Eat, Eat, Eat

I had planned to so something along the lines of the technical aspects of weight training.  Like; what exercises to do, which ones are helpful and which are not, how much to actually lift, and a bunch of other stuff that may be helpful to somebody just starting out at a gym.

But I'm running across friends who, though very passionate about their goals of losing weight and getting fit, are (I think) going about it in the wrong way.  They may in fact be sabotaging their efforts, causing them to become discouraged and give up.  I've seen it happen all the time.

One thing that really irks me is the tendency to look at obesity as a disease and overeating as an addiction.
  
Neither of those are either of them. 

First look at this idea that obesity is a disease.  Obesity CAUSES disease.  Carrying around a lot of adipose tissue (fat), especially around the organs (the belly) has a direct correlation to heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, diabetes, some forms of cancer, and a host of physical ailments that can drastically reduce the quality and span of a life.  Obesity has pulled way ahead of smoking as the number one cause of preventable death in this country. 

It's not a disease though.  A disease has a carrier agent...like a bacterium or virus.  You don't catch fat, you develop it through years and years of bad eating habits and low activity levels.  Calling obesity a disease gives the false impression that it can be treated like a disease and can be medicated.  This gives rise to all the quack diet pills and bullshit gimmicks that have flooded the market in the last few decades.  Millions of people desperate for somebody or something to "fix" their overweight problem gravitate to hucksters who are more than willing to cure their imagined illness for a hefty price.

Also....thinking of being fat as an illness can give rise to the notion that overeating, or eating junk foods, is an addiction.

I hear this all the time.  

"I have to lose weight but it's so hard for me because I'm a food addict" or "I can't stick to a diet because I'm addicted to soda pop", sugar, burgers, or whatever.  "I have to treat food like a dangerous drug".

Bull - Shit

Saying you are addicted to food is akin to saying you are addicted to oxygen.  To stay alive we breath.  We also eat.  Eating is not the problem.  Even what we eat is not the problem (not the biggest one anyway).  HOW MUCH we eat is the crux of the matter.  Lots of overweight folks eat way more than their body needs...and most of that is in the form of simple carbs and fats.  Your body loves that stuff and socks it away into storage for lean times....which in our culture comes in the form of the occasional diet that people jump on in a desperate attempt to lose pounds.  Of course, since your body thinks you are starving when you go on the ridiculously restrictive diet of raw veggies and nuts, your metabolism slows to a crawl and your weight loss slows to a crawl and eventually stops.  You get discouraged of being hungry all the time and not seeing results, so you shitcan the diet and gain back two or three times what little you might have lost.

Over and over......yo-yo,  yo-yo

It's behavioral, guys.  We don't overeat because we are hungry.  We overeat because we have learned to use it as a way of coping.  Coping with stress, with boredom, with anger, with happiness, with grief, with just about everything that happens around us in day to day living.  To stop overeating is not a matter of just not eating....it means to think, really think, of the reasons you eat and looking for alternatives to meet the needs that food is providing.  

Simple.  Not easy...but doable and long lasting.  Overeating is a bad habit that has been reinforced by years of practice because it works to nurture whatever need we have at the moment.  The brain doesn't know the difference between a bad habit and a good one, so the trick is to develop good habits (like exercise and eating healthy foods) to take care of those same needs that fat and sugar were used for.  

I'll discuss next time what and how to eat.  If you are into juicing...you won't like what I have to say.