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Making excuses for being overweight
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Written by Jen
Wednesday, 05 August 2009 21:36
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Share Making excuses for being overweight
How many of you have heard of the research being done to discover the fat gene? Yes they are actually trying to find a gene that is causing the vast amount of obesity we are seeing today.
Sure lets blame it on a gene that somehow spontaneously appeared after thousands of years of existence. If you know anything about genes there are two kinds; dominant and recessive, so if there was a fat gene don’t you think we would have seen a pattern of this before? I am not a scientist so I will not speculate on things that are beyond my education but I can tell you I do not believe that it is as simple as a fat gene.
We need to stop making excuses for being fat and look at the reality, “PORTION SIZE”. No I do not believe that having kids makes you fat, there are plenty of people out there to prove that. I know many people who have never had kids and are fat, what is there excuse? Here are some excuses I have been told by clients for not being able to lose weight;
1. I hardly eat anything all day; I do not know why I am fat (HUH???)
2. My medication makes me gain weight (there must be a lot of calories in those pills)
3. I can’t exercise, I don’t have any energy to exercise, and I do not have time to exercise…… (Then reduce your food intake!)
4. I have not found a diet yet that works for me (then stop dieting)
5. I don’t have any family support
6. I have kids, pregnancy made me fat
7. I have a slow metabolism
8. If I lose weight I do not have the money to buy a new wardrobe
9. I have beef fat since I was a little kid, it is my natural weight
10. If I lose the weight I will just gain it back anyway, I always do
Why do we make all of these excuses? Sure, there is some truth to these; metabolism plays a big part in weight gain along with medications that increase our appetite. But isn’t it easier to make an excuse for being fat than actually doing something about it? From my experience weight gain has a lot to do with your emotional state; being afraid others will see you lose weight just to gain it back again, or having an uncontrollable compulsion to eat, using food to pacify your feelings such as; anger, sadness, depression, or insecurities.
Getting a hold of your feelings and the reasons you are eating is the key to weight loss. Losing weight is not just about will power, but asking yourself when you are in the moment of overeating, “what am I feeling right now, am I really hungry? or am I bored, sad, angry…..then you will start to connect the overeating with a feeling, then you can begin to learn coping skills for those feeling.
Start today by charting you emotional state when you pick up something to eat, write down the feeling you have; hunger, depressed, lonely, see if there is a pattern. If you are not hungry when you find yourself reaching for that doughnut, stop and address your feelings then distract yourself by doing something that does not have anything to do with food. Tell yourself out loud that you are not hungry, this way your brain is engaged in what you are saying and doing and you are not reinforcing those feelings with food. The brain is very powerful, if you let yourself believe that you feel better after food you brain will remember this and will send messages telling you that you need food to feel better. Write down a list of activities and hang them on the fridge for those times when you are not hungry but still reaching for food, find something on your list to distract you from the temptation of overeating.
Obesity is caused by over eating it is as simple as that, why we over eat is more complicated. With a little effort on your part, and support from loved ones you can overcome over eating.
Eat Healthy-Be Healthy
Jennifer Bianchi DTR
Last Updated ( Friday, 26 March 2010 13:37 )
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