Normally I try to start every blog entry with something that is creative or silly because I feel it’s a nice way to introduce some form of truth that might not be initially well received, but needs to be spoken. Unfortunately, there is no way to sugarcoat #3 on my list of “Most Common Things That Must Be Overcome” in the realm of weight loss.
Unhealthy Expectations.
The bottom line is that most people have a very unhealthy expectation of weight loss. From what a calorie is, to how fast they can burn them and everywhere in-between. I know for years I did. While that topic is a thesis in and of itself, what I find most disturbing is the culture of selling hope rather than solutions.
In the past 10 years “weight loss problem solving” in the form of supplements, programs, meals, books, diets, patches and so forth has become a billion dollar industry. In that same amount of time, we the consuming public have communally pushed obesity past smoking as the #1 cause of preventable death in America. Empirical evidence, or common sense, would suggest that the solutions we are being sold are not solving anything.
I think what bothers me most, is that those companies who profit from selling weight loss aren’t really that shy about telling you their products seldom work. They “show” you what you want to see, but then they are legally obligate to tell you else wise. But I don’t want to come across as cynical. These products do work when taken in conjunction with a healthy diet and exercise…
Could you imagine the recourse if other companies got away with selling their products in the same fashion? Would we even let them? Honestly think about this for a moment. If you were in the market to buy a new car and 9.9 times out of 10 the “automatically starting car” you chose to test-drive would not start automatically when you attempted to test-drive it, would you buy that car? How about if the .01 time the “automatically starting car” started was because you put the standard key in the ignition? Would you then approach another vehicle with the exact same “Results Not Typical” guarantee?
I don’t know which one bothers me more. The fact that we are directly sold false hopes, or that we allow it. Regardless, it is our unhealthy expectations towards weight loss that has led our country to be the most obese in history.
I often joked that while I was losing my weight I had to walk by faith because I lost visual contact with my feet. Sometimes though, a joke loses it’s humor when the reality it asks you to suspend, becomes the reality in which it exists.
The forever ending cycle!! So many people, myself included until finding you
, had no idea how to get away from the Ping Pong or Yo-Yo effect.
When all you see are the results not typical, you wind up trying whatever you see, because they fail so is why they are a multi-billion dollar industry! Few people search hard enough to find the “truth” as our culture is “I want it now I want it easy.” Everyone is dupped into at least trying it out, or gimmicked into a “money back guarrantee” that many people do not even try to return even when it fails.
I myself went ’round and ’round on several only slightly recieving results along with (what I thought was a healthy diet) and as soon as I stopped “following the plan” everything I had worked for returned and then some!
This is why I’m proud to share what I can with people that ask me about my efforts and things that I do, One can touch 10, who can touch 10 more each, etc. As I pray you reach millions with your honest solutions!