Almost six years ago I resolved to never again pay attention to a diet ‘expert’. Instead I started to do my own study to reveal a method to lose weight that could genuinely be called permanent. I simply refused to ever embark on a diet again.
I have always felt that unless a weight loss is to be ever lasting, what is the point of tolerating the hunger, the cravings and the utter agony of being deprived of calories when you know that all too soon all the weight will be back, usually with a bonus of even more weight?
On reflection you might think: that -’Yes, this is true but – it was my own fault. Because of my failure to stick to the diet the weight came back. In other words; you began to eat normal meals again’. We are becoming trained to believe that putting weight on will always be our own fault. That is entirely false. To eat ‘norma’l is what we ought to do all of the time. It is what we always did in the past without worrying about a weight gain. it is also what nature designed us to do.
I remember a time not THAT long ago, when weight gains only occurred when you ate food that was NOT normal. This maybe ironic, but it is a reality that should force us to ask ourselves: What changed, in the last couple of decades to cause just about everyone get so fat? The quick answer is Dieting. It is never a normal thing to diet. Our body was not ever intended to diet.
Before we take action we must understand the cause of the weight problems and obesity we see today: We have turned our everyday diet, on its head. The plethora of press, magazines, advertising and diet ‘experts’ have meant that we now take dietary advice from people who do not have the qualifications to give it. These are people who have no right to offer expert advice. It pays to remember that the diet business as a whole, have a strong self interest in growing a fat society for the future.
The trouble is, we have been led into a bog of quicksand called food addiction and we cannot get out out. Well, at the very least we do not wish to pull ourselves out. Our addiction causes us to believe that a life of fat is better than having to sacrifice the foods we think we cannot do without.
The people who keep us addicted are everywhere and they are very resourceful. Quite recently we saw a rare revalation of just how powerful the tobacco business can be. People with a vested interest in what we eat will stop at nothing to keep us addicted. Billions are spent in advertising to that end. The diet industry can be expected to reject that food addiction exists. Sounds very familiar don’t you think?
If you imagine your body as a kind of engine, which is pretty much what it is, you can imagine that the food you eat is the fuel that propels it to go. Your body was created many eons ago to operate on a specific mix of fuel. Over thousands of years, it has grown used to numerous very slow insignificant changes. Because the changes were small the body had centuries to adapt.
We have learned that large scale human intervention to nature’s laws can prove very risky, if not outright dangerous. We are an element of nature and we have permitted intervention to the natural function of our body. The obesity epidemic is a sign of what we can expect as punishment. In the past few decades we have stood by and watched our diet get flipped upside down without a murmur of protest from either the scientific or medical professions. Nobody has raised even a hint of concern. This is despite the growing number of people with weight problems, not to mention; a raging obesity epidemic in both adults and children.
Barely noticeable signs of this trend began to loom in the sixties. That is when colorful packaged foods began to make an appearance on the shelves in grocery shops. The trend was driven harder in the seventies when international foods came into vogue. By the eighties There was no doubt that more people were overweight but not ever on the level we see today. Folks could still delude themselves that weight problems most commonly happeden to people who suffered with diabetes or a thyroid condition.
As ever more people became exited about every new fashionable diet which appeared, it would seem nobody notice that our body, the ‘engine’, was just not working as efficiently as we once took for granted. More and more of us seemed to suffer digestive and intestinal problems. The pharmacy shelves told the story. It was to be expected that one day there would be a price to pay.
The thing that sealed our fate was cholesterol. Sadly, ‘experts’ discovered the word ‘cholesterol’ long before they had any understanding of what it meant. naturally that was not going to stop them. Only the medical profession would have had a chance to step in but even they got caught up in the inundation of people who wanted a cholesterol test. People in their legions were driven mostly by the press and untrained amateurs, to have a botched cholesterol test.
Why botched? Well, it may astonish you to hear that till quite recently, every single test was done completely wrong. To put it simply, there are two types of cholesterol measures one for good cholesterol and one for bad. When a test is done correctly, the good cholesterol cancels out the bad. For close to three decades laboratories across the world just added the numbers together. This meant that just about everyone who had a pulse also had a high cholesterol reading. Cholesterol had made a grande entrance and a lot of people got scared into starting a diet that nobody should ever have ever been persuaded to take on. By doing it and sticking with it, they became saddled with a permanent weight problem which went on to affect their children and grandchildren. It has also made a lot of professionals and amateurs a lot wealthier.
Even today,You will still find the odd laboratory who will cling to the old test. I am sure even a medical practioner can be found who will have missed an update or will prefer to cling to the past. A year ago, an Australian government promoted a no cost cholesterol tests for every adult. Every test was done using the old incorrect method. No one wants to see a light focused on their past mistakes, not least a government. Still shouldn’t they be first in line to know better.
This incredible mistake has meant that for around thirty years, the millions of people who were scared into a cholesterol test, would have shown a dangerously high reading. They were told to change their diet immediately. The diet which was recommended by every professional and non-professional alike, emphasised carbohydrate and minimized the need for protein. it ignored the fact that for centuries, protein had represented the greatest share of our daily diet.
This travesty was aggravated by the arrival of an innovative occupation named Nutrition. Although they were unqualified, these people had created a very high carbohydrate diet which was promoted to be the very last word on the meaning of a healthy diet. Since then, nutritionists have seen their diets discredited time and again, yet they continue to cling to the notion that ‘complexed carbohydrates’ and cereals are a necessary element in a healthy diet.
The discovery of cholesterol was heavily covered by the media. It was a scoop meant to greatly alarm most people and it succeeded. The ‘discovery’ was accompanied by the diet invented by the newly formed nutritionists, which promised to cure it. The media was delerious and nutritionists, who do not require any science or medical qualifications, were suddenly entertained as celebrities. Most folks who went on that diet just wanted to cure their cholesterol. Most did not even have a weight problem.
We tend to imagine that big mishaps connected to our health, like incorrect and hazardous diets simply cannot happen today. It only goes to prove that it is not that difficult to get it wrong. Shock is not enough. We have been taken aback by the raging obesity epidemic It starts with each one of us. We must cease dieting. Just stop it and let’s get our family to do the same. There truly is a simple way to do that and to attain a diet free weight loss. Once you do you will never have to add up your calories again.
Kirsten Plotkin
Author of My own Plan