What's Your Responsibility with the Cost of Obesity?

I don’t want to play the blame game, but I do want to point out the fact that if health care is standardized in the US, our tax dollars will be going to pay the high medical cost of obesity: diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, etc. What is your responsibility? What is mine?

We each will have an individual responsibility to get in better shape so we’re not taxing the nation. One person’s weight problem will become everyone’s weight problem, because we all will be footing the bill together with our tax dollars hard at work paying for prescription medications and diabetes machines. That gives a new spin to the phrase “you are what you eat”. We will all be what everyone else eats.

It doesn’t help to point the finger at the fast food industry and say they combine salt, fat, and sugars in a way that hooks our brains and gives us urges we can’t control. Because then we’re still overweight and blaming something outside ourselves that we “can’t control”, so we don’t have to point the finger inward and think about our personal responsibility to ourselves and everyone else.

What’s the solution then? What can we do about the millions of people that are hooked to eating when we need a boost, comfort, or just something to take us away from our troubles or boredom? We all can’t be on the Biggest Loser and besides, we’re not all interested in being publicly showcased and humiliated. Paying for surgery to get a band stapled onto our stomachs is costly and not guaranteed. Thousands of people gain the weight back within three years of having the operation because they were still hooked to food.

I don’t want to come off as a critic, because I’m not. I want to be your biggest supporter if you have an eating and weight problem. But I want to point out the problem first because most people with eating problems keep their eyes closed, eat what they please, and live in denial. Even if taxing others doesn’t worry you, what about your own life? You’ve got yourself to worry about. Eating problems won’t go away on their own and I’m sure you are suffering for it, even if you don’t like thinking about it. Are you happy with how your body looks and feels? Can you get around as easily as you’d like? Does eating leave you feeling energized or stuffed and tired? Do you deal with guilt?

I want to help you because I know what it’s like to have an eating problem. I struggled with overeating and even bulimia, gained 30 pounds, lost self-respect and self-control, and dove into despair. What saved me was learning how to retrain my thinking around food, so urges did not control me anymore. I changed my relationship with food and believe everyone else can do the same. It just takes desire, lots of grit and determination, and a simple tool.

This summer I published a book called Stop Overeating Today! with 33 self-help strategies that teach overeating sufferers how I overcame my eating problem and how they can too. The tips are go-at-your-own-pace and encourage the reader to start slowly so retention is possible. This go-to guide is thorough, covering all aspects of overeating: emotional eating, eating at restaurants, eating at home, food shopping and preparation, eating for comfort, overcoming guilt, and more. It puts power back into your hands so you no longer can say, “I have no control.”

So, you can close your eyes and wish your eating problem and weight problem would disappear, or you can empower yourself with a guilt-free guide and start making small sustainable changes. It’s up to you. If you don’t, it’s up to all of us to foot the bill.

The Truth about Your Sweet Tooth

You might be saying, "Well, duh. I already knew that people eat when they're stressed." But did you pay attention to which foods you prefer when stressed? Maybe this will help you explain your fascination with ice cream after a stressful day at work.

Here I am quoting verbatim what Marci E. Gluck, PhD, Obesity & Diabetes Clinical Researcher says:

"One recent study found that rats consumed more sugar after the administration of corticosterone (cortisol) suggesting that in humans, overeating of "comfort foods" may be stimulated by cortisol in response to stress (Dallman et al., 2003). Other research has shown that restrained eaters (e.g. dieters)(Stroud et al, 2000) and those with binge eating disorder (Gluck et al., 2004) are the ones more likely to overeat following stress."

So, what is a restrained eater? Someone who is constantly holding back from eating the sweet foods their body wants to eat. But, you might ask, "Isn't that the whole premise of the book Stop Overeating Today?" Nope, and I'll tell you why.

My book is about showing people, in the moment they feel tempted to overeat, how to rethink about the situation so they actually change their minds about overeating and realize they don't want to do it anymore. Yes, of course, the brownies still smell amazing and they are gooey just the way you like them, but you realize you don't need to eat the whole pan to get the ultimate eating experience and you can stop after eating just one. Does that make sense?

So, next time you are turning to sugar, check in with yourself to find out if it is stress related. If it is, eating the whole pan of brownies won't help much anyway. Figure out what is stressing you out and work on that, instead of turning to overeating instead. If you need stress reduction tips, go to Tip #2 in my book Stop Overeating Today! 33 Tips That Will Change Your Life. If you don't have my book, then use this discount code (AUG26) to save $2 TODAY ONLY when you use Google Checkout!

Drugs vs. Self-Control

There's an article in the New York Times about research comparing monkeys who ate 30% less calories than another group of monkeys. The group that took in fewer calories showed these results: longer lifespan and less diabetes, cancer, and cholesterol problems.

So that's good news, right? At least we know what we can do if we want to live longer and healthier. What percentage of your daily calories currently includes food you ate when you were already comfortably full? Do you stop to listen to your body to find out when it's full, or do you typically just eat the portions in front of you? Learning to restrain yourself could add years to your life, which is encouraging.

But here's the part about drugs vs. self-control. The article suggests that since most people can't stick to a diet of 30% less calories than they are used to, they are going to develop a drug that can create the same results as eating less.

First of all, that's sad that there's an assumption people won't do what's best for them. Not that I disagree. Most people won't stop overeating. So let's just skip self-control as even an option and go straight to more drugs as a solution? (Because it worked so well for Michael Jackson and thousands of others with drug dependencies). Secondly, is it realistic that a drug can substitute for healthy eating? Seriously, drugs can't solve everything. We don't want to become a nation of drug dependent overeaters.

Here's the article link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/10/science/10aging.html?_r=1.