Do you feel guilty after eating cake?
Whether you feel guilt or enjoyment from eating cake can affect your waistline.
A research study compared two groups and followed them for eighteen months. Those who felt guilty after eating cake were more prone to gaining weight over time. But the group that ate and enjoyed the cake did not gain additional weight.
Do You Have Diet Mindset?
There are a few possible explanations for this result. People who feel guilt are concerned about their weight and believe that certain foods are "good" or "bad." They have a diet mindset and depend on control to restrict eating those “bad” foods. Dieters are more likely to scarf down these foods when their inhibitions are lowered and end up overeating. Maybe they’re at a party, had a drink, or are feeling stressed out. They eat and then feel terrible guilt for their transgression. Guilt then leads to feelings of helplessness and loss of control. These stressful emotions create physiological changes in your body that can affect your metabolism.
Now here is where the research about weight and disease really falls apart and manipulates people to blame obesity and “excess weight” for illness. Whereas the Diet/Medical Industry would have you believe that being heavier is the reason for diseases and shortened life expectancy, they have confused causation with correlation. They want you to feel guilty and responsible for gaining weight and then not losing it.
Stress and Life's Circumstances are Responsible for Your Weight
It is actually the stress created by your “life-course,” as explained by Lindo Bacon, Ph D. in Body Respect . Your ability to deal with your life’s circumstances, such as your inherited genetics, developmental events in early life (ACE Study), your personality, economic circumstances, harassment, oppression, and your level of hierarchy and status at work, etc., has a major influence on your health and weight!
When you consider the impact of these life factors I hope you will stop feeling guilty and realize that your weight is not responsible for your level of health, but just a result of these other conditions in your life! In other words, having a low level job where you are harassed creates stress which then changes your metabolism and causes weight gain. Instead of blaming your weight on getting a low level job, it's the other way around!
What can you do? Practice stress relief daily! Don't wait for a stressful event to try to control your reaction to it. Exercise your stress relief muscles and that can lower your body's response and your emotional reaction to stressors.
Most important findings: Guilt is NOT motivating, and in fact, contributes to stress and possible weight gain!