It may seem completely unbelievable; but the truth is that food does not make you fat. Of course, we’ve all been told that eating fat makes you fat or eating sugar makes you fat; But this is simply not true, and on some level, you already know that this is the case. In fact, I proposed a book called “The Dunkin ‘Donuts Diet,” in which I describe many of the points that I have been talking about for several years, including the fact that I lost 55 pounds without giving up one of my favorite treats: Dunkin ‘Donuts. But I’ll give you the secrets right now, in condensed form.

To begin with, everything you eat is made of molecules; and molecules are made of atoms. All your body needs to make fat is hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and a reason to make fat. Fats are hydrocarbons; and the materials for these are readily available in virtually any diet. Your body breaks down the food you eat and then uses the materials it needs (or thinks it needs) in the way it thinks it needs. A fit person eats a box of donuts and has a result; while an unfit person eats the same donuts and gains weight, for example. We have all seen this happen. But why does it happen?

Stress is the main reason people get fat; in fact, it’s really the only reason. For those of you who think you need to eat fat to get fat, consider ice cream, butter, and fat-marbled steaks. You think you have to eat things like that to get fat; But the steak fat, as well as the milk fat in butter and ice cream, were made by a cow that lived on grass and water, not steak and ice cream. The same is true of the largest mammals on the planet. Although some gorillas eat meat, they mainly follow a vegetarian diet; and gorillas are very big and very strong. There is much more to the story of fat than just the food we eat.

What you believe about your body and the foods you eat has much more to do with how your body processes and stores those foods. If you look fat, or if you see food as something threatening that could make you fat, it is very likely that you are fat no matter what you eat. How does this work? Well, cortisol, which is a stress hormone, is the chemical that helps your body turn undigested food into fat for storage. Whenever you are stressed, your body slows down or stops digestion and produces chemicals, such as cortisol, to treat undigested food and store it in a form that can be used later in case you need it.

Fat production also serves other purposes. Stress is a potential threat; And fat production provides a layer of protection between you and your enemies, making you appear bigger or less attractive to them. Grease also insulates you from the elements and protects you from falls and other impacts. When your body is threatened, even if the threat is only in your mind, stress is the natural response. And fat production provides a solution to several threats at once, in addition to dealing with the undigested food you carry in your digestive system.

If you think food makes you fat, it probably will. There is a biblical saying, “As a man thinks, so it is done to him”, which speaks of this phenomenon; and industrialist Henry Ford echoed the same sentiment when he said, “If you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right either way.” What you think will happen, one way or another, so don’t make food an enemy. Visualize yourself healthy and fit; and accepting food: it is an experience to be enjoyed, not to be feared or indulged in excess. There’s nothing wrong with eating a donut, in other words, unless you think so.