Like denial we also blame others for why we are overweight and can't lose weight.
We blame our parents or grandparents, children, stress, finances, government, news media, bullies in school, health problems and whatever else we can rather than face the most likely culprit of us being overweight.
Unless someone is force feeding you (whch typically requires a feeding tube and trust me it's hard to get fat getting your nutrients in a tube), there's only one person that has control over wehat goes into your mouth and digestive system.
You.
When I was very overweight and miserable, I blamed all kinds of people and things for my being overweight and miserable. My parents, for keeping me on a low calorie, low fat diet even when I wasn't overweight, the media for promoting all kinds of fad and fast weight loss "diets" that really didn't work, to doctors for not giving me a pill that help me magically lose the weight, my health conditions which made exercising supposedly impossible (ha!), to the news media that consistently gave out bad health information,
Everythig else but me.
And what I learned, years later after getting healthy again, is that I was the one to blame. Me. No one else. Nothing else. I ate too much. I ate the wrong things. I hated cooking so bought all kinds of fast food and ate out alot. I had terrible eating habits, though not all that bad, what I ate was still bad. I had given up on losing weight so I may as well eat what I want.
It took being 350 lbs, so totally miserable and depressed and in serious pain from fibromyalgia to finally realize I needed to change. Desperation.
Even setting off on my course to losing weight, it took me a long time before I could even recognize and accept the blame for my weight and how many years I wasted ignoring it. I'm not even sure I would have been open to ths message:
You are the problem and the one to blame for being overweight.
Say this. Embrace it. Accept it. It's a necessary start. Once you do, you are one step down the path toward working on fixing your issues. Next up, is to figure out how to fix it.
And in today's world of information available at your finger tips, there's no excuse to not find great reading on how to lose weight and get healthy. The information is out there. It's up to you to put it to use. I'll be putting tips here too that I've found on my journey.
Next up: Excuses
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Health "facts" truth-a-meter #1: Number of fat cells
So this week, I heard 3 health related "facts" that I made me wonder, "is that really true?" So in the form of a truth-o-meter, I will dive into some of these every now and then as it really annoys me how much people take what they hear or read as "gospel" and don't question the truth or go research it a bit to see if it's actually true. With Internet, Bing and Google, there's no excuse other than laziness and denial.
A big part of my weight loss journey, especially in the past 18 months or so, has been spent researching, reading, questioning, pondering, and trying to get a better understanding of metabolism and not only have my body works, but the body in general.
Fortunately, we have Google and Bing nowadays and can look up so much information on this.
Unfortunately, we have Google and Bing and there is a TON of misleading and sometimes outright wrong information out there, including actual so-called "medical studies".
So I do not believe everything I read and dive into the actual medical studies that were done, how the studies were done, etc. because this really does matter. Even then, new studies can make older studies obsolete or prove them wrong. Thus, it helps to keep looking, and to keep an open mind.
So 3 things for fact-checking. I will tackle just one today on "fat cells".
"When you've been so very overweight and then lost the weight, you still have more fat cells and that makes it easier to regain weight and you have to work harder with diet and exercise to keep weight off"
I had to go look into this. Did I ruin my body forever by being overweight for so long?
True or false? Depends but more toward being false.
If you are obese as a child, when fat cells are forming and growing as you head toward adulthood, then you might end up with more fat cells but not necessarily. Thisk, among many other reasons about auto-immune conditions, setting up good eating habits and knowledge, etc. is why it is important to eat well and healthy and exercise as a child.
As a adult who then became obese (more typical), no. You do not add more fat cells when you gain weight. You just fill the ones you have. When you lose weight, you empty them.
Fat cells do die off and get recreated, but the total humber does not change.
Link to this:
http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080505/full/news.2008.800.html
Two questions I will dive into later are:
If we could just get leptin injections, it would be much easier to keep weight off when you lose it.
And:
Red meat takes longer to digest which is why we shouldn't eat so much of it.
A big part of my weight loss journey, especially in the past 18 months or so, has been spent researching, reading, questioning, pondering, and trying to get a better understanding of metabolism and not only have my body works, but the body in general.
Fortunately, we have Google and Bing nowadays and can look up so much information on this.
Unfortunately, we have Google and Bing and there is a TON of misleading and sometimes outright wrong information out there, including actual so-called "medical studies".
So I do not believe everything I read and dive into the actual medical studies that were done, how the studies were done, etc. because this really does matter. Even then, new studies can make older studies obsolete or prove them wrong. Thus, it helps to keep looking, and to keep an open mind.
So 3 things for fact-checking. I will tackle just one today on "fat cells".
"When you've been so very overweight and then lost the weight, you still have more fat cells and that makes it easier to regain weight and you have to work harder with diet and exercise to keep weight off"
I had to go look into this. Did I ruin my body forever by being overweight for so long?
True or false? Depends but more toward being false.
If you are obese as a child, when fat cells are forming and growing as you head toward adulthood, then you might end up with more fat cells but not necessarily. Thisk, among many other reasons about auto-immune conditions, setting up good eating habits and knowledge, etc. is why it is important to eat well and healthy and exercise as a child.
As a adult who then became obese (more typical), no. You do not add more fat cells when you gain weight. You just fill the ones you have. When you lose weight, you empty them.
Fat cells do die off and get recreated, but the total humber does not change.
Link to this:
http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080505/full/news.2008.800.html
Two questions I will dive into later are:
If we could just get leptin injections, it would be much easier to keep weight off when you lose it.
And:
Red meat takes longer to digest which is why we shouldn't eat so much of it.
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Looking for fast weight loss? Move along!
One of the biggest issues with obesity here in the U.S. is everyone is looking for the quick and easy fix to losing weight, as fast as possible, without alot of work, and damn the consequences of such a feat, assuming it even works to begin with. Or if it does work, it doesn't work for long as it's really hard to keep the weight off again once you lost it.
Losing weight in a healthy manner so that you not just lose the weight, but also learn how to keep it off for good takes time, patience, diligence, and most likely a dramatic change in your habits that will take time to implement and adjust to.
Yet instead, people look to fad diets, pills, injections, and even things as dramatic as permanent body-altering surgery to fix their eating and weight issues.
Everyone knows someone, even themselves, that "just couldn't lose weight no matter how hard they tried."
Bullshit. (And I dont' swear hardly ever).
Until you're willing to look within and fix the problems that made you gain weight to begin with, you will not be able to lose the weight and keep it off.
No weight loss program will work with it.
How do I know this? I was once there myself. And then lost 175 pounds without any fad diets, pills, surgery, or doctor's help.
So if you're looking for tips for losing that 25, 50 or 100 pounds or more of fat as fast as possible, this isn't the place you're going to find them. What you will find here are healthy tips and advice to change your life and habits so that the weight comes off slowly and permanently and in a healthy manner so that it stays off and you feel great as a result.
Losing weight in a healthy manner so that you not just lose the weight, but also learn how to keep it off for good takes time, patience, diligence, and most likely a dramatic change in your habits that will take time to implement and adjust to.
Yet instead, people look to fad diets, pills, injections, and even things as dramatic as permanent body-altering surgery to fix their eating and weight issues.
Everyone knows someone, even themselves, that "just couldn't lose weight no matter how hard they tried."
Bullshit. (And I dont' swear hardly ever).
Until you're willing to look within and fix the problems that made you gain weight to begin with, you will not be able to lose the weight and keep it off.
No weight loss program will work with it.
How do I know this? I was once there myself. And then lost 175 pounds without any fad diets, pills, surgery, or doctor's help.
So if you're looking for tips for losing that 25, 50 or 100 pounds or more of fat as fast as possible, this isn't the place you're going to find them. What you will find here are healthy tips and advice to change your life and habits so that the weight comes off slowly and permanently and in a healthy manner so that it stays off and you feel great as a result.
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