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"The Top 10 Ways To NOT Lose Weight"
By Dr. Frank B. Smoot, MA, DD
In this Report we're going to look at the Top 10 Ways we Americans try to lose weight. Sadly, these are also the same ways that are least likely to actually produce weight loss.
The US Dept. of Health tells us that an astonishing 96% of all weight loss attempts end in failure. That means that less than one person in twenty succeeds at weight loss.
On top of that, we gain back a tragic 95% of all the weight we lose! What could be more maddeningly frustrating -- after all the blood, sweat, and tears it took to lose it?
As a result of our current approach to weight loss, 70% of us are now overweight, and 20% of us are dangerously overweight: obese. What can we do to reverse this deadly, misery-inducing trend?
The first step to get the facts. First we need to understand why Diet Industry approaches fail so miserably. Then we need to look at actual scientific research data about what does work. Finally, we need to know how we can apply what we learn in our own lives.
We're do all three of those things in this article.
"Stop The Insanity?"
Remember Susan Powter, the blonde with the buzz cut and the popular infomercial? She begged and pleaded with the Diet / Fitness Industry to "Stop The Insanity." And she did her darndest to make it happen.
Sad to say, the Insanity is still going strong. In fact, it's stronger than ever. You'll soon see just how strong the Weight Loss Industry Insanity really is -- and why it's time to cut it out of your life and finally get some real and lasting results!
We can begin by examining the top 10 ways to NOT lose weight. Let's take a look at each of them in turn, and find out why they fail so tragically -- and so often.
1. Dieting / Going On Diets
This may come as a tremendous shock to most people, but diets are a lousy way to lose weight. Why? Because they ignore all of the reasons why we're overweight in the first place!
Everybody knows that the way to lose weight is to (a) eat less, (b) exercise more, or (c) some combination of the two, right? But virtually no one overeats because of physical hunger. Research has shown that the real reasons we overeat involve factors we can't see or touch, aren't consciously aware of, and have no real control over.
The reasons we overeat stem from hidden motivations that, in turn, are the products of beliefs and attitudes we may not even know we have.
That's why no amount of consciously trying to "cut down" can make any lasting difference. All it does is make us feel deprived, anxious, and even more depressed when we fail yet again.
You see, weight loss success is not about food. Nor is it about exercise. It's about why we don't stop eating it, even when our physical hunger has been satisfied. And that's why trying to decide which "diet plan" is right for you is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It's a total waste of time, and it won't change the tragic outcome one bit.
2. Trying To Avoid Foods You Like
This popular but very stressful activity is just as much a waste of time and effort as dieting. In fact, it's a form of dieting. "Dieting," for our purposes, is defined as "any effort to control your body weight by controlling the volume or nature of food you eat."
Am I saying that what you eat isn't important? Certainly not. Some foods are clearly better for you than others. And just as clearly, a proper amount of food is healthier than too much -- or too little. But we need to get our focus off of the food itself (and off anything physical, for that matter) and onto the reasons we're eating too much in the first place.
As you may know, trying to avoid the foods you like the most just makes you want them more. That's the way it is with anything that feels like self-denial. If something feels like self-denial, it is self-denial. That's no way to live -- and it's certainly no way to lose weight!
3. Trying To Avoid Fattening Foods In General
This is another approach that doesn't work in real life. The problem, again, is that you're constantly fighting your own desires. You are trying to consciously impose your will (see Item 8, "Will Power") on your own powerful but unseen unconscious motivations.
But your will -- anybody's will -- is no match for your deeper cravings and unconscious beliefs and attitudes. You need to understand that you are literally programmed to want what you want. It is utterly futile to try to fight your own deeply-held programming with something as weak as a human will.
The only lasting way to succeed at weight loss is to make changes in your personal programming -- the beliefs and attitudes that are the real, root causes of your weight problem.
The good news is that this is both easy and enjoyable. It's also very enlightening. Better still, self-reprogramming involves none of the stress and struggle that Diet Industry methods require. Best of all, once you've made the necessary changes, getting to your target weight and staying there becomes just as automatic as being overweight used to be.
And every pound you lose is gone for good!
4. Making Repeated Attempts To Lose Weight
This is the most tragic consequence of Diet Industry approaches. With each failed weight loss attempt, it becomes more difficult to take off the pounds. It's called the "Yo-Yo" syndrome. Every time the weight goes down, it just comes back up again.
But unlike a Yo-Yo, it wants to come up higher than the starting point. Such disappointing results can easily send us spiraling down into depression -- which can then make us put on even more weight.
It's a truly vicious cycle, and one that can take a heavy toll, not just on our body, but on mind and spirit as well. Depression, even suicide, can result. So don't waste another minute of your life on this deadly approach.
5. Diet Pills / Drugs / Herbal Supplements
This dangerous practice is finally getting some of the publicity it deserves. Almost every week brings more news coverage of the dangers of ephedra / ma huang / etc.. More than 100 deaths and countless health problems have been directly linked to this "natural" stimulant.
Remember that "natural" does not automatically mean healthy. More insecticides and poisons have been created by Mother Nature than by Dow or Dupont.
Sure, we all want results. And we want them FAST. Yesterday would be nice. And therein lies much of our problem. We humans are not a patient bunch, and we Americans are probably the worst of the lot. We expect -- and usually get -- whatever we want, and at the touch of a button. And we demand that whatever problems can't be solved with a button be remedied with a pill.
But reality doesn't work that way. You simply can't win by cheating.
6. Skipping Meals / Fasting
If you're genuinely not feeling hungry, are in good health, and have no unhealthy psychological issues motivating you decision to skip the occasional meal, then it's not a problem.
But if you skip meals out of guilt, as part of a food-based weight loss effort, or because you think you're just too fat, then beware. If your meal-skipping feels remotely like self-deprivation, then you are on dangerous ground. Stop it immediately.
Now, there's nothing inherently dangerous about fasting. Your own motivation is what makes the crucial difference. Why are you fasting? If your reason in any way involves weight loss, you're on the wrong track.
Denying yourself food is a miserable, painful, and totally ineffective way to control your weight. And, because it is an act of self-deprivation -- a very severe one -- it will always create negative consequences. You can count on your own psyche to strike back at you, through your unconscious motivations.
And whenever your conscious decisions (like fasting and skipping meals) conflict with your unconscious motivations (like eating whatever and whenever you want to), the unconscious motivations will sooner or later win every time.
Count on it.
7. Using Generic, One-Size-Fits-All, "Cookie Cutter" Weight Loss Methods
Contrary to the prevailing attitudes in Western healthcare, we are not all the same. We are not a bunch of identical little "biological units." That's why the one-size-fits-all, "cookie-cutter" mentality so popular with the Diet Industry is a terrible disservice to you, and a disastrously counterproductive way of thinking.
You are unique. Your situation is are unique. And your solutions need to be custom-tailored to your unique needs.
Our Creator designed us each to be unique. What works for you may not work for others, and vice-versa. So be sure that your approach to weight loss is not generic, but is targeted to your own personal situation.
8. Relying On Will Power
I'll be the first to admit that I was surprised to find this out. But the reality is that, not only does will power not produce weight loss, but it most often leads to weight gain.
Of course, now that we know self-denial actually creates a psychic "backlash," it's easier to understand why. The noted French doctor Emile Coue declared that the imagination is a much stronger force than will power, and that when the imagination and the will are in conflict, the will always loses.
In truth, will power is a fragile and fickle thing -- as anyone who has ever relied on it knows only too well. In reality, will power is no power at all. It's simply the process of trying to overpower our own deeper motivations.
The key to success is to restructure our deeply-help desires, so that the conflict between our hidden motivations and our conscious desires is eliminated. When you do this, no will power is needed.
9. Relying On Exercise Or Exercise Machines
Exercise alone is incapable of creating or sustaining meaningful weight loss. As healthy as exercise can be, it's not a stand-alone tool for weight control.
It is appalling that TV infomercials are allowed to make the absurd claims they do. "Lose 2 inches off your waist in 10 days." That's the promise of one popular exercise machine. No mention is made of any other action being taken to help you achieve that goal. Not even sensible eating!
The truth is that 95% of the machines sold on TV will end up (a) gathering dust somewhere, (b) as an expensive clothes hanger, of (c) being dumped for pennies on the dollar at a yard sale. We need to understand that exercise machines, while they may serve a role in overall health maintenance, are total disasters as weight loss tools.
10. Failing To Get Your Mind and Spirit Involved In Your Weight Loss Program
Our failure to involve our entire being in the weight loss process is one of the biggest reason we don't lose weight. I'm not getting "religious" on you. I'm simply pointing out the reality or who we, as humans, really are
We see ourselves first and foremost as physical bodies that have minds and (maybe) those ethereal things called spirits. In fact, our culture has taught us to see ourselves, our universe, and everything in it as being primarily physical.
But the truth is quite the opposite:
Our failure to understand our own nature makes us automatically look to the physical realm as both the cause and the cure for whatever ails us.
On the surface, that's logical. What we can see and touch is what seems most real. Being overweight looks like a physical problem, so it needs a physical solution. But the truth is that our physical bodies are just a physical manifestation of what's going on in our mind and spirit -- a visual indication of a non-visible problem.
BOTTOM LINE: Who we are consists of parts we can see and parts we can't see. These parts are not separate, but form one, unified whole. Any weight loss approach that fails to acknowledge this reality is simply doomed to fail.
Summary: The Truth Will Indeed Set You Free But Until Now, It's Been Hard To Find
The reason 96% of weight loss efforts fail is that they are aimed exclusively at some kind of a physical solution, such as:
Any so-called "solution" that tries to create weight loss by controlling the volume or nature of food intake, or any other physical factor, is doomed because it ignores the root causes of the problem.
These approaches are a tragic waste of our precious time, not to mention our money, our emotional energy, and our capacity for hope.
After we cut away all the Diet Industry's nonsense, what are we left with? The new research has answered that question with the clarity of a crystal ball. Let me summarize the findings with three basic truths. To succeed at weight loss...
1. You need to get your entire being aligned toward your weight loss goals. Any weight loss approach that fails to consider this fundamental fact is doomed to fail, and is one of the main reasons why 96% of all weight loss attempts do fail.
2. You need to get your unconscious motivations aligned with your conscious desires. When you do that, a magical thing begins to happen. Your excess weight begins to disappear -- all by itself. Even better, the process actually becomes effortless, stress-free, and self-perpetuating.
3. You need to use an approach that consists entirely of proven techniques, applied in a custom-tailored way to your unique situation and fully addresses the needs of the unique individual you truly are.
When properly blended, these three truths will create in your life a powerful weight loss recipe for success. When you put this success recipe to work in your own life, losing your unwanted pounds no longer feels like self-deprivation.
In fact, your weight loss becomes a powerful reward in itself.
The habits that once fought you at ever turn now become your strongest allies. The powerful unconscious motivations that once kept you imprisoned at a weight you didn't like now become your liberators. They take you where you want to go, and help you stay there -- with the same tremendous power they once used to resist your weight loss efforts.
When your entire being is aligned toward your goals, they take you like a magic carpet to the weight you desire, and help you to stay there, without effort or struggle. When it is not, your weight loss efforts are nothing more than an "internal war" you can't win.
Yours in total health,
Dr. Frank
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