Our obesity problem is growing. Since it is my field of expertise, I feel we are losing the battle. Even though there has been some progress, like the bill to outlaw advertising junk food to kids (for example), our nation is still getting fatter.
There is so much information out there about how to lose weight that if you truly want to educate yourself and lose weight, you can. You can determine the cause of your weight issue and attack it, whether it is emotional, lack of information, thyroid issues, hormonal imbalances, insulin resistance or just plain eating too many calories. All these issues are treatable and workable if you choose to do the work.
Here is one of the reasons we are getting fatter. My husband and I went to the bookstore last week and I wrote down a list of the lead articles on the covers of women's magazines and health and fitness magazines. Here is what you will find on the newsstands right now:
"Get a Firm Body in One Week Without Exercise"
"Amazing Abs in Just 28 Days"
"Lose 6 lbs. in 7 Days"
"Get Fit Fast"
"Fast Food That Won't Make You Fat"
"Drop a Size Without Dieting"
"Bikini Body Now"
That is just a small sample of what is on the cover of our latest magazines. What this tells me is that these types of bogus articles sell magazines. People still want to believe they can lose weight immediately without any effort. Who wants to buy a magazine with a lead article that says, "Weight Loss is Hard and Takes a Really Long Time."
I read this list to my obesity support group and one of the women was very honest and said, "Even though I know none of those articles are true, I still buy those magazines. I still want all that to be true." I don't think she's alone or none of these magazines would still be in business.
Keep in mind, that to lose a pound of fat, you have to burn 3,500 calories. This is over and above the calories you need to maintain your current weight. That is not easy to do. You can lose water weight quickly, but it comes right back when you go back to eating your normal diet. Weight loss is hard, and it takes a long time, but it is so worth the work.
If you have already lost weight and would like to participate in the research for Irene's new book about the process of weight loss, please take the survey.
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I agree with Irene that weight loss is hard, but I don't agree with the cause of obesity. The facts in the UK (we are simply a few years behind the USA) are that obesity was 2% in the early 1970's and 25% in 1999. The obesity line takes off like an aeroplane at the time we changed our public health advice and introduced the pyramid madness. We have evolved to eat food - real food - not the calorie counted, processed creations that food manfufactu
For both these reasons - the sooner we stop obsessing with calories and the sooner we go back to eating meat, fish, eggs, vegetables
day (3 chocolate chip cookies) . Do this for 7 days and you've got 3,500 calories or one pound.
Keep this up for a year and you have gained 52 pounds. Keep this going for 3 years and if you are
a person who weighed 156 pounds at the onset, you have just doubled your weight. We like to think that people who are overweight got there by pigging out. I don't believe that is usually the case. Putting on weight is very insidious and in some respects when you do the math, it is amazing more of us aren't overweight
of pizza won't hurt", well it does, if we keep doing it.
When I was a kid in the 1970s, we would ride our bikes everywhere alone, stay outside all day in the Summer, walk/ride bikes to school, go fishing alone, or play football on the lawn.
Nowadays, helicopter parents want to organize play dates, are to scared too let their kids go outside (lest they all be kidnapped)
There are dozens of kids in my neighborho
That said, my own life-exper
We wouldn't be dealing with an obesity epidemic (which begets a diabetes and heart disease epidemic) if people were engaging in regular exercise. The 'fad diet' practice makes things worse because a quick cut of calories usually takes away muscle tissue instead of fat, thus driving down metabolism
2. Where's the outrage about the public policy that a) makes 40% of agricultur
3. What about the public policy that mandates building sprawl? You *must* drive to work, shop, school, and home in sprawl, by design -- and that's the bulk of new developmen
We could change #3 overnight if FNMA mandated all new building follow the "Smartcode
Clueless building and planning codes, developer inertia (no one gets fired for doing what everyone else does), and the existing oligarchy'
And the sprawl environmen
The folks at the Post Carbon institute are predicting that sprawl will stop of its own weight--on
Good posts.
Suburban sprawl stands indicted of being the prime cause of the childhood obesity epidemic--
Suburban sprawl will go away of its own accord once we're out of cheap oil. unfortunat
Fanned for beating me to the punch.
What we did was to eat only food I prepared at home - a nice large helping of it, but no seconds. No snacks. Only fruit in juice or yogurt for dessert. Within a couple of weeks we started to feel so much better, and had lots more energy. Surprising
Two months into the diet - if we can call it that - I have lost ten pounds and Spousal has lost 15. Even if we never lose another ounce, we feel about a thousand percent better.
Its called the french meal. The average french meal weighs a half-pound
Try smaller meals three or four times a day. A burger and a shared order of fries with your companion. A slice or two of pizza instead of three. Add as much raw veggies and fruit to your diet as you can. And the pounds will fall.
Needless to say, the shopper was grossly overweight
The real crime is that sensible people (taxpayers
This American diet is making people overweight and sick, period. It almost makes me sick to look at that cart full of junk.
Thanks for trying to wake people up.
You are up against oligarchic interests wielding immense power. Common people are of the mindset that restaurant and grocery store food must be OK, otherwise they could not sell it. Couple that with the power of advertisin
I am not amazed at the resistance
“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectu
Karl Marx
It is us against the ruling class. Solidarity