Your emotions and your brain are intrinsically linked, and feelings set off a series of physiological reactions. Think sweaty palms. But when you visualize a positive result over and over again, your mind believes it.

Daily life requires that people cope with distracting emotions–from the elite athlete who must make a crucial shot amidst a screaming crowd, to the mother under pressure to get all of her errands done and pick the kids up from school. So when you stop to think about the emotions you are reacting to, and then you realize that you are continuing to probably tell yourself again and again how dumb you are, how ugly you are, how you don’t match up to others…. do you see how you are creating a truth for your mind to believe all based on a moment of emotions? How silly is that.

So let’s take it a step further to emotional eating. There was an intriguing Columbia University study reported on NPRwhich attempted to look at some of the many possible factors simultaneously, looking at the brain functions of people before and after weight loss, and also two of the hormones responsible for appetite (leptin and ghrelin). They noticed that after weight loss, when they showed people foods, their brains (observed with a “functional MRI scan”) reacted much more emotionally to the food than they had before the weight loss, when their “rational brain” had exhibited the main response to the food. This could be a key to why people regain weight, for it is much more difficult to make a rational decision when our emotional responses are activated. Right? Think about the last time you made an emotional decision that you later wished you hadn’t made.

But wait, there is always more to it. So they also found that with the weight loss these people had a decrease in leptin (a satiety hormone). What would happen if these relatively leptin-deprived people were given an extra shot of leptin? Well, guess what? Their brain responses reverted to the “rational” response to food! So the brain response just may be the “method” our body uses to get us to eat more. Leptin (Greek leptos meaning thin) is a 16 kDa protein hormone that plays a key role in regulating energy intake and energy expenditure, including appetite and metabolism. So - Leptin is a hormone produced by fat that tells your brain when you are full and as I said it is also related to metabolism and weight loss. When your leptin levels are too low, you experience food cravings and feel hungrier – you know you’ve had that reaction before. Did you know that HFCS (high fructose corn syrup or corn sugar as they are calling it now) inhibits leptin secretion which causes you to never get that full message to your brain.

In  Jorge Cruise’s Belly Fat Cure ebook he says, “There are five sweeteners that I suggest you watch out for: saccharin (pink packets), aspartame (blue packets), sucralose (yellow packets), high fructose corn syrup, and agave nectar. The first three are known as excitotoxins, which contain neurotransmitters that “overexcite” neurons in the in the brain, causing degeneration and even death in these critically important nerve cells.” He goes on to say, “Insulin is produced by your pancreas to manage your blood sugar and control the accumulation of fat—especially around your waistline. According to Nobel prize–winning physicist Rosalyn Yalow, co-inventor of the first accurate test used to measure insulin in the bloodstream, insulin is the “the primary regulator of fat tissue.” Increased levels of insulin will make you fat and make sure you stay fat.”

He continues with research that has been done that shows what happens to your blood when you consume too much sugar and it gets converted into fat—they suggested that your blood actually turns into a “pink cream.” Even in a healthy person, this excess sugar will go to your abdominal muscles – hence more belly fat for us unsuspecting sugar addicts. Only when insulin disappears for a while can this fat escape from the cell to be used. That’s the primary way stored fat is released—your insulin levels absolutely have to be low.

So what happens when they aren’t low? The hormone leptin can’t do its job. Jorge says “Without enough leptin, your “signaling center” breaks down, and you quickly end up with a traffic jam of food in your body ready to get stored as fat. Where this fat gets deposited depends on your genetics, but most of us start storing it in our midsection. Research published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition confirmed that foods sweetened with fructose, sucrose, glucose, and high-fructose corn syrup all have the same effect on leptin—they fail to produce it. SO think about the fact that high leptin levels cause you to feel full and signal to stop eating. Losing weight too quickly causes leptin levels to fall significantly, and your metabolism slows down. This is the reason that crash diets do not work. Increasing your leptin levels takes time for your body to adjust to the changes. So when you change the way you eat, you aren’t going to get immediate results. As well when you stop drinking diet or regular soda you aren’t going to see any neurological changes in those first short days.

So what to do? When you are going through this change of diet, make your body believe it. First you have to continue to feed it the foods that will produce the right levels of leptin. Second you have to tell yourself that you are choosing the right foods, and that you don’t need that processed junk, and keep doing the above until your body catches on. Make sure over the first six weeks you eat one high calories meal every week to make sure your body doesn’t think it’s being starved. Chemically this will help. Also – get your six to eight hours of sleep!!! Sleeping well keeps leptin in check and cravings under control.

Remember it’s an emotional thing. And the more you delve into your emotionally eating, the more emotions you may uncover. Just keep the positive and go with it. You will find the light at the end of the tunnel. I promise! Write down 10 things that you like about yourself and then keep that list with you. Whenever you feel that rush of emotion coming on, stop and read your list. You’ll find that your emotions may finally stop running the show. Did you hear me? When you find the stresses of life turning into the emotionally eating of today – stop! Tell yourself as many times as you need to that you are smart, you are loved, you are beautiful and you are capable, and eat an apple. In twenty minutes you will feel less emotional and more rational, and besides that, the more you tell yourself these things, the sooner it will be your truth!