Genetics and evolution. No I'm not talking about fat genes. I'm talking about the evolution of urges (hunger) to enhance the survival of our species.
Consider this, our species has existed through many famines. What do famines do? Famines kill off skinny people, while fat people live longer, and everyone experiences fast weight loss when they are starving.
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If this is like you, measuring your waist is a scary thing to do, and chances are may leave you unhappy and maybe even disgusted with yourself. It's handy to know however, that our ability to put on weight may be the reason why our ancestors survived, and therefore be the reason why we were ever born |
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People who didn't have the urge to keep eating while food was plentiful, simply died out as the famines hit, by not having enough food stored in their body to withstand continued and fast weight loss.
So most of us have a strong biological urge to eat. What do we love eating? The high energy foods - fat and sugar, our taste buds relish and adore them.
So if you think you can lose weight and keep the weight off easily, you're most likely not being sensible. Your body craves food, that's how our species has survived this long.
Diet pills and stomach stapling bring about fast weight loss by minimizing the urge to eat.
The second biological urge, to conserve body food, is what many people refer to as lazy or lacking exercise. What we now know, is that people who are constantly exercising either through work or fidgeting or what ever, tend to be skinny as well, but likewise, throw a famine their way, and they are the ones who will most likely die again. So those that don't spend masses of body energy, those who become fat, are the ones who are most likely to survive a famine.
The best way round these lazy desires, is to deliberately replace lazy attitudes with dynamic, life giving ones. Think "wow, something to help keep me healthy and alive" when confronted with physical work, instead of "oh crap, something else to do", and certainly involve other people to help you change - the movie stars often hire professional trainers, perhaps you could do e.g. a daily jog with a loved one, friend or pet. Fast weight loss can be achieved and maintained, you just got to do it right!
So we fat people are genetically and biologically adapted to survival through our strong urges to eat and not exercise. We are built to withstand fast and prolonged weight loss.
Our bodies, without famine, become too fat for too long, and that causes heaps of biological and metabolic problems.
Without famines, our bodies are not kept in check. We need those periods of prolonged and fast weight loss to restore our body.
Sure you can use will power to stop eating for a while, or to curb eating, but have you ever noticed that if anything rocks the boat emotionally, the urges are allowed to run amock? That's because your will power, an act of the intellectual brain over the bodily urges, is weakened when the intellect is absorbed in another direction to losing weight.
Even exercising can be suppressed as you think and ponder about a relationship gone sour or a loved one who has died.
What got me motivated and geared up for fast weight loss, was when my health went to pot as a result of obesity, and the specialist thought I was too far gone to correct my failing health. Fortunately, and by accident, I went wholeheartedly for the fastest fast weightloss regime I could come up with.
That misfortune turned out to be a God's end for me. If I wanted to live in good health, I had to lose weight and lose it permanently - didn't realise the fast weight loss was actually healing me of the metabolic syndrome and prediabetes, simply by virtue of it being FAST weight loss.
It was the kick up my pants I needed, to take my need for weight loss seriously.
Up until that point, I would start and stop weight loss diets and exercise programs, forget about weight loss goals, as the overwhelming desire to eat took control.
Unfortunately, after about a year or two of real fast weight loss, my mother died, I hit that magical number of 50 years old and everything was occupying my mind. My intellect, diverted into many other highly emotionally charged things, was unable to control my eating behavour at the same time, and I gained the weight back.
It is NOT comfort eating, though some may genuinely do that, it's eating because we are hungry, because we are reminded of our hunger.
Realise that there will likely be times when things just don't go right, and that the diet you are on may fail, but think about each failure and see if you can work out a solution for all or each one of them, and then incorporate those tactics in your next fast weight loss diet plan.
Having someone to support you is really important to, but realise above all else, that fast weight loss failure does not mean poor will power, or that you lack self control, dwelling on those attitudes can divert your intellect from your fast weight loss goals, which means you may possibly put on even more weight.
As a fully trained and registered psychologist myself, I read alot and keep up to date with current weight loss information. One such weight loss information - the bit about biological urges to eat and be lazy, I found an article in Heart and Health Wise, Vol 39 - a weight loss clinic medical doctor had written the article, and it made beautiful sense to me - so simple, yet so true.