(Don’t) Let them eat cake.

The Golden Gals were notorious for their late-night grubbing.

Are you the kind of person that turns to a spoon and a pint of ice cream when you’re depressed?  Do you eat half of a cheesecake when you’re feeling sorry for yourself?  Do you drown your sorrows in a tube of cookie dough when you’ve had a bad day?  Why do I ask?  Because I have a feeling many of you do.  And why do many of you turn to food when you’re in a funk?  I have no scientific evidence to prove what I’m about to point out, but I will tell you where I think women are learning this gloomy grubbing.

Fran, drowning her sorrows in a tub of ice cream.

Just turn on your TV.  Flip on a show or a movie with at least one female character and you’ll see why I have come up with this hypothesis.  I might be dating myself a little here, but growing up, I watched the ‘Golden Girls’ constantly gossiping over hundreds of  decadent cheesecakes, and ‘The Nanny’ constantly kvetching while shoveling spoonfuls of ice cream down her throat.  Even today you can catch at least one woman, on every episode, on every show, drowning her sorrows in food.  And it’s funny…right?  Well, I’m not laughing.  What a horrible example this is setting for the female population.  Television executives have created this disturbing formula (women counteracting a bad experience with an overload of calories), and women are blindly following it.  Well, I’m putting my foot (and my spoon) down!  I will not tolerate this obesity- causing formula any longer!

The next time you feel like crap, go for a walk, do a crossword puzzle, read a book, listen to a Rick Astley song, watch one of my desir80s videos…do anything other than head for the fridge or pantry for a session of gloomy grubbing.  I know it’s not always easy, but try to do something to get your endorphins pumping or distract your mind from the sad thoughts that are in there.  It takes 3 positive thoughts to outweigh 1 negative thought.  Focus in on those positive thoughts instead of drowning that negative thought in sugar.  A sugar coated negative thought is like a chocolate-covered piece of leather, once the chocolate’s gone, your just going to be chewing on leather.

Another downside of dwelling on the negative…it could shorten your life!  (Click here for a quick synopsis of a study done at Harvard on this topic.)

My dad, always happy to wake up in the morning!

So, next time you’re in a funk.  Think of 3 good things that you experienced that day.  It doesn’t have to be anything elaborate.For instance, whenever I ask my dad what’s new, he always responds with “I got up in the morning.”  Well, that, my friends, is a VERY positive thing, so now all you need is 2 more things and you can combat your funk with fortitude instead of fork-titude.

Challenge: Count how many times you see a sad or angry woman on TV turning to her fridge for comfort this week.

**Science side note:

A small study was done in Italy showing that levels of ghrelin (appetite-stimulating hormone) increased for 2 hours after people ate their favorite foods.

Sounds like the beginning of a vicious cycle to me!