Extreme Fear

Also, let's not forget that increases in metabolism can adversely affect cravings.

Just consider (at least on an anecdotal level), all those computer programmers that fuel their creativity with piles of junk food and soda. Many of these people really do feel a greater sense of mental productivity while they're sucking down the sugar (despite the trade-off that sugar crashes present).

If there is a mental approach to losing weight, it would probably be more along the lines of tantric meditation.

But doing taxes really takes only a small fraction of your mental capacity.

Activities that really could drain the maximum brain power could be a piano virtuoso playing his instrument with an orchestra, or Einstein playing his violin at the end of the day, his brain simultaneously still sorting out the relation between E, M and C.

Also, people that I think of as creative, gifted and hardworking brainusers, don't really have problems with their weight. But when I think of those who enjoy watching the TV, which is the same as turning off your brain, then a different image appears..

It's only a small portion of the brain that does the calculus or writes the code. Go measure the psychotherapists' brains (they do calculus on emotions). Or top tennis players' or a top chess players'. Think of brain as not some stupid calculator but as the origin of our emotions, energy (sic!) and intuition based on a huge amount of knowledge and experience. And doing that brain is what thinking is.

People that are not in a professional level in some brain-draining business often cannot harness their brains efficiently. That is, they cannot think really, really hard. It's hard to think of an activity where they could systematically succeed in trying to.

I feel as if I am not understanding the total scope of this post. I understand that psychosomatic events can occur, but how can you compare the fatigue of a muscle due to a build up of lactic acid to a desire to stop thinking?