“The meaning of insanity is doing the same things over and over and
expecting different results.”
The quote above by Albert Einstein pretty
much explains why the diet and weight loss industry are so wealthy.
People are looking in the wrong direction when searching for answers to
solve their weight and health issues.
A dieter’s mindset is the same mindset followed by most of the
population: Once something is not in order, it’s suddenly time to fix it. This
mindset is one that focusses on taking care of the symptoms rather than
addressing the cause of the problem.
Trying different dietary regimes is like sitting on a chair with
thumbtacks on its surface. Every time you sit down you prick yourself and
then have to bandage the wounds. Yet the following day you go back to
sitting on the same chair again, ignoring the problem from the previous day
until you once again experience pain and discomfort.
This is what happens when we diet. We are focusing on the outcome
instead of looking to change the causes behind the results we have before us.
Most people are not presented with very many other options, so they
go with any new fad diet regime that they come across in the hope that this
will be the one that will get them from where they currently are to where
Why they desire to be. I know, because that’s what I personally did for
years. But every time we start on a new extreme diet which deprives our
body of nutrients, we become stressed, which in itself has a negative effect
on our health and prevents us from reaching our goal.
Research shows that more than 34.9% or 78.6 million adults and
17% of the youth in the United States are obese.
(1)
Furthermore, obesity-
related conditions including heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes, and
certain types of cancer are all on the list of leading causes of death. Research
proves that these are mostly preventable deaths.
(2, 3)
The estimated annual medical cost of obesity in the US was $190
billion in 2012; the medical costs for people who are obese were $1,429
higher than those of normal weight.
(4)
In America, if the obesity rates
continue to rise on their current path, the number of new cases of Type 2
diabetes, coronary heart disease and stroke, hypertension and arthritis could
increase by ten times that number by 2020, and double again by 2030.
(5)
Obesity has risen by 34% since 1960, and morbid obesity (BMI above 40)
has risen six fold to 6%.
(4)
According to the Boston Medical Centre,
approximately 45 million Americans diet each year and spend $33 billion on
weight loss products in their pursuit of a trimmer, fitter, healthier body.
(6)
But the products and diet information available mostly contradict one
another. Some diets say that you should consume only fats to actually lose
weight, while others say that fats are bad for you and you should go on a
low-fat diet instead. Some diets look into food combining without any
consideration as to what is being consumed, while others are so restrictive that they are completely boring and impossible to follow in the long term.
Some diets say not to eat at night, while others say that only the total
amount of calories consumed in a twenty-four hour period is what is
important. This is very confusing to any person wanting to lose some weight,
get fit, and become healthy.
Some people nowadays are even looking towards fad pills, powders,
medications, or surgery to help them solve their weight and health problems. However, these options are still only caring for the result (the ill
health and the weight problem), and ignoring the cause behind the result.
It is actually quite crazy that most of us forget to consider for a
moment the reason behind our obesity or health state, and spend hours (and
hard-earned dollars) searching to find quick and easier solutions to our
problems. However, it is only by looking and examining the core reason for
the problem that we can find a way to fix it.
The reasons why we have detoured off the path to wellness,
longevity, and optimal health are due to two factors:
A.
We have, through our choices, created an unhealthy environment for
our cells to live and grow in.
B.
We have allowed our core belief system about nutrition and health to
be strongly influenced by the media which has its interest in monetary
gain rather than our health at hand.
Only by going back to our natural state and following the natural
laws of nature will we be able to take back what is lawfully ours and to start
living the healthy life we deserve.
As I mentioned, I, personally, have been on every fad diet that I can
think of from diets based on blood type, food combining, raw food diets,
Atkins and so on. But at the end of the day, I never understood why certain
foods led to weight loss while others made me fat. In fact, by following the
strict regimes specified in each of those diets, my obsession about food only
worsened. I was round the clock busy trying to manage my diet and weight.
All of my spare time was wasted by conforming to my eating disorder and
food addiction, so that I had really no time to enjoy life. Every waking hour
was surrounded by thoughts of food. It was definitely a difficult and
unproductive time in my life. The only industrious thing that I was doing at
the time was improving food retailer’s bank accounts! Only after becoming
sick with cancer twice in two years did the idea enter my mind that perhaps
my dietary choices were leading my health on a downward spiral! I never
really found a sound concrete source of evidence based on a spectrum of
sciences that shows the big picture as to which foods support human health
and which do the exact opposite.
This is when I decided to use my excellent research abilities to learn
what it is that humans should be eating to support our health and natural
weight loss from a broad perspective. I learned that the most important
factor for health and weight loss was the
choice
of fuel we use to supply
energy to our bodies.
My research began by looking at the apes, gorillas in particular, due
to our genetic and physiological similarities, in order to gain clues for the
ideal human diet.
In the next chapter I shall cover what I discovered in my research of
these fascinating primates
Collected:
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