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Health knowledge made personal
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Health knowledge made personal
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In the middle of last week, when everyone’s financial worth seemed to be bouncing around like a ping-pong ball in a hurricane, many people sought out high-fat foods. One evening, a couple sitting next to me in a casual restaurant started their meal with a gigantic plate of fried onion rings accompanied by a mayonnaise-based dipping sauce. This was followed by a steak sandwich coated with melted cheese and bacon for him and a fried chicken sandwich for her. They asked the waitperson to give them potato chips rather than the salads that normally come with the sandwiches. I tried not to stare as I calculated the hundreds of calories in the meal but the man caught me looking at his sandwich oozing cheese on the plate. He smiled and said, ”I lost a lot of money today so I needed to do something good for myself. And this is the only treat I can afford right now.” I suspect that he is not alone in turning to food as comfort during these economically difficult times. His choice of foods, whose main ingredient seemed to be fat, was predictable. As anyone who has turned to ice cream, chocolate, cheese, or bacon in an emotional crisis knows, fat is an effective anesthetic. I once had a client who would eat mayonnaise out of the jar when she was very upset. Very little research has been done on the link between eating fatty foods and how you feel 30-45 minutes later. And when I started doing weight-loss consulting, I was unaware of the tendency to gulp fatty foods when one’s personal world was in meltdown mode. But client after client would tell me about how he or she ate high-fat foods when dealing with problems over which they had little or no control. Several years ago one of my clients explained how eating large amounts of fatty foods was helpful in a crisis. She had a biopsy for breast cancer early in the week and was expecting to hear the results Friday. But there was no phone call from the lab and she called to find out what was wrong. She was told that there had been an emergency and her biopsy had not been evaluated yet. She would have to wait until Monday to get the results. “So there I was with the weekend in front of me, waiting to hear if I had cancer. I just couldn’t handle the anxiety; there was no one to talk to and I sat at home alone. So I ate. I made myself meal after meal of fatty foods: grilled cheese sandwiches with bacon, tuna fish with lots of mayonnaise, chicken nuggets, and of course quarts of ice cream and as much chocolate as I could stuff into myself. It worked. By Saturday night, I felt nothing. It was as if I was in an emotional coma. I ate and slept my way through Sunday feeling as if I was sniffing ether.” Neither she nor any of my other clients who used fat to desensitize themselves to their stress had any idea of how it worked. They all described themselves as feeling fatigued and tended to nap after a long bout of eating. They felt that their digestive system would take days to recover. And they all mentioned their inability to “ think straight”. A man whose father was dying told me that he stopped his bingeing on fatty foods when it became apparent that he would be the family member in charge when his father died. ”I no longer had the luxury of removing myself mentally and emotionally from the situation,” he told me. “My head was so muddled from eating all those fatty foods, I knew I would not be able to make the funeral arrangements or take over financial matters after his death.” Eating large amounts of fatty foods in the midst of an emotional crisis produces an additional problem: weight gain. If anxiety is so overwhelming that it really affects your ability to function, seek medical advice. There are prescription products that will relieve anxiety without affecting either cognition or weight. Mother Nature gave us another way of dealing with anxiety and that is to eat carbohydrates. Potatoes, rice, bread, cereal, pasta and bagels are nature’s own tranquilizers. These foods are called comfort foods because they are. When eaten without protein and very little fat, they boost the serotonin levels in your brain. Serotonin is the calming, coping, anti-anxiety chemical, which we all have. If the couple next to me had ordered a plate of pasta with some garlic bread, or large baked potatoes, they would have left the restaurant feeling more relaxed and less anxious. Serotonin also increases the ability to remember by increasing our focus and attention. And this if very important if you decide to stash your money under the bed and want to make sure you remember you put it there.
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