s nothing stopping you from cutting out deserts for a week before you go home for the holidays, actually going to the gym three days a week instead of just talking about it, or eating slowly enough so that you don’t accidentally overeat.
Besides, as a wise friend once told me in college, calories don’t count over the holidays anyway.
So just try and enjoy your time off from work, school and your regular life like a sane human being and keep your psycho tendencies in check.
[H/T Elite Daily]
