Weight Control Help

First in this series

Is Peace Possible?

This article is about weight control help and other behaviors, such as smoking, drinking, some of which are addictive.

It seems nearly everyone's dream is to lose weight. It also seems that nearly every physician's, writer's, and spouse's dream is to know the right thing to say to motivate someone to lose weight. The good news that I have is that you can quit looking for the motivational phrase. Weight control isn't a motivation problem, and nothing you say is likely to motivate someone for more than a day. Effective weight control is actually a very complex problem, and the failure involves misconceptions about the solution being simple, guilt and failure that turn healthy attitudes into demotivating attitudes, and knowing what to implement.

Most people are already motivated to lose weight. The difficulty with weight loss. Removing obstacles Implementation Challenge

Most people are already motivated to lose weight. We all want to look great, feel great, be sexy, have better health, and live longer. If weight control was in a pill, we would happily grab five or six pills a day - we think about food constantly - while physicians are lucky to get patients to take one pill a day. Wanting to lose weight, and being willing are already in place. People get demoralized about weight control, and have very conflicted feelings. They try it, and the results are unsatisfactory. They lose weight, and then gain it back. As their metabolism slows over the years, or through carrying less weight, it takes harder dieting to lose. Usually people's appetites only slowly follow their declining metabolism, so they continuously gain weight. People also often have unrealistic pictures of their real body. They have fixed in their minds the slight teenage body they had, and are unaware that a mature body broadens as it gets older. Achieving teen proportions is usually a futile struggle.

The difficulty with weight loss. Everyone would have victory over weight loss if it was a simple problem of a battle with food. Battles last a day or so, and we could battle food for the day, and at the end of the day we could all raise our swords in victory. Wars can rage on interminably. Each day we are faced numberous meals. No time to get food. No one to plan menus in hectic schedule - no one may even want to. No money to buy proper food or weight loss food. Eating is a social function - constant gatherings for food, whether employment related or family gatherings. Community practices vary, are learned, and become social customs and habits. For example, farm meals: big, and big evening meals. Doesn't work well for city living - big meal just sits there and becomes fuel for fat. Food, like tobacco and alcohol, is a sedative. People use it to calm themselves. They snack under stress and out of boredom, and then feel bad about themselves. They overeat at meals. There are many learned behaviors about food habits learned from community. Fast food and junk food are highly available and extremely high in calories. Three to five times a day, day after day, month after month, year after year is this unrelenting pressure to eat food, and food is readily available. And the hectic pace of life and the obstacles life brings you constantly derail your plans. You no sooner set up something effective, than it gets disrupted, and stressful eating takes its place: you move, or the cat dies, or you have to work overtime so you can neither go to exercise class or pay attention to diet - life always brings changes. Life goes on - we all have to find effective strategies for controlling our lives through times of change that always come.

The sad reality is that with the bad feelings that go with food, the unrelenting pressure of meals, the lack of time and money, the lack of knowledge about how to implement menus and effective strategies for getting around problems, and repeated diet failures, people are simply overwhelmed by the prospect of controlling weight. Weight control sits on the back burner, and no motivational speech is going to push it to the front for more than a few days. Motivation is not the problem. Willpower is not the problem. Bad people are not the problem. Underestimating the complexity of the problem, overcoming bad feelings, and finding effective strategies for coping are the problems.

Removing obstacles. We have a love/hate relationship with food. We need it, we enjoy it, but with every bite we usually remember that it is making us look bad and killing us. We are sick of yo-yo dieting. We don't want to think about dieting. We don't want to think about menus, and don't have time. We need food that is quick and easy to prepare, but meets our nutritional needs, without costing a bucket full of money. We think about food many times a day - and the last thing that we want to think more about is food. Science tells us one thing one day, and a few months or years later reverses its thought. Eggs are bad, no eggs are good. Sacharine (a sugar substitute) is bad, no sacharine is good. Salt is bad, no salt is OK. (One in four people are salt sensitive, and the salt raises blood pressure.) Caffein is bad, no caffein is OK. Carbohydrates are good and protein and fat are bad, no carbohydrates are bad and protein and fat are OK. Refined sugar makes people hyper and rots their teeth out. Some things don't change. But I know kids who grew up eating sacks of candy only for meals, and they grew up just fine. What the truth is, everyone reacts differently to different types of food. Some even have debilitating allergies to various foods that others can consume in huge quantities. I have reacted with hives to both ham and strawberries, in large quantities. I love sweets, but don't do sugar very well - changes in consumption consistently gives me blemishes and at bedtime makes me hyper.

The sad truth about consuming too few calories each day is that it sets us up for weight loss failure. The body responds to diminished calories by conserving fat. Many dieters have become discouraged when their hard efforts were rewarded with either no weight loss, or weight gain. And carbohydrates, which have been pushed by many dieticians for years, increase water retention in many people as well as making them feel sluggish.

Implementation: No single method is right for everyone. Eating habits vary, (I have to eat something before bed, or I am awake all night, despite trying all of the tricks), metabolisms vary, dietary needs vary, Response to food varies, exercise varies... Some want social interaction (buddy system), some are more independent. Accountability and support help most people to stay on a diet (Weight Watchers, friends, spouse). Menus, easy diets (Weight Watchers, Body Type, Blood Type (re: alergies), Atkins). Assistance from others through this study. The body can turn anything into fat, fuel, or muscle.

Challenge. We all need help, myself included. Submit what has worked for you to overcome some weight loss problem, to this Web site. Additionally, send or or more favorite menu items. These will be posted on this Web site. Confidentiality is assured (your name will be signed in the form of Firstname L. Challenge: find one thing from these results that you think might help you overcome a problem. Try it for 30 days. By that time, it will either have worked and become an effective part of your life, or you can stop doing it. Report your findings to this Web site. Results will be statistically analyzed and reported on this Web site. Use the questionaire so I can gather information for statistical analysis.

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