If you stand in a room with 10 women it is statistically probable that six of them will be fat. That is a very frightening image considering the health implications of being overweight; heart disease, diabetes and, yes, even cancer. In this post I want to look at seven reasons why you are fat and then talk about why you will never change.
Fat Lies: size zero vs plus size
Some of you who are still reading might be a little bit offended at the use of the word “fat”. I can understand why you feel that way. I too used to be upset when women called other women fat. These days there is a lot of work going in to helping women feel better about their body image. A lot of women now consider “bigger” to be better than the old runway stick figures that everyone used to aspire to look like. And this is a good thing.
Sort of.
While we may be feeling a little bit better about our body image there is also something else to remember. Being overweight is unhealthy. In fact, the diseases that relate to obesity and being overweight and unfit kill more people in America every year than anything else. Yes, it is unhealthy to kill ourselves with diets that make us look like a size zero, but it is also unhealthy to let ourselves go in the name of loving our body more. I think it is important to accept what your body looks like, but to recognize that certain fat levels are unhealthy. The point is not to get upset and worried about it, but to help you change your diet, exercise and living habits.
7 reasons you are fat
Now that I have finished my little political correctness disclaimer we can get into the juicy part of the post. Here are seven reasons why you are still fat, often despite some of your best efforts. After this I will look at the hard stuff – why you will never change.
1. You don’t exercise, really
Okay so you go to the gym twice a week. That’s a good start. That will give you a nice base level of fitness. But if you want to really lose weight and get healthy you need to be exercising every single day. Period. Science is now showing that in order to lose weight and maintain that weight you need to give yourself about an hour a day. It doesn’t matter what exercise you do, but you aren’t doing enough of it.
Write down exactly how much exercise you do for the next two weeks. At the end of it I think you will be surprised that you aren’t really doing as much as you thought you were. We need to change this habit fast.
2. You go back for seconds
I have been really pushing this idea lately because I know a lot of women out there who just don’t respect the idea of portion sizes. In this post on losing weight I talked about the fact that over time those second helpings and large portion sizes make you fat. Really fat. Why? Because every time you eat a bigger meal than you should or go back for a second helping you are taking in calories that you can’t burn off. And over the months and years those extra calories add up to kilos and kilos of fat.
Again, write down how many second helpings you have in a two week period. Take note of how many meals you eat that are much bigger than they should be. You will notice that these amount to hundreds and hundreds of extra calories that you just aren’t burning off at the gym.
3. You don’t eat natural
As long as you are eating man made foods you are going to be overweight. The human body has been evolving for thousands of years to function perfectly on natural foods like fruits and vegetables. And then, all of a sudden, about 40 years ago everything went processed. We stopped eating the things that grow in the wild and started eating processed foods like chips, pastas, take away, frozen dinners and so on. The body doesn’t know how to handle these things.
The level of sugar, salt and preservatives in these man made foods make it impossible for you to stay at a healthy weight. If you are serious about long term health and staying at an ideal weight you need to get back to eating a natural diet.
4. Your emotions control you
Don’t worry, we all do it. Food becomes a comforter on those days that are just a little hard to get through. There is nothing more satisfying than driving to KFC for a big packet of fries when we are feeling depressed or stressed. But if we are realistic, our emotions control us. And if you want to lead a successful and healthy life you need to turn that around, you need to control your emotions.
photo credit: _K_E_E_G_A_N_
A lot of women are just never told that they are in control of their own mind. The emotions that arise and the feelings that depress you are nothing but your own thoughts that you can work on and control. Don’t let your emotions control you, control your emotions. If you can do that you will eat a lot less of the food that makes you overweight.
5. You don’t weight train
A lot of women are afraid of weight training because they think it will make them bulky. Well, as I say almost every post, it won’t. In fact, weights will burn more calories than you can imagine, keep your metabolism cooking during the day and help to shape and tone your muscles. It is high time that the women of the world realized how beneficial weight training is for weight loss and muscle toning. If you can mix weight training with your cardio session you will, in a few short weeks, look better than you ever have before. Essentially you are turning your body into the perfect fat burning environment.
6. You watch too much TV
I reckon if you interviewed 1000 people about their post work habits 900 of them would say they spend the night watching the TV. And while I understand that TV is a great way to unwind after a hard day, I also understand that it is a complete waste of time. You get nothing done except for passing the hours. And you know one thing that is better for de-stressing and winding down? Exercise. An hour at the gym after work will do more for your happiness, productivity and relaxation than five hours of television.
If you are overweight I want you to take a look at how many hours of TV you watch per day. If it is more than one or two then it is time to turn off the box and get out and do something for your body. Don’t waste your life away watching gossip and bad plots with a bigger tummy than you deserve.
7. You haven’t read enough
Here it is. The final straw. Now I am attacking your education. Well, not really. The thing about this point is that most of the information out there today is wrong. Most of what we are being told in the media about weight loss is just incorrect. For example, the idea that fat makes you fat. It doesn’t. Some fats are 100% essential to your health. Without them you will end up sick and unhealthy. The sad thing is that I see so many women attempting to lose weight based on false information. They haven’t done enough reading and as such they are suckered into the latest fad diet or the latest sound bite that they hear on some talk show.
If you are serious about weight loss you need to study. A lot. Don’t just read this site either. Read studies that have been done by scientists and look at information that is independent – that is, it isn’t trying to make anyone any money. And that doesn’t necessarily mean Government studies either because, as happened Australia, one Government diet book was sponsored by the Beef industry. If you read a lot I guarantee you will discover a lot of diet mistakes that you have been making.
Why you won’t change
photo credit: soaringbird
Here is the clincher. Around 98% of people can’t lose weight because of bad habits. And if they do, they revert back to their old weight within a year. This is a devastating statistic for many weight loss hopefuls out there. Science has shown that the human body gets “comfortable” with being overweight and struggles to lose it. When you starve yourself of calories you make it even worse because your body goes into “famine” mode and starts to store as much as it can.
But there is good news, 2% of people can lose weight and don’t go back once they lose it. And it is my firm belief that that figure can go up and up with the right information. You see it is mostly about information because, like I mentioned, many of us are doing the wrong things to lose weight. This makes progress hard.
The main reason people revert back to their old weight is habit. We have been eating the wrong things and doing no exercise for such a long time that once we reach our ideal weight we go back to the old easier life. If this is what is happening and you aren’t prepared to change your habits then there is nothing that can be done.
Conclusion
The point of this post is not to depress you. It is to give you inspiration. It is to encourage you to become one of the 2% of people who lose weight and keep it off by reading the right materials, changing habits for the long term and maintaining a disciplined focus. Its time to make a change. A permanent one.
