Do You NEED to Lose Weight?
Are your knees killing you? Do you have pre-diabetes? Does every visit to your doctor have them lecturing you that you need to lose weight?
We have been lectured by the medical industry that all of our health issues will be fixed by just losing weight. And how do doctors tell you to achieve that goal? "Eat less and exercise more" is invariably their answer. It's a complete fallacy.
Losing weight is a temporary solution with a long term consequence of gaining more weight!
Eat Less and Exercise More doesn't work!
If your doctor ignores all your complaints and says that all you have to do is lose weight, I have news for you. You have to lose your doctor! Your doctor is not taking care of you properly, and they are ignorant of the facts. First of all, losing and maintaining weight loss is next to impossible. Only two percent of dieters are able to achieve permanent weight loss. The remaining ninety-eight percent of people cycle up and down like a yo-yo. It's also called weight cycling. And it turns out that this process of gaining and losing and doing it again and again is very stressful and harmful for your body. In fact, it's a lot worse than remaining at your present weight.
Correlation Not Causation of Weight to Illnesses
There is a big difference between being heavy causing an illness, and your illness causing you to gain weight! Also, sometimes things happen at the same time and this is a correlation- not a cause. It's like saying that eating ice-cream increases you chances of drowning! Read why that's NOT possible and possibly a very stupid conclusion your doctor might accept, if they are constantly telling you to lose weight. I know that I sound pretty snarky, but I am ANGRY at doctors like this!
Doctors Dislike Fat People
Doctors are just as prejudiced against heavier patients as the rest of society. But it doesn't give them an excuse to ignore other methods of improving your health that have nothing to do with losing weight! One of the most important treatments for Diabetes Type 2, which ALSO affects thin people, is stress relief and exercise.
Likewise, painful knees can be helped by doing weight resistance to strengthen your quad and hamstring muscles. You should be assessed to see if you have arthritis.
WHAT GOOD IS IT TO TELL YOU TO DO SOMETHING THAT IS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE??
It just victimizes you, stresses you out and makes you feel hopeless that you can ever feel better!
Feeling Fat
When did you start believing that you need to lose weight? So many women report that they "feel fat". A mindset of negative feeling about your body is stressful. In fact, body dissatisfaction, or "feeling fat" has a stronger negative health effect than actually being fat! Your SELF-JUDGMENT means more than your actual weight or useless BMI!
Self-Punishment to Look Attractive
How did you first start believing that you needed to change your body; feeling like your body was flawed, not right? While men also can have body issues, this is predominantly a woman's issue. After all, men don't put-on make-up, color their hair, wear high heels that can cripple you or wear spanx!
Someone or something convinced you that you were not good enough the way you were. And they learned that from someone or somewhere else. These beliefs are more contagious than the flu, and passed on for generations. And they’re reinforced by advertisement and media. Someone is making money on your dissatisfaction with your body. YOU have to reject all that negativity. We all have a body, and everyone is different. Learning to love and accept yourself is the healthiest thing you can do for your body.
Diet Industry Lies
The Diet Industry sells you a products that fail 98% of the time and still makes over $70 BILLION dollars a year on repeat customers who blame themselves instead of the false promises of dieting! And it's these weight loss gurus who are lobbying congress and trying to convince the public that being heavier is a health risk. It is NOT!
That’s known as a “conflict of interest”. Research is funded by the same groups that want a particular outcome, and there are plenty of researchers who are willing to “find the results” that the diet industry wants when they get paid to do so. Actuary tables from insurance companies will show you that heavier people (up to a point) live longer than people who are 5 pounds UNDER weight!
How To Stop Needing to Lose Weight
So what’s the answer? It is accept yourself the way you are. At LEAST get to neutral about your body! Stop berating yourself for not being able to look like an anorexic model. Your mind/body is STRESSED OUT from self-hatred. And if ANYTHING is causing the “epidemic” of obesity it is STRESS.
Obesity Epidemic is Really A STRESS Epidemic
How do we know that?
- Because people are not gaining weight from eating wheat or bread or grains- The largest population on the planet subsists on grains: RICE. The majority of them are NOT overweight.
- Because epidemiological research shows that the heaviest people are the poorest. It’s not from eating cheap food, it’s from their cortisol levels (the stress hormone) from living paycheck to paycheck and trying to make ends meet.
- Because dieting actually CAUSES weight gain – from stressing the body into going into fat conservation mode to prevent starvation. This is an automatic and actually health preserving reaction to starvation!
- Only 2-5% of dieters maintain the weight loss they struggle to lose. Dieting is STRESSFUL. Ninety-five percent of dieters not only regain the weight, but ADD additional weight after each diet. It can take months, or up to 2-5 years. And this is NOT from someone over-eating and “cheating” on their diet.
- You can only “hold your breath” for so long and then you end up gasping for air. It’s the same with a diet. How long can you refuse to eat with your co-workers, prepare different food for yourself than family, not eat cake for your birthday? And WHY should you have to? You shouldn't! You CAN eat anything that they eat - and once you stop obsessing over it, and try to stop eating what you love, it will no longer have power over you!
Mindful Eating will NOT make you lose weight
Ask the person selling weight loss: they will NOT tell you what happens to their clients after they lose weight. You’ll get an excuse why they don’t have that information. Now they are trying to convince you that Mindful Eating is a new way to lose weight. It is NOT. And furthermore, trying to eat mindfully before you get rid of a diet mindset will have you still eating only "good" foods and limiting the ones you deem as bad. That's a diet. NOT mindful eating!
Get REAL Help To Break Free of Dieting
I help women who stress eat and binge so they can stop emotional eating, get control and make peace with food and their body. You deserve a break from dieting and being at war with your body and food. That's when your stress levels drop and life becomes better in all ways! That's when it's not a good or bad day depending if you're followed a diet or dropped an ounce or two. That's when you find out that your contributions to the people around you, and maybe even the entire planet you make because of who you REALLY are in your heart and soul are so much more important that worrying about your appearance. That's PEACE.
Sign-up for my myth-busting newsletter or write to me for individualized help. You deserve more than a life focused on what you can't have!
