Losing Weight Is Wrong!

Yep, you heard me right. If your goal is to lose weight, you’ve already lost. It’s a pointless goal; Really. What happens when you lose weight? Then what? You’ve met your goal, now you can go shovel down some pizza and chocolate cake again because your goal was simply to lose weight. Or, you can get off that treadmill and plop back down on the couch because, yep, you’ve met that goal of losing weight.

Being fat, overweight or obese isn't really the problem. It's the life-style you lead that gets you fat, overweight or obese that is the problem. So losing weight doesn't solve anything. If it did, liposuction would actually work long term without modifying your eating or exercise. So simply losing weight is wrong!

You see, obese people aren’t the only ones that suffer from heart attacks and strokes. Thin people do as well. So why is it that you want to lose weight? Just to fit into an old pair of jean? Because society seems to grovel over people with “hot bods”. Not good enough. Obesity and the unhealthy habits associated with it don’t just lead to heart disease, but cancer and diabetes too. Diabetes can be a precursor to many other health problems as well.

The reason I say losing weight is wrong is because you are simply addressing the symptom of a problem. Treating the symptoms of a problem is akin to pulling the batteries out of your smoke detector rather than put out the fire that is causing the smoke. My training teaches me to address problems, not symptoms.

So what’s the problem then? The problem is, the reason you are overweight or obese is because you are unhealthy. The problem is you are unhealthy and being fat is a symptom of that problem. You become unhealthy first and then get fat second (and obese third). So you need to address the problem that caused the symptom, not the other way around. So, how do you start?

1. Identify the Problem. Is there some metabolic problem? Is there a problem with your thyroid? Is there some other problem? Maybe it’s as simple as your eating habits are horrible and you make bad choices for the type of food you purchase and eat. You need to go to your physician and find out.

2. Educate yourself. You need to learn about your problem. You need to learn exactly how unhealthy you are and then learn what changes you need to make in your life to properly fix the problem. How do you educate yourself. Here’s a list:

1) Go to your family doctor or internist and get blood and urine tests. You want to know the basics which are:
2) Your pertinent family health history
3) Your cholesterol level
4) Your good/bad cholesterol ratio
5) Your Triglyceride level
6) Your body’s ability to handle sugar? Are you diabetic or pre-diabetic?
7) Your blood pressure
8) CTa – A CAT scan of your heart / heart blood vessels
Stress Test (Nuclear)
9) Your thyroid function

Once you have this information, you can set proper goals. Your goals should be specific, positive, have a date in which you want to achieve them & action steps on how you are to meet your goal. For example:

GOAL: I am going to reduce my cholesterol from 290 to 190, and my triglycerides from 255 to 150 by January 1, 2007.

ACTION STEP: I will achieve this by:
Cutting out all Trans Fats & Hydrogenated Oils from my diet
Cutting out all products with high fructose corn syrup
Cutting out all products with corn syrup
Cutting out products with added sugar
Cutting out dairy products
Cutting out refined foods
Eating only whole food based meals
Eating only whole grain breads
Eating steel cut oatmeal rather than rolled oat oatmeal
Cutting out all sodas, regular and diet
I will schedule out 4 specific times per week to be in the gym and exercise 4 days per week.

Stupid diets (which are most of what you see advertised) based on calorie restriction just don’t work, which is why you’ll never win if your goal is to lose weight. If your goal is to become healthy, then you’ll win.

1st, choose the right goal, then you can create a success plan around that goal. Losing weight has an end, becoming healthy is a life-style.

Oh…one more thing. Once you make the decision to learn to be healthy. If you don’t want your children to grow up and develop the same problems as you, don’t be selfish.....Teach your children. It’s your responsibility.

DocT

Find out more about me at: www.NaturalSportsMedicine.com

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Dr. Narson is a 2-term past president of the Florida Chiropractic Association’s Council on Sports Injuries, Physical Fitness & Rehabilitation and was honored as the recipient of the coveted Chiropractic Sports Physician of the Year Award in 1999-2000. He practices in Miami Beach, Florida at the Miami Beach Family & Sports Chiropractic Center; A Facility for Natural Sports Medicine.