Make Weight Loss Easy, not Impossible

"You want to lose weight but since you have been unable to achieve any positive results you have given up hope of ever returning to your weight of younger days. After years of trying every diet that has come along, after spending countless hours in the Gym, after seeking out Doctors who prescribed you medication that they promised would work, you have resigned yourself to always being overweight. If this describes where you are, or where you will soon be, then it is most likely that your inability to lose weight has more to do with what has been holding you back than with what you have been doing wrong. It is time to stop blaming yourself for your failure to lose weight and start addressing the real reasons that are keeping you fat.

What is all too common today is that just about everyone begins gaining weight shortly after leaving high school. It starts as a few pounds gained every year between Thanksgiving and New Year's. When you were younger it was pretty easy to shed the Holiday weight before summer with a little diet and exercise. But every year it becomes more and more difficult until you get to where you never quite lose as much as you gain. You start adding five or so pounds a year until you are in your thirties and you weigh close to double what you once did. Then one day you look into the mirror and see someone that you do not recognize.

How has this happened? Why have you gained so much weight? Your parents were never overweight like you are when they were the same age. You did all the right things that you were supposed to do to lose weight. Every new year you tried the latest diet and committed yourself to exercising harder than in previous years. You even spent countless hours researching how to best lose weight by reading the latest diet books and by clipping articles from fitness magazines. The information seemed to make sense so you made the extra effort to cook healthy balanced meals and exercise the recommended 30 minutes each day. So why do you now weigh at least a hundred pounds more than what you desire?

If the preceding sounds all too familiar then it is because you are one of the millions of Americans that are overweight. The reason that I am able to relate YOUR story so well is because it is basically the same story for most of the millions that have the same problem. I have spoken of several curious coincidences in this book pertaining to weightloss and here is yet another. Does it make sense that so many of the people that are overweight have almost the exact same story to tell about how they became overweight? This may actually be good news because if the same reason is similarly causing everyone to be overweight then the same cure should work for everyone.

See if the following also sounds familiar because if it does then it may help explain why so many people became overweight in much the same may. This hypothetical story also begins about the time you leave high school. By then you have probably already started using some prescription drugs on a regular basis like birth control medication or possible something for mood or anxiety like Paxil. As you grow older you see the Doctor much more frequently for minor illnesses or for examinations required by your job. They run some tests and determine you have high blood pressure or perhaps high cholesterol and in either case they recommend you start taking medication every day to get it lower.

By your late twenties you are taking several medications on a regular basis and since you have gained some extra weight that you have been unable to lose you figure the Doctor may also be able to give you something to lose weight. The Doctor is eager to help saying that you probably have a thyroid problem and that he will give you something to fix the problem. A few years later you are still taking the thyroid medication, the blood pressure medication, the cholesterol medication, as well as an anti-depressant to try to keep you from being depressed because you hate the way you look as a result of gaining so much weight. You are definitely the poster child for the iharmaceutical Industry but unfortunately you are way to fat to be used in any of their commercials.

I certainly do not mean to make light of this tragedy, and that is surely what it is, a tragedy. On the contrary, it disgusts me how people claiming to want to help have taken advantage of so many people just so they can make more money. If the above is similar to your health care history over the past decade or so then chances are that you are overweight because of all the prescription drugs you have been using. There is just no way that anyone can use three or four drugs that each cause weight gain and not be overweight. The reason your efforts at dieting and exercising have failed is because you have so many negatives counteracting the positive efforts you have been making to lose weight.

Let me better explain what I am talking about with the help of a simple analogy. Suppose you desire to go to the store and you get in your car to drive the distance of a couple miles. At normal speed you cover the distance in about 10 minutes. Now imagine that someone tied a chain attached to an anchor to the back of your car. The car still has enough power to overcome the negative weight of the anchor but the engine has to work much harder and the trip takes twice as long even though you still get there. Now imagine that the chain attached to your car is also attached to a streetlight pole at the other end. Unless you have an extremely powerful car you are not going anywhere. You can rev the engine as much as you want and spin the tires until the tread is gone but you are not going to budge because of what is holding you back. Imagine this time that instead of being attached to a streetlight pole the chain is now hooked to a Mack Truck. Despite all the efforts you make to move forward you instead are being pulled in the opposite direction by a much stronger force that is impossible for you to overcome.

Is it starting to make sense to you now? The first example above of the car with the anchor attached is similar to someone that is taking a drug that causes him or her to gain weight. It makes it much harder to lose weight but not impossible with some extra effort. The second example of a car hooked to a streetlight pole is like someone taking several drugs that each cause weight gain or just one drug that causes a lot of weight gain. No matter how hard they try they will never be able to overcome the negative effect of so much weight gained. The third example of a car being hauled away by a Mack Truck is what happens when someone is using numerous drugs that cause massive weight gain. Despite all efforts, the effect is impossible to overcome and actually takes them where they do not want to go with a steady increase in weight that is unrelenting.

I hope that this simple analogy helps you to understand how devastating the effect of some drugs can be when you are trying to lose weight. There are of course other negative factors that cause people to gain weight but none have had as much of an impact on causing obesity, as drugs have had over the last couple of decades. Doctors will tell you that you must take these medications but you should ask them exactly how becoming obese is going to improve your overall health. Not all drugs have the side effect of weight gain so if you can get your Doctor to think of something other than the free country club membership that the pharmaceutical companies provide they might be able to give you a different medication that does not cause weight gain.

What is a better plan is to seek out natural alternatives for your health problems and visit Doctors that genuinely care about you and are not just interested in loading you up with drugs. You need to understand, however, that ... The preceding excerpt is from Chapter 8 of Why Is America So FAT?

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