Tip The Absolute Worst Time to Eat Search Skip to content Menu Menu follow us Store Articles Community Loyal-T Club Loyal-T Points Rewards Subscribe to Save Search Search The World s Trusted Source & Community for Elite Fitness Diet & Fat LossEating Tip The Absolute Worst Time to Eat Yes you' ll get fat if you eat too much But you' ll get fat even faster if you' re making this very common mistake by Chris Shugart May 19, 2019February 17, 2022 Tags Diet & Fat Loss, Diet Strategy, Dietary Myth Busting, Feeding the Ideal Body, Nutrition & Supplements, Tips Several years ago, Christian Thibaudeau walked into T Nation headquarters and said, "I have a theory that when you're very stressed out, the food you eat is more likely to be stored as body fat." He must've been thinking about that all morning. He's always thinking. As it turns out, new research shows he was right: anxious eating makes you gain fat faster. Some people are stress eaters. They use the drug-like effects of food to distract themselves and calm down. Problem is, these are usually high-calorie foods. No one stress-eats kale. As expected, this leads to fat gain. Now, we've always assumed the fat accumulation occurs because of basic calorie math: the stress eater consumes more than he or she needs and stores the excess energy as excess jiggle. And that's certainly part of it. But there's more. In a recent study, Herbert Herzog, PhD, and his team of nerds overfed two groups of mice: One group was overfed in a stress-free environment. The other group was overfed too, but in an over-stressed environment. Dr. Herzog had them eat while sitting in 5 'o clock traffic and being nagged by their mouse-spouses... or something. (Sorry, the paper wasn't clear how one goes about stressing out a rodent.) As expected, both groups of mice gained fat. But the stressed-out mice got fat faster than the stress-free mice, even though they were consuming the exact SAME number of calories. Hunger is largely controlled by the brain's hypothalamus, while the amygdala is responsible for handing emotional responses, including anxiety. NPY (neuropeptide Y) is one of the brain chemicals that stimulates eating. It's even produced in response to stress: get stressed and you'll often experience false hunger signals. When scientists "switched off" NPY production in the stressed-out mice, their weight gain normalized – they gained the same amount as the unstressed rodents. Turns out the nerve cells that produce NPY have "docking stations" for insulin. Normally, after a meal, insulin is produced to help send the stop-eating signal to the brain. But in the study, the combo of high stress and high-calorie foods lead to insulin levels that were 10 times higher than the levels of the stress-free mice. Prolong this stress and the nerve cells become desensitized to insulin, causing them to crank out NPY. As you'd expect, this leads to overeating, but it also disrupts a body's ability to burn energy through heat. As a result, an overstressed mouse (or human) will store more fat faster if he overeats when anxious. Yes, this was a rodent study, but the human brain and body are the same, at least in this case, as a mousy brain and body. We all have those same brain bits, nerve cells, and neuropeptides. So the message is pretty clear: You'll experience more cravings when you're stressed out. If you eat high-calorie foods in that anxious state of mind, you'll get fat faster. Don't do that. Try to relax and calm down before eating, especially if it's a high-calorie "cheaty" meal. Here's a trick for that: De-Stress and Boost Recovery in 3 Minutes. If Christian Thibaudeau has a theory, he's probably right. Ip CK et al. Amygdala NPY Circuits Promote the Development of Accelerated Obesity under Chronic Stress Conditions. Cell Metab. 2019 Jul 2;30(1):111-128.e6. Get The T Nation Newsletters Don' t Miss Out Expert Insights To Get Stronger, Gain Muscle Faster, And Take Your Lifting To The Next Level related posts Supplements Tip The Breakfast and Dinner Trick Want to prevent fat gain once you've leaned up? Give these two protocols a shot. C3G, Carb Control, Diet Strategy, Nutrition & Supplements, Tips Michael Warren June 6 Eating A Tasty Snack That Repairs DNA Research finds that simply eating a certain snack food will probably help you avoid some of the worst diseases and possibly extend your life. TC Luoma July 18 Supplements Tip A Vitamin for Headaches A Drug For Sociopaths Science reveals a new way to prevent headaches. Plus the common headache drug to avoid so you don't act like a douche nozzle. Nutrition & Supplements, Super Health, Tips, Vitamin D Chris Shugart July 16 Supplements Bedtime Story About halfway through the night your body runs out of muscle-building fuel and leaves you in a catabolic state. Here’s what you can do about it. Nutrition & Supplements, Performance Proteins, Protein John Berardi, PhD March 1