Rats show shizzy diets directly impact fat and laziness

September 1, 2016 Ashley 0 Comments

“Fat and lazy”

I’ve heard this phrase utilized to describe many a person in the past – almost like a double defect of character some people just innately have. As if they were just born that way. Not only is someone chubby, but they’re so unmotivated that they won’t even do anything to mitigate their situation. Why is it so hard for porky people to just change? It’s obviously because we’re just disgusting if we let ourselves go, right? Well, it’d be easy to sit up here on my massive stallion built of green eating and constant aerobic activity and look down my nose at the flabby, unmotivated fatties of the world for having not one but two terrible detracting factors. It would be. That’s, if I hadn’t been there myself for a period of my life (in my own way, which I’ll imminently get to). And, now, science has confirmed what I and many others have learned when we erred from health – that fatness and laziness aren’t just wicked sisters we let loiter in our systems for funsies. No.

Rather, what they’ve observed is that one often summons the other – that being fat can make you lazy.

Too lazy to change.

“Ummm… In other news, water’s wet.”

Okay, okay. Lemme rephrase that – because it might seem obvious that being fat would make you lazy.

Rather, it’s about what makes you fat.

It’s about what we, as a culture, are gulping down.

And this isn’t just restricted to hominid kind. In fact, some recent research done with lab rats culminated in results that confirm just what an addictive, vicious cycle being fat and being lazy are. And it’s not just about overeating, either. It’s about the non-quality most people (or rodents in this case) are munching to yield obesity for themselves: processed foods. See, the mice were divided into two groups: one feasting on normal, whole foods – and another, with a la carte blanche to the most popular items sitting in Fat-merica’s kitchen cupboard: sugar and flour, “veggie oil” (which typically isn’t remotely produce based, nearly eleventy hundred percent of the time), random additives, preservatives, and all those hyperpalatable flavorings that make you come back for more when you’ve already eaten enough to bypass “food fetus” status and land your azz in “massively malignant gastric food tumor” territory.

The results?

Proof that the kinda food you eat is what’s making your fitspiration and life-spiration alike dwindle:

They found that after two weeks on this diet, the Cafeteria rats lost motivation to do tasks and appeared unresponsive to normal sensory cues about what to eat.

And the interesting thing?

Getting fat had nada to do with fat in the food itself.

In fact, after the math was tallied up, it was deduced that only about 33% of the diet was fat based. You wanna know what was missing though? Sufficient protein, and healthy carbs (while unhealthy, simple sugars like you’d find in your snack foods and sodas were plentiful). That means that a low fat diet can still lead to corpulence and torpor. Why? Because processed food ruins not only metabolism, but it also makes you want to eat more of the crap food making you package up fat.

But the worse bit of all was what happened in a similar experiment – when they switched up the diets:

Researchers then switched the diets of the two groups. The rats in the original processed-food group didn’t lose weight or show improvement in the lever-pressing task. This observation led to the theory that a diet of processed foods has a direct effect on the chemistry of the brain that isn’t quickly reversed and is manifested through lethargy.

Now, that’s downright scary. I’ve always heard of fake food acting like a drug that hijacks the brain. And I’ve always felt it to be true. But this just adds a whole novel level to it. After long enough on drive through food whose ingredients’ve collectively gone through the chemical ringer, you don’t just become unhealthy. You don’t just have fat hanging from your limbs. You don’t just get fatigued from a case of the post-lunch “itis”. Your actual brain chemistry changes. Just like a drug addict’s. And it’s almost as detrimental on a functional level, inasmuch as it makes you not only physically unfit to complete daily activities. It also makes you lose the desire to do them, act on your passions, or do anything to alter your situation for the better. And that’s why losing weight’s so hard for obese people accustomed to crappy, unnatural diets.

It changes your brain, lights up the same dopamine reward system, and de-motivates you.

(Snack smack in action.)

I’m lucky. I’ve fallen out of healthy habits, but I’ve never been so far gone (on food, at least), that I had to struggle for months before even a glimmer of inspiration was felt. But, now that I realize just how similar processed food is to drugs, I can confirm for a fact that I can relate. Getting off pharmaceuticals was the hardest part of being alive I’ve ever experienced. And, now it’s clear that eating chemicals is exactly like that – whether we get ’em from CVS’s drive through, or McD’s. They both turn us unmotivated and lazy. It’s just that one of them comes with a blubbery bonus that can’t be hidden in a medicine cabinet or bloodshot eyes blamed on on stress.

The hope?

That much like any addiction, it’s totally overcome-able (word I just made up) via a strong support system of like-minded weight-lossers who’ve both been there and come out the other side svelte (or, ya know, at least healthy, happy, and liking life). Sure, a chemically infused, malicious meal plan can and will change your brain and body alike for the worse. And it’s painfully toilsome to even fathom changing that. But we – any of us – can if we want to. All it takes is one trip to the right meeting (be it Overeaters Anon, Weight Watchers, or even a Zumba class) and that cerebral cycle already starts to lose its power over you.

So, this is for you – whoever you are – who’s been dubbed tubby and idle in the past.

That’s not who you are.

And this isn’t lip service. I mean it from the bottom of my heart which sank just reading this research. How you feel – this lack of motivation – isn’t who you are as a person. It’s a direct effect of the delicious, tongue tantalizing, totally fatal un-foods you’ve been feasting on. Change that (with a whole food, mostly plant based diet), and speak frequently to others who’ve done the same (via support of some sort), survived, and now thrive… and the rest will change too. Including your mind. I promise.

You are not fat and lazy.

All it takes is the tiniest step in the right direction to prove wrong anyone who’s ever said that you are.