STAYING MOTIVATED TO LOSE WEIGHT
The entire world is conspiring against me, Dr. Fox, the entire world.” That’s how 34-year-old Barbara began our conversation when she came to my office one day. Plopping down in the chair in disgust, the 170-pound, 5′ 4″ mother of 3 continued, “I’m trying to watch my weight, I’m trying to change my eating habits, but I can’t. My kids are always wolfing down Sugar Pops, cupcakes, and red licorice, all at the same time. They eat in front of me, they leave it on the table, the boxes are in the cupboard. At work, someone’s always bringing in glazed doughnuts. At lunchtime, the menu is full of main dishes with Alfredo in the name, and then there’s nothing to eat but cookies and soda in the afternoon.”
I thought I might interject a suggestion while Barbara took a breath, but she continued before I had a chance. “Then, at home, I’m in charge of the cooking! I’ve got to see all that food, I’ve got to handle it, I’ve got to smell it while it’s cooking. And I’m starving while I’m seeing it, handling it, and smelling it. And then, the TV advertises nothing but food, food, food! How can I avoid all of these temptations? It’s a conspiracy!”
Of course, Barbara is right. It’s almost impossible not be exposed to food—and wonderful-tasting food at that. McDonald’s, Burger King, and Pizza Hut; Nabisco, General Mills, and Kraft; Miller, Budweiser, Coca-Cola, and Pepsi; 10,000 restaurant chefs and millions of well-meaning mothers spend half their working hours figuring out how to seduce us into eating more. We seem almost powerless to resist.
Moreover, our so-called lack of willpower is not that at all. The true fact is that we are evolutionarily programmed not to resist the blandishments of food. The real reason that we cannot stay on a low-calorie, hunger-inducing diet for long is not that we lack mental fortitude but that to remain permanently hungry is, quite literally, against human nature. Not to mention uncomfortable!
Humans were programmed, way back in the era of prehistoric man (and quite possibly even before humans evolved from our australopithecine forebears), to eat more than they needed when food was abundant in order to have reserves when it was not. They stored the excess as fat and held onto it tenaciously for emergency use. In fact, our bodies are willing to part with certain fat reserves (such as those saddle bags on the upper thighs or the fatty bulges on the underside of the buttocks) only under two conditions: If we are close to starvation or, for pregnant women, if their fetus needs nourishment. Under few circumstance can we lose fat in those locations.
During our evolution, our survival depended on this mechanism of fat storage because periods of deprivation were inevitable. However, for most of us today, this fat-storage mechanism is not offset by frequent or even occasional lack-of-food emergencies. Inevitably, therefore, we have to fight and struggle to keep our weight down—and most of us fail, at least to some extent. Given our evolutionary programming, most of us simply cannot avoid gaining weight as we age.
Does that then lead to the inevitable conclusion that trying to lose weight (or maintain our optimum weight) as we age is futile? Well, while I wouldn’t go that far, I must admit that it has been a huge problem up to now, and one that for most people has at best been only partly solved up to now. However, the situation has been altered drastically by the Chitosan program. While there is still some difficulty involved in losing weight and keeping it off (because a certain amount of restraint is still needed, and restraint is not one of the things we humans are particularly good at), it is now well within reach and entirely practical for every healthy person.
It is in this context that I offer the following suggestions for how to motivate yourself to lose weight. You now know that with the help of Chitosan you definitely will be able to control your weight. And that knowledge itself is a powerful motivator. As one of my favorite aphorisms has it, your power flows where your attention goes.
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