Last night we watched yet again another documentary surrounding the battle of weight loss. The film touched on the notion of why it is so hard for some people to lose weight. This topic of conversation is quite intriguing to me because for years now experts still have not been able to come up with a 'solution' to the psychological triggers that keep people fat.
Let me first point out for those who are new readers that I too overcame the battle to lose weight, now while I was not obese, losing is losing correct? Here I am at my heaviest weighing 155 lbs. I actually was on the Kolb Farm when this picture was taken doing my usual love of walking through the wilderness but look how chubby I was then. My stomach was overflowing, love handles and muffin top galore, my face looks swollen, probably from salt and sugar intake and I just didn't feel like myself. After I looked at myself in this very picture I knew I had to get back in shape.
Now after many miles of running, changing my diet, drinking more water and green tea in addition to being conscious about my over all health I dropped 20 lbs and I'm still working on the last 5 or so. I never realized how quickly you can add weight to your frame just living day in and day out as usual. What I attribute to my weight gain was frequent trips out to lunch with co-workers opposed to brown bagging, not drinking enough water, not pushing myself during exercise and only doing the bare minimum when I did work out, picking up candy at the office candy bowl every time I passed it, consuming foods with high fructose corn syrup, heavy whipping cream, lots of butter, sugar, loaded potato's and lastly eating white breads, sugars and pasta. Now I am down to 135 and subtracting. ☺ I look better, feel better, run faster and I am never going back to that woman in the above picture again.
A woman featured in the film really touched my heart when she explained that one day she found herself crying in her car and feeling sorry for herself because she was lonely and overweight. A couple of guys walked by and started making fun of her, one exclaiming "Oh she is just crying because she's fat!" Now while this hurt her feelings, it was in fact true, she was unhappy being overweight and now she is half her previous body weight, works out everyday for 3 hours and watches what she eats.
Let's also point out for some, the psychological triggers are a bigger issue than the food itself. People eat to pacify their true hurts whether it be loneliness, a loss love, unhappy on the job, unhappy at home etc. In order to lose the weight AND keep it off the person must first deal with why they are overeating. Truth be told when a person loses weight, they don't actually lose fat, it doesn't disappear, instead the fat cells simply shrink. Therefore if you are not taking care of the root of your issue those cells are simply there awaiting your next emotional episode/breakdown to grow in size again. Surely there are those that are 'predisposed' to obesity and ailments like diabetes thanks to their genes, but I am of the school of thought that we as a human race can erradicate some of these diseases if each person made a change today. So for example although I was born to a mother and maternal lineage with a rampant past of diabetics I can start living a healthy lifestyle and teach my children to do the same. If they never engaged in an unhealthy lifestyle and then birthed children who lived the same way and so on, over time the families genetic predispostion would change and/or lessen. This is how humans were able to breed in or out certain characteristics and traits they wanted in a particular dog species. It's the same principle. Now while I'm no scientist this just makes sense to me but you may beg to differ.
Interestingly enough there are those people that are traditionally overweight, visually speaking, yet by the doctors standard they are healthy. You can have person A who works out everyday, eats healthy foods and will still end up dying from something like cancer. Then you have person B who eats unhealthy foods, is overweight yet will live a long life disease free. So what gives? It's not as simple as eat right to live long now is it?
I am also aware that there are a lot of environmental factors that play into why American's are so overweight namely steroids and pesticides in foods, ample fast food chains, inexpensive extra large value meals, cut backs on children's physical extracurricular activities, parents having to work multiple jobs, underemployment, unemployment, savvy advertisements, genetics, clever marketing schemes such as mood lighting, music and attractive person in the food ads also selling sex.
Can weight loss really be an issue of mind over matter? I think so, what about you?
Thoughts are welcomed ☺
As always Love for Self Love for Health™, Lipstick Diva
