There are many, many reasons why weight loss isn’t easy. Most of us know already that changing life-long habits is difficult, eating food that’s healthy for us but which we don’t particularly like doesn’t work long term, will power is not enough and so on. And yet, so many of us continue to wish for it, or more than than, put our lives on hold waiting for the weight to disappear. I’ll buy that dress I really like when I lose a few kilos; I’d do dancing classes when my knees are better (after I’ve lost weight), I’d be braver, sexier, more confident, more [insert your word here] if only I was my ideal weight.
Let me be blunt with you…it’s rubbish! In some instances it’s even the opposite – if we were being sexier, braver, a dancer, etc, then we would lose the weight!
But that’s not what I wanted to discuss today. I wanted to discuss one of the reasons why it’s difficult to lose weight.
Firstly, you may already know that the “environment” we live in is very influential on our behaviour. By environment I mean the people we hang out with, the conversations we have, the education and media we are exposed to and so on. In our Western modern world, our environment does not encourage taking responsibility for our own wellbeing or being healthy. For example the number of advertisements on TV for processed or junk foods far exceeds the number of ads for healthy fruits and vegetables. Another example is that overweight and obesity are treated by doctors with medications that manipulate our biochemistry to try and minimise the effects our unhealthy lifestyle choices are having on us. A third example is that the industries that support cheap, mass produced food (farmers, food manufacturers, etc) prefer that you eat highly processed, high fat, high sugar foods as these are easy to manufacture and are inherently the most profitable.
So with all that “environmental” pressure against us, it’s no wonder our nation is getting fatter and fatter.
Counteracting this negative influence is relatively simple but not easy. Here are some of the suggestions made by people who have “woken up” to the negativity:
- Minimise or eliminate television viewing
- Watch informative documentaries that raise your awareness of what’s really happening in the food world. Examples are Food Matters, Food Inc., Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, Vanishing of the Bees, etc
- Do a course in nutrition. There are lots of online or college courses where you can do anything from a 6 week course to a full degree
- Avoid diet books
- Use your common sense. The closer the food is to it’s natural, original state, the better it will be for you
- Get a health coach who can help you work through your individual issues and provide you with resources that will educate and empower you to achieve your goal weight
Watch this space. I’ll be adding to the list of reasons why weight loss isn’t easy so stand by!
