Eat Chocolate, Lose Weight by Will Clower

Author:Will Clower
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rodale
Published: 2013-03-11T04:00:00+00:00

Stressing Stress Inside Your Brain

Weight loss is tough. It just is. And one of the reasons it can be so hard comes down to the fact that there are many other factors besides food and feeding that impact your weight. Stress, for example, creates hormones, such as cortisol, in your blood and brain that are associated with increased obesity (one study found that obese women have twice the cortisol of women of normal weight),3 abdominal fat,4 adrenal exhaustion, and even diabetes. Therefore, trying to maintain a 100% fat-free, carbfree, calorie-free lifestyle can increase your stress levels and totally frustrate your attempts to keep that scale under control. And it just so happens that the very same chocolate that can help get your weight under control can also produce long-term improvements in your level of stress.

The idea that chocolate can “bring the happy” strikes us as true. We’ve all heard the stories of people who swear that they feel better when eating chocolate, that they crave it, and that it’s just plain better than sex. Be that as it may, this chocolate euphoria does have a neuroscientific basis that comes from the psychoactive chemicals naturally found in chocolate and the brain reactions they produce, which can help you control stress and anxiety in the process.

As you might guess, your brain’s pleasure centers love chocolate as much as you do. And a major reason is because chocolate stimulates your brain’s pleasure receptors with one of its chemicals, known as anandamide. By the way, the word anandamide originates from the Sanskrit word ananda, meaning “bliss” and “joy.” Tell me that doesn’t sound just about right! Also, when you leave chocolate on your palate for an extended amount of time, this very same anandamide molecule goes one step further: It enhances your appreciation of chocolate’s sweetness!5 This is amazingly cool because darker chocolates not only have more of these anandamides than milk chocolate, but they also have less sugar. And even though there’s less sugar, your appreciation for the smaller amount of remaining sugar is amplified because of the additional anandamide. Doing the choco-math here, there’s less sugar to drive your weight problems but a heightened appreciation of it to satisfy your sweet tooth. That’s a win-win if I’ve ever heard one!

After tickling your brain’s pleasure receptors with anandamide, chocolate also spikes your endorphin levels to activate entire pleasure regions of your brain, creating very happy brain cells. These chocolate-induced warm fuzzies are bolstered by another drug found naturally in cocoa, phenylethylamine, or PEA. PEA is known as the “love drug” because it also happens to be released in your brain when you fall in love. Downstream of anandamide, the endorphin party floats along with the love drug itself, leading to the production of serotonin, which (surprise, surprise!) stimulates more positive feelings in the new pleasure-palooza you have going on in the brain. It’s one big biochemical Kumbayah.

All these biochemical brain reactions explain why people feel better when they eat chocolate. Unfortunately, they may

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