#Can losing weight make you happy?
_Shedding those extra pounds and undeniably gives a positive impact on your mood and health. But is losing weight the golden ticket to enter the state of eternal happiness? Not necessarily. While fitting into that skinny jeans or flaunting your flat belly may give you a boost in your confidence levels, it certainly is not that magical all-fix to solve your problems and bring you happiness._
Your weighing scale's numbers are falling and you feel over the moon. Rightly so, because your health is going to change for better especially if you started overweight or obese. Apart from preventing lifestyle diseases like diabetes, high BP, heart problems etc, losing weight also increases your self-esteem, wards …show more content…
A breakdown in the link between your gut and brain causes overeating and obesity.[ref]Mayer, Emeran A. "Gut feelings: the emerging biology of gut–brain communication." Nature Reviews Neuroscience 12, no. 8 (2011): 453-466.[/ref] Research suggests that obesity messes with two hormones: leptin or the 'satiety hormone' and ghrelin or the 'hunger hormone'. These two hormones play an essential role in controlling dopamine, a neurotransmitter that produces feelings of satiety and pleasure.[ref]Singh, Minati. "Mood, food, and obesity." Frontiers in psychology 5 (2014): 925.[/ref]When dopamine is too low, you may not want to eat (only to binge eat later) and when too high, it may leave you with a dopamine hangover (again you reach out for more food). See the vicious cycle of overeating? Serotonin is another neurotransmitter which is responsible for your happy feeling. Eating carbohydrates is supposed to stimulate the secretion of serotonin.[ref]Wurtman, Judith, and Nina T. Frusztajer. The Serotonin Power Diet: Eat Carbs--Nature's Own Appetite Suppressant--to Stop Emotional Overeating and Halt Antidepressant-Associated Weight Gain. Rodale, 2009.[/ref]For those of you who are low-carb diet affiliates, this is bad news: you need carbohydrates (and serotonin, of course) for a healthy weight loss. When serotonin is low, you get stressed and the stress hormone cortisol makes you reach out for comfort foods and thereby impacting your waistline.[ref]Dallman, Mary F., Norman Pecoraro, Susan F. Akana, Susanne E. La Fleur, Francisca Gomez, Hani Houshyar, M. E. Bell, Seema Bhatnagar, Kevin D. Laugero, and Sotara Manalo. "Chronic stress and obesity: a new view of “comfort food”." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 100, no. 20 (2003): 11696-11701.[/ref]To maintain a healthy weight, your serotonin and dopamine levels should be stable. When you try to lose weight with unrealistic goals or by following fad
_Shedding those extra pounds and undeniably gives a positive impact on your mood and health. But is losing weight the golden ticket to enter the state of eternal happiness? Not necessarily. While fitting into that skinny jeans or flaunting your flat belly may give you a boost in your confidence levels, it certainly is not that magical all-fix to solve your problems and bring you happiness._
Your weighing scale's numbers are falling and you feel over the moon. Rightly so, because your health is going to change for better especially if you started overweight or obese. Apart from preventing lifestyle diseases like diabetes, high BP, heart problems etc, losing weight also increases your self-esteem, wards …show more content…
A breakdown in the link between your gut and brain causes overeating and obesity.[ref]Mayer, Emeran A. "Gut feelings: the emerging biology of gut–brain communication." Nature Reviews Neuroscience 12, no. 8 (2011): 453-466.[/ref] Research suggests that obesity messes with two hormones: leptin or the 'satiety hormone' and ghrelin or the 'hunger hormone'. These two hormones play an essential role in controlling dopamine, a neurotransmitter that produces feelings of satiety and pleasure.[ref]Singh, Minati. "Mood, food, and obesity." Frontiers in psychology 5 (2014): 925.[/ref]When dopamine is too low, you may not want to eat (only to binge eat later) and when too high, it may leave you with a dopamine hangover (again you reach out for more food). See the vicious cycle of overeating? Serotonin is another neurotransmitter which is responsible for your happy feeling. Eating carbohydrates is supposed to stimulate the secretion of serotonin.[ref]Wurtman, Judith, and Nina T. Frusztajer. The Serotonin Power Diet: Eat Carbs--Nature's Own Appetite Suppressant--to Stop Emotional Overeating and Halt Antidepressant-Associated Weight Gain. Rodale, 2009.[/ref]For those of you who are low-carb diet affiliates, this is bad news: you need carbohydrates (and serotonin, of course) for a healthy weight loss. When serotonin is low, you get stressed and the stress hormone cortisol makes you reach out for comfort foods and thereby impacting your waistline.[ref]Dallman, Mary F., Norman Pecoraro, Susan F. Akana, Susanne E. La Fleur, Francisca Gomez, Hani Houshyar, M. E. Bell, Seema Bhatnagar, Kevin D. Laugero, and Sotara Manalo. "Chronic stress and obesity: a new view of “comfort food”." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 100, no. 20 (2003): 11696-11701.[/ref]To maintain a healthy weight, your serotonin and dopamine levels should be stable. When you try to lose weight with unrealistic goals or by following fad