“Our lives improve only when we take chances and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.” -Walter Anderson
Why are we fat?
Is it because we are ignorant about nutrition and exercise? Do we really believe more resources can conquer this problem?
(I was training in the gym this morning and watched two ladies (nurses) from “Para___ Home Health Care” puff on their cigarettes in the parking lot…do they know the consequences regarding smoking? How about Cardiologists? If they are informed, why do they still smoke?)
Maybe success or failure can be helped a little with education and resources…but I think it has a lot to do with personal responsibility. How did we get to this place where we keep pretending/assuming that the solution to our obesity (addiction) crisis is more education?
Think about it…
~ We have more gyms
~ Supplement stores
~ Weight loss centers
~ Trainers/dieticians
~ Schools (Ha…this is a joke. I just wanted to see if you were paying attention)
~ Customized food labels
~ Michelle Obama
~ NFL 60 (NFL athletes advocating 60 min of exercise…what about food?)
~ Healthier food choices available
~ Internet “diet” experts are available 24 hours a day.
(I just Googled diets…6,000,000 matches came up)
If the answer to our problem is more education and more resources… shouldn’t we all be collectively becoming thinner and healthier? We’ve never had more tools available to counter this problem than anytime in our history.
Ok, let’s be brutally honest… we know what to do (eat less, move more) but we don’t do what we know.
(“Why don’t we do what we know?”… My wife posed this question to me during my fruitless attempt to write “another” fitness book)
Why don’t we do what we know? Because we’re addicted. (See… Your Brain on Porn)
http://yourbrainonporn.com/garys-research-addiction-food-humans-reward-decline-2010
Why don’t drug addicts, sex addicts, and food addicts do better once they are informed?
Because they’re addicted.
Sadly… we have more education… more resources and more ADDICTS.
The prevailing paradoxical dilemma of living in a world of abundance is the blind reward seeking drives of biology (i.e. Demand) paired with the excessive (readily available) stimulants in modern society. (i.e. Supply) Ironically, this lifestyle of “needs and needs met” is what we commonly refer to in
While there are many variables which play a role in the fat equation, without doubt the biggest determinant of obesity is what we choose to put in our mouths… day in… day out. Unless there’s something I’m missing, I’m pretty sure that we don’t accidentally over eat or make poor food choices. When we consciously choose to eat food that we don’t need (while simultaneously wanting to lose weight) then maybe it’s time for a little honesty, acknowledgment and self-awareness.
“Lying to ourselves is more ingrained than lying to others.” -Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“You cannot change what you do not acknowledge”- Dr. Phil
The thing I like the most about Blogging is the fact that I don’t have to sugar coat certain issues and obvious facts because somebody somewhere is going to get offended. It has really become ridiculous. We have become a society that is too scared to say what everyone knows… So we conveniently dance around the elephant in the room and pretend its not there. (What an exhausting and totally passive concept)
I think some health experts are more concerned with sending socially-acceptable, politically-correct messages and being popular with the masses than they are with speaking the obvious truth.
It seems to me that in an attempt to protect people’s “feelings” and keep this public conversation “happy”, we’re actually enabling people to destroy themselves (and their families) physically while we hold their hands and say “good job.” Maybe we should worry less about their emotional state in the short term, and focus more on their physical health over the next decade.
(We were not concerned with smoker’s emotional state when we moved them outside of the building)
If you say, “Someone eating and becoming obese, doesn’t effect me like a smoker blowing smoke in my face,” I would say your wrong. Have you ever looked at the current financial burden obesity related diseases has put on our medical system?
It affects us all.
(Just a thought while I’m on health care…Have you ever seen what kind of food is served in the hospitals? Hmmmm…interesting)
My Passion:
If you are reading this Blog, some of you might have reached the conclusion that I’m an un-kind, un-sympathetic smart a _ _ who doesn’t care or understand the issues and challenges confronting people trying to lose weight. In reality, the opposite is true. The very thing that compels me to write these uncomfortable and confronting blogs is a reflection of how much I do care.
That is… my desire to help people in a realistic and honest way. Please don’t confuse people who say nice comforting things with people who care. They’re often two separate groups with very different agendas.
What I’m interested in is honest discourse and progressive results. (Personally, the most enlightening conversations I have had with myself are not necessarily the most agreeable ones) It would be so easy for me to write feel-good blogs with diets and exercises, but that would still only be addressing the solution…NOT THE PROBLEM.
I am entering my twenty sixth year in the fitness business. Rarely has there been a day where I haven’t talked to somebody about their weight, their body, their feelings, or their personal challenges. I have had literally thousands of conversations regarding this very issue, so I am writing today with considerable thought, experience, insight and compassion.
While I’m very aware of the numerous variables that impact one’s physiology and one’s potential to achieve, twenty six years of one-on-one, real-world experience has taught me that, in most instances, success or failure, comes down to what we do with what we’ve been given. “We either get it or we don’t”
“You make the choice…you choose the consequence”
“If I change my mind, will I change my choices? If I change my choices will my life change? Why can’t I change what I’m addicted too? When I change my addiction, what will I lose that I am chemically attached to? Maybe I don’t want to lose what I’m chemically attached to because I may have to experience the withdrawal from that. Hence the human drama”. - What the bleep do we know?
3 comments:
Nice job on that one. I remember when I first started training people, I thought that I could motivate anybody if I just found the right angle to approach them from. I was devastated when I came to "know my limitations".;) some people were just not moved by my external motivation and those that were did not continue to be moved by it. External motivation can only work short term. Ultimately, I found that the only people that we can really help are those that are ready to help themselves. You're so right when you say that it might be hopeless to curb the obesity problem for an entire society like ours. That's not because we aren't able to or dont know how to help people. It's because the vast majority of people don't really want to help themselves. Somehow, when I realized that it was kind of comforting. Kind of like the pressure was off. It's easy to help people who want to help themselves. I've seen and been a part of more than a few drastic transformations and none of them occurred because I willed it to happen. The will of the trainee is the motor that moves the bus, we can merely steer it for them. We can learn to steer it really well but in the end, even if you are the Mario Andretti of trainers if you're trying to steer a bus with no motor, you won't get anywhere.
"A teacher is like a life raft...we're there to help you get across the river... but at that point we're of no use"
So we could make massive change if we could find a way to give people lasting internal motivation and if we don't then we are doomed to fail. That's the deal. That's the reality. How do we do that though? We could try hypnotism or maybe some kind of drug therapy to change their brain chemistry. Maybe something like the ludovigo treatment from that move "a clockwork orange".
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