Researchers Lying With Statistics

The headline in a newspaper at the check out counter in the grocery store about how to lose 10 pounds in a week could capture your attention. But if you read that “Eating Ice-cream Increases Your Risk of Dying by Drowning”, it could make you wonder if you should stop eating ice-cream before going to the beach or a pool. This is the perfect example of lying with statistics and poorly designed research.

How Statistics can “Prove”  that Eating Ice-cream causes death by drowning

Let me explain: Just because two things occur at the same time doesn’t necessarily mean that one causes the other.
Summer is a time when it’s hot outside. More people eat ice-cream in the hot summer weather, and more people ALSO go into the water to cool down, so more people drown. A flawed study would report that eating ice-cream causes drowning because they both increased at the same time! Now you realize that it isn’t true that ice-cream causes drowning! They just occurred at the same time of year. But a combination of factors that seem linked because they occur at the same time is the example of poor research, and yet still becomes something that most people believe.

That’s how you lie with statistics – you leave out other important factors.The research left out the important considerations and jumped to the conclusion that eating ice-cream causes drowning. This is the same kind of poor research that many people read and believe.

Many people become so attached to believing this type of flawed study that they fight against findings that dispute their BELIEFS. Perhaps you’ve fallen for the study and joined the groups of people who now believe that eating butter, and saturated animal fat is causing heart disease. Yes, this too, is an “Ice-cream Causes Drowning” type of study. And finally, the media and medical doctors are starting to say, “oh, we were wrong”…. but that doesn’t help the people who died from cardiovascular disease caused by eating VEGETABLE OILS INSTEAD OF BUTTER!!

Eat Less and Exercise More: Another Statistical Lie

Another fervently held misconception is that eating less and exercising more will cause weight loss that is lasting. The fact that the Diet Industry doesn’t want you to know is that 95-98% of all diets fail to keep the weight off for more than a few months to a couple of years.

It’s next to impossible for something to fail for all of those people, unless there is something flawed with the process of dieting. But most people tell you: the common knowledge is the only way to lose weight is to “eat less & exercise more”. You’d be amazed at the things people call you when you challenge their beliefs! It’s not pretty, I can assure you!

Mother Nature Wants To Keep You Alive

The problem with dieting is it goes against everything that Mother Nature has designed to keep you alive. Dieting, by cutting calories slows your metabolism, as does excessive exercise. And when your metabolism is lowered by 30% UNDER what you are eating as diet food, and you are miserable and stressed, the weight will start coming back on its own. That’s only one part of Mother Nature’s plan to keep you alive!

But people who don’t have weight challenges want overweight people to believe they must continue this battle to lose weight for the rest of their lives– or they are lazy, and undisciplined. Yes, it’s easy for them to say: YOU have to make a “lifestyle” change!

From all the interviews I’ve done, I’ve found that the thinnest people eat the most. In fact, a few of my thin friends are trying to GAIN weight, and are unable to do so! Being 5 pounds underweight is actually more dangerous than being 75 pounds overweight according to actuary tables that insurance companies use. Why isn’t the country coming down on these people for being thin??

My experience with overweight people tells me exactly the opposite. Heavier people are unhappy with their appearance and have been chronically under-eating (dieting) and punishing themselves physically and emotionally for long periods of time. Their mindset has become chronically stressed from hating themselves, then giving in, and then again, being disgusted with themselves. In order to lose weight, most of them must stop dieting, and start nurturing themselves with food and LESS exercise, more sleep and forgive themselves for hating their body!

Negative Mindset Plays A Role in Weight

The Mindset of a dieter plays into the Law of Attraction, and Neuroscience – and not in a good way. It’s the mindset of deprivation, frustration, “can’t and should” that invites more misery, deprivation and frustration. And that’s just talking about their CONSCIOUS mindset. There’s the issue of unconscious and subconscious beliefs that are ALSO sabotaging their ability to lose weight and maintain it. While you are under the effects of your conscious thoughts and beliefs thirty percent of the time, you unconscious and subconscious mind is in the driver’s seat 70% of the time. It’s much harder to change that!

In order to lose weight, the focus of your mindset must change to appreciate, and nurture your body, as a beginning step. You must also break unconscious and subconscious belief patterns that are keeping you overweight.

Findings Prove Researchers are Morons

This study had me screaming at my computer screen as I read it! A long term study epidemiological study tracked 19,000 people for four years to see if eating the Mediterranean Diet would have a protective effect on developing heart disease. Their findings were very important. But their conclusions convinced me that the researchers were either morons or completely blind to what was right in front of them. They found that the Mediterranean Diet did have the ability to lower heart disease, but primarily only in one group of the subjects.

They found that the diet was more effective on college educated people who were economically well-off. The subjects were essentially eating the same diet, did the same amount of exercise, were not smoking cigarettes, and yet only the richer participants had less heart disease. What did the researchers conclude from this study you may ask? ….

The researcher concluded that these people bought more expensive wine and food. ARE THEY KIDDING??? They couldn’t figure out that the economically challenged people had MORE STRESS in their lives?? Even the exercise didn’t make that difference in developing heart disease in this study.

This exemplifies how the Diet Industry does research. Their bias to blame the dieter causes researchers to blame weight issues and health on ANYTHING other than the real cause: STRESS.

             As Deepak Chopra once said: you can eat the healthiest foods, but under stress they turn to poison in your body.

Want to be healthy? Either you have to figure out a way to make a lot of money (in a job that’s not stressful), or work on stress relief.

How to Know if the Stress Relief You are Doing Works

If you want to live a happier, healthier and longer life, stress relief has to be a planned and practiced activity. But how do you know if what you’re doing is actually helping you? You need a way to watch your body and mind relax so you LEARN when the method you are doing is working – and when it’s not!

I found the research organization in the year 2000 when I was trying to find out why my resting heart rate was so high. Over the years, the HeartMath institute has studied the power of the heart to be able to calm the rest of the body. They developed the EmWave and the InnerBalance devices which are similar to biofeedback. They wanted people to be able to “learn” to effectively practice stress relief and then know their practice was working.

How The EmWave and Inner Balance Work

Using a sensor that send your heart beat to the device, either by bluetooth or wired, both devices are sending on your bio-information to these small devices (or your phone!). The devices send you an auditory and visual signal when you are changing your heart rate variability (not just slowing down your heart, but making the beat to beat changes more “organized”). This is one of the methods used in a lie-detector test to figure out if you are feeling stressed, and probably lying! When you are calm, as determined by your Heart Rate Variablility (not the speed, but the organization of the beats), your body systems are getting into alignment and out of stress.

If you want to KNOW that the stress relief practice you are doing is actually working, I recommend getting one of these terrific devices from HeartMath – I’ve been using mine for over ten years – and I rarely get sick. It’s even helped me to deal with some really scary news that could have stressed me out, and made me feel miserable – because I’ve become a lot more resilient to stress.

Lots of people are feeling stressed out from the news right now. One of the stress relief methods I recommend is not watching it and torturing yourself with things you can’t change. And when you practice with the Inner Balance (for your iPhone and Android) or the Emwave- (a small version), you WILL feel the weight lifting off you – but you just can’t do it when you’re feeling lousy…. set aside time – even 5 minutes can be a big help!

Bottom Line: Eat Well and Practice Stress Relief

Read “research” with a skeptical eye. Try to find out who funded it.

Love yourself like your dog loves you- thin/fat – tall/short – young/old….. it matters not. That’s the number one stress relief. Accepting and appreciating yourself as you are.

Nurture yourself with good food, AND do the stress relief!

AND:  Don’t fall for the flawed research that makes you a victim. And enjoy that ice-cream especially in the summer time, because you deserve to nurture yourself, and you’re NOT going to drown!