These are the 11 reasons you’re overweight and others aren’t.
Marketing, you’re a total sucker for it.
You probably like to believe your beyond marketing, you don’t for a second believe that some Applebee’s flash mob dancing commercial works counter to your inner-skinny, but it most certainly does. Marketing is more than the simplistic view we often take on it whereas we feel the commercial on television should entertain and entice, and only then has it “effected” us enough to move forward or actively towards the given product.
The problem however is: that isn’t how it works.
Marketing is the business of pushing ideals and creating habits, the flash mob dancing scene in the recent Applebee’s commercials isn’t the important factor here, its just the décor, the tune, the colors. Watch closely.
http://www.ispot.tv/ad/7w5J/applebees-under-550-calorie-entrees-flash-mob
The commercial wants to push an idea, a concept into your subconscious. The concept? Calories in versus calories out: the single worst most fattening, disease inducing concept in modern times. It’s so engrained in people that it is a complete subconscious habit that effects people’s lives almost every minute of every day. In a way, it’s a marketing beauty. It’s the holy grail of marketing, the perfect storm.
But lets figure out why this concept is so dangerous and how it’s found its way into one of the most iron clad positions in our marketed society.
Processed foods really aren’t foods; they aren’t much different than drugs and alcohol either. Processed foods are addictive substances, scientifically created to appeal to a human being’s mind; essentially, cause an addictive habitual behavior. This really isn’t news; in fact, most overweight people do know this (they in fact have to know this for the marketing to really work all the way around). In the late 80s and early 90s, there were campaigns against certain processed foods as being bad for your health. That remains true today. But the campaigns are completely and totally ineffective as the Food and Health (yep, health) industries found a niche marketing campaign to exercise, and they hit gold. Instead of taking a calorie’s worth at its nutritional value, they’ve campaigned to assign caloric / thermo values to the calories. The absolute worst thing for the food industry to have happen is for people to quit eating them, because when a human stops eating something, like refined sugars, for example, they cease craving it. Sound familiar? Cocaine is the exact same premise and idea, but ask yourself, would you ever tell a family friend with a cocaine issue to cut back? Nope, you would tell them to quit. Who, however, would tell the cocaine addict to cut back? The dealer. The dealer knows that the addict must keep doing the drug because once three days to three weeks goes by, they’ve lost the customer. The assigned values to calories work exactly the same way. Worsening the situation, the health and fitness industry figured out that by embracing this same marketing concept, they could benefit financially. Personal trainers will preach calories in versus calories out because they know that overweight people assign values to their calories, and the personal trainer can assign negative caloric values to their program, creating a system of justification for reward. The fat person eats a piece of cake, but that doesn’t matter, because the fitness program would later remove those calories and the eaten cake somehow became a wash and the trainer gets paid. Do you know I weigh almost exactly the same when I workout as to when I don’t? But why? Because I don’t eat refined and processed foods. I eat as much as I want, when I want, but it’s whole and pure. I love working out and it serves me great benefit, but in the weight loss and health game, its highly overplayed.
So is this a lie? Yes, it’s a lie, and your probably fat because of it. Gluten, a preservative found in many processed foods, causes belly fat. Google “wheat belly,” enjoy the rest of your day of reading. Secondly, blood sugar spikes caused by refined sugars found in processed foods, cause you to become fat. The calories are really meaningless in this sense because not every calorie is equal. Many calories cause cancer, heart disease, genetic issues for your kids (yeah, your killing those kids also), mental issues, depression, arthritis and joint pain, erectile dysfunction.
But keeping you believing this concept is a high priority for places like Applebee’s and most of their competitors. While you make fun of the men dancing, you didn’t realize that your subconscious mind was assigning caloric values to their food, further justifying it. It activates a behavior, it continues an addiction.
Who else benefits from this concept? Well, most every shitty diet program on earth, most notably, Weight Watchers. Why do people typically end up fat again? Because it’s an impossible and impractical lifestyle. Processed foods are addictive, you will overeat, in addition, they compromise your blood sugar and cause issues with nutrient absorption (yep, overweight people, take those vitamins, they aren’t helping you at all). But Weight Watchers puts the blame on the person, ever notice that? It really is beautiful. They will help you lose weight by following a calorie in calorie out strategy, you’ll end up fat again because of the reasons I just cited, and then it will be your fault for not sticking to the assigned lifestyle. It’s a gimmick, a highly profitable one, but you’ve completely fallen for it. And you will always be fat because of it. Weight Watchers spends millions of dollars on Jennifer Hudson and Charles Barkley, they sell you a lifestyle that fits with your insecurity: You are terrified about not being able to have cake. They sell you cake. Now why wouldn’t they sell you on eating watermelon instead of cake? They’d lose bigtime. Do you know any fat people that are fat from their primary sweet being watermelon? I bet you don’t.
So, you’ve always thought you were smarter than marketing, but the whole time they’ve completely done one over on you, and your overweight and have a greater potential for heart disease and cancer. And you’re a repeat customer. And they’ve created a habit, and habits are difficult to break.
I get emails on the site all the time about losing weight; the number one thing people can’t shake is calories in versus calories out. Even when they tell you they don’t believe in it, their habits are so engrained that they can’t help themselves to act according to it.
Its funny because now even high end restaurants place calories on their menus (I think some might be mandated by state laws, not sure, but most are for the simple reason that it is effective). You place the calories on the menu, you justify the purchase of the entrée or desert.
So lets really look at this cycle. Person A wakes up, brings a Lean Cuisine to work, fights incredibly hard to only eat this 550 calorie lunch and breakfast deal. Then they plan dinner at Chiles, but they know they want to eat the burger and fries, so to counter this, they go to their personal trainer and burn calories to create caloric room for this. And then at dinner, they want desert because the system of high carb breads cause a blood sugar swing and addiction cycle, so they order desert but they justify it by telling themselves they will only eat one Lean Cuisine the next day and get extra time with the personal trainer.
And there you go; Lean Cuisine, Chiles and the personal trainer get paid. But you’re still fat. Yep, marketing doesn’t affect you at all; you really have a handle on it.
The only way you can win this battle is to change your habits, and you have so many. You have to learn to disregard any calorie in calorie out rhetoric and learn to read things strictly for nutritional value. And that’s going to take time and effort, reading and focus, desire and willingness to change. Because you’ve already lost this battle for a very long time.
You believe that without unhealthy foods, your life ends.
I remember when I first started losing weight and condemning processed foods, I heard the following at least once a day, “but is it really worth never having fun.” Fat people have been sold that processed foods are a part of life’s fun side. They grew up eating cake at birthday parties, they live to drink beers and eat fried chicken, and they see life as one big food event. And if the food went away, so would life.
When you don’t eat processed foods, you feel better and you look better. It’s that simple. I practice martial arts, I surf, I bring the garbage out at night and I don’t get winded. When you are fat, this isn’t the way life is for you. Being healthy opens more doors than it closes, and really, its not even close. Would I rather post pictures of a piece of cake on Facebook, or be able to hike a mountain? I don’t know, doesn’t seem close to me.
But you have painted a picture in your head that only “extremist” of the world would comply with a no refined sugar diet. But did you know that a picture of you has been painted as well? When I see someone overweight, I see someone that struggles every day with extreme personality issues. Overweight people take pills to try to make themselves skinny, they have dangerous surgeries (very extreme behavior), and they have to buy clothes at specific stores. If eating watermelon over cake makes me extreme, I’ll take that all day.
This really is an extension of marketing, but its extended far enough away to be its own separate catalyst. I want you to think about your life and think about how many events or social settings you attend that aren’t food fueled. Probably none, right? When you are bored, you eat. When you watch a football game or Jersey Housewives, you eat. When its your birthday, you eat. When its your friends birthday, you eat. When its Brad Pitt’s birthday, yep, you eat also. You just eat, all the time. What you might miss in all of this is that your life is about eating, the social events are secondary events and really just a host for your eating. You can replicate the events 1000 times over, the host never matters, just the food involved. Even if you do make your way to the gym, you buy some processed protein bar or protein shake, which is actually just a carb bar or shake.
Ever ask any former alcoholics about their favorite old bars? They will distinguish that drinking was really the important part; the bar wasn’t near as relevant as it seemed at the time. Addiction is a trap of the mind.
But in your head, none of this is true. You are just living a normal life, all the other people are just extremist or people who are on some “fad diet.” Your calculated health risk has allowed you to live a fun life; the other half is boring and to stern to have any fun.
You have no support system.
Your friends and wife and husband and mom and dad and co-workers are probably all foodies. They tell you things like “everything in moderation,” and you feel a sense of despair and failure because you somehow don’t have enough will power. One reason you have no support system is because you created the support system based on your addiction to processed foods. That’s not your husband’s fault, it’s yours.
The people who surround you have a lot at stake in your being fat. They don’t want to ever sacrifice what’s been placed in the cupboards at home, they don’t want to not have someone to get a beer and wings with, and most importantly, they don’t want you to be thin and healthy. That’s right, they want you fat because it makes them feel better about themselves. Let me ask you a question, if your fat, and your friend hands you a cookie, what does that say? Do you walk into an AA meeting and pass out wine? Nope, you sure don’t, but if you have ever been a part of a drinking group at a bar, everyone wants you to keep on drinking for mostly the same exact reasons (I know this well). Your fat, you have a disease and an addiction that everyone can see, if someone gives you’re a cookie, its because they want you to be fat. Being fat means you can die from a heart attack, why would someone support that? If someone were taking chemotherapy at the hospital for lung cancer, would you sneak him or her some cigarettes?
When I was unhealthy and somewhat overweight, I had a boozer for a girlfriend. We weren’t in love, we just loved big beers and bar food. It could have been anyone, really. This isn’t me condemning someone from my past, its me accepting the responsibility of my situation back then. I attracted that. It’s who I was. It’s who my friends were. But here’s the thing, I learned that the world is a really huge place, but it seems small when you are trying to make life changes.
For me, I had to recognize this change as essential. I had to take responsibility for the world I created and I had to stop convincing myself that it was the only way the world operated. Again, the world is huge, you learn that when you get out there and make the effort to discover it.
You don’t understand how to use the grocery store.
Yep, you’re a foodie, and you somehow have related your fatness with your broad knowledge of various foods. But the truth is, you’re not educated in food at all, and it’s a huge reason your fat.
First, lets just get this out of the way right in the beginning, most recipes are complete bullshit. When you say “oh man that sushi roll at Sushi House is amazing” or “that soup at Olive Garden is so amazing, I have no idea how they do it!,” its because they added sugar in varying forms. It’s the most unimpressive yet simple way to get people to like things. Add sugar. Of course sushi rolls are great, often times your eating sugar. So really, your foodie ways all comes down to dishes that do have added refined sugars and dishes that don’t. And chefs and restaurant owners know this.
When people begin the process of losing weight and getting healthy, they have to relearn everything they thought they knew about the grocery store. When I first gave up processed garbage, going into a Whole Foods was very confusing. When your life revolves around buying things mostly out of packages, it’s hard to grasp walking into a grocery store and not getting lead into those aisles. The grocery store only has about 10 percent of space dedicated for healthy people, the leftover 90 percent is for fat people and fat people feeding kids that will some day be fat. That’s just being real, ya’ll. Marketing is wise to what the healthy and skinny are saying to the fat and unhealthy, and they know that a grocery store is completely confusing to a fat person, so they market accordingly.
GLUTEN FREE!
NO ADDED SUGARS!
REAL APPLES INSIDE EVERY BITE!
NO HFCS!
LOW FAT!
They know that they can’t lose you, because the moment you go buy real apples over some fiber bar with supposed apples, you start to get it. When you go to a grocery store, you should walk into the area that has meat and produce, and honestly, you shouldn’t leave it. When you go down a regular aisle at a grocery store, you are most likely making a fat person decision.
You have to find a way to convince yourself that you don’t need things out of a package, that packaged food isn’t human food, and that your motor runs on real whole foods. And whole foods are what your life is desperately depending on now.
You make fun of people that try diets.
One of the most common responses I get from people to my not eating a brownie or bread, is “oh you on one of those fad diets?”
I mean, are you f#$king kidding me? That’s the place society has found itself at, the idea of eating fruits, vegetables, unharmed meats, is a fad diet. But here is what fat people don’t know, if you eliminate calories in and calories out marketing, how many real “fad” diets are left? Fact is, my diet is a human diet, it’s not a fad, it has nothing to do with profits (unless you count local farmers). Fat people cause fad diets, not people like me. Fad diets are caused from people who are subjugated by marketing to believe they can eat “everything in moderation” and that without food, life ends. How much profit is there in marketing to someone like me? Probably not very much.
You choose your Doctor based on quick fixes, not nutritional prowess.
Imagine for a second a world whereas processed foods didn’t exist. What would Doctors do? Would we even need Obamacare? The society we live in has created a need for Doctors and Health Care on a level that’s almost unfathomable. Many Doctors tend to treat healthcare with medicine, not nutrition. I love Doctors, by the way, its nothing personal, but nutrition seems to get passed over when it comes to Doctors. I mean, our Medical society is more apt to surgically put a band around someone’s stomach than it is to tell someone to stop eating bread. Doctors do amazing things, but many amazing things wouldn’t be needed if people didn’t eat so damn poorly, that’s just a fact. Some Doctors also recognize a bitter truth; you can’t tell a fat person to stop eating bread because they will change Doctors.
Life to you is a series of quick fixes. You get a headache you take Motrin. Your anxiety gets high you ask for Xanax. Your kid can’t focus; you give him Adderall or Ritalin. Its your habit, its how you react, its in your soul to be this way. If you workout, you drink Gatorade to replace Electrolytes. Let me ask you an honest question, without Googling, do you even know what an Electrolyte is or how many you require? Do you ever even consider why you have a headache, or do you just believe it’s an affliction that you and all the people in the Tylenol commercials have?
Many Doctors are great, the Doctor that put Bill Clinton on a whole foods diet, he’s great. But not all Doctors are equal and guess what, a fat person chooses a Doctor that works for what their lifestyle calls for. So really, it’s a cat and mouse game at its finest.
You take no responsibility; you don’t define your behavior in simple black and white terms because you see that as limiting your behavior.
If I drink a beer, I consider it bad. I see that as simple. But to many, they don’t get why I would do that, because they believe “everything in moderation” is just fine. But that attitude which leaves behavior undefined makes having any sort of grasp on your personal health almost impossible. When I eat anything, it is either good or bad, period. Eating something bad will happen from time to time, but not frequently, because I have trained my mind to decipher a clear difference between things. I like to drink Vodka Martinis, but I define them as bad for me. Because honestly, they are bad. It doesn’t mean I will never drink them, it just means I don’t allow my mind to justify my behavior, because when you do that, the slippery slope ensues and you become laden with all kinds of bad health choices. Is it fun? Yep. Bad? Again, the answers is yes. Overweight and unhealthy people see my doing that as “extremism,” when in fact it’s merely being honest with myself and keeping my mind focused. When you are overweight, when you are unhealthy, when your kids are overweight, you have spent a lot of time dispelling reality through justifications, you’ve spent years lying to yourself so that you don’t have to face the music of your decisions. This allows you to be a victim of some unknown circumstances, hence you elude responsibility. I take full on responsibility for my health choices, I am no victim, and I will never be one. If I drink a beer, I know its bad. I define it as a bad decision even if it was a fun night out.
You never make an extra effort.
One of the major reasons you are fat is that you don’t care to make any effort that seems to “put you out.” When you want food, you want it simple, packaged, in a drive thru, in a box that doesn’t expire for a year or 10. You know that buying fresh foods means more trips to the grocery store; it means more planning on your part. You refuse to do this. You are lazy. If your kid cries in the car, you Drive Thru for a Happy Meal, if your kid cries in a restaurant, you push bread to them or give them fried chicken fingers as fast as possible. Your life is built around everything being a quick, easy solution. If you have to do any work, you are out. It will not happen.
Healthy people give that extra effort. They prepare food and make more frequent trips to the grocery store for produce. They wait until they are home instead of passing the golden arches.
You don’t see yourself as desperate.
Desperation is such a downtrodden word, but the truth is, desperate people are capable of truly amazing things. In sports, teams in desperate situations will try most anything to get back into the game. Desperation is built on the idea that you really have nothing to lose. Being overweight should be viewed as a desperate situation. Your own health is compromised, your kids may not have a mother or father at a much too early age or have the serious burden of taking care of you, you can’t live life at all like the rest of people: that’s desperation. So you should be trying absolutely anything you can to make it right. You should be spending hours a day on Google trying to figure the situation out. You should be researching every known supplement and reading every anecdotal write up about success stories (those shared by people not looking to profit).
Running a site that uses Coconut Oil as a primary way of life for health, I can’t tell you the amount of times I hear, “but it taste bad when I eat it” or “It made me go to the bathroom.” If you are fat, you are desperate. If you are desperate, you shouldn’t care how something taste. Being desperate means you are willing to get out of your comfort zone and try anything you can. I have done some seriously nutty stuff. I eat coconut oil daily by the tablespoons, I take fish oil by the tablespoons, I eat grass fed butter straight, I have tried eating raw broccoli stems, I have juiced only spinach and drank it. I don’t care how it taste, I care that I am healthy. When I thought I might be getting sick last year, I juiced straight lemons and grated a pure horseradish root into it and I drank it. Try that one…
You have to be and act as desperate as your situation calls for. You have to see your situation as one that not only affects yourself, but also affects your family. You have to be willing to do anything you can to fix the situation.
You view admitting your weaknesses as failure.
I’ve got a laundry list of weaknesses, food used to be one of them. No, my 220lbs didn’t make me some fat to skinny sobbing inspirational story or anything, but I had issues that were definitely furthered by poor eating decisions. I was never shy in admitting it on Facebook or to friends over the phone. Why? Because I wanted to find a solution for it. I’m confident in the way I am not bothered by being open about my failures, and this is a reason I am skinny.
Fat people see admitting issues with food as a potential responsibility. This is why its so hard to get an alcoholic to state, “I am an alcoholic,” because it comes with an attached responsibility that is really tough to turn back on. Once you cross that perceived line in the sand, your life really is never the same. But in that same regard, this is why it is so critical. It puts pressure on you, it defines an end goal, and its essential for success. Great athletes, such as Kobe Bryant, really aren’t afraid of losing, that’s really what gets lost in his pregame rhetoric and his public persona. You don’t really associate losing with Kobe, but you absolutely should. If he were afraid to lose, he wouldn’t be the champion he is today. He wants the pressure because it demands he have a goal and that goal defines him. If you admit to your issue, if you are more open with your issue, it means you have one very essential ingredient in your journey to health. And that is a will to find a way to win the battle.
You eat bread and pasta.
If you are fat and you eat bread and pasta, you will never be skinny. Bread and pasta are the worst things you can eat if you have a weight issue. Any diet whereas you can ever eat white flour, essentially, means you are failing.
Bread, specifically, is an empty calorie, a nightmare for blood sugar, a human fattener. If you want to even try a diet, avoiding breads and pastas and white flour is essential. If you can’t do this, don’t try; it’s pointless and the stress of the other portions of your diet probably do more harm than the actual diet does good. Subway has spent years working tirelessly to convince you that bread is ok. At one time, it was a complex carb with wheat bread, now its essential for a healthy heart. You have to see when you are being duped.
And really, that’s the main point of this entire article, learning to recognize when you are being duped. If something is made convenient for you, it probably is bad for you, but highly profitable for the company slinging it. The fact is, we have all been duped, me as well. But making the effort to recognize these things is a huge step in the right direction.
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