Obesity and food conditioning

My weightloss journey has given me insight in so many peoples struggle with losing weight. From the people needing to shed few pounds, to the people with such a serious obesity that they arent expected to survive the year. Overweight and obesity is certainly a problem in the whole western world (or any country that has somewhat modern society), and it is increasing in such a pace that I literally see people get fatter by the year. If you see a group of children then at least 1-2 are overweight or obese. I with my current 321 lbs (146 kg) am in the obese category, and I have been there since I was a child. I have been surfing on the net for all kinds of information about obesity, and there are many articles and research about obesity and related problems. In my opinion the research is little off track. I can find all kinds of articles about viruses, bacteria, hormones and genes, that are thought to have influence on obesity, but there arent so many articles about the affects food has on obesity. It all leads down to one thing: In my opinion there is a reason why people are obese, it is because their nutrition isnt properly balanced, or in layman terms, They EAT TOO MUCH, simple as that......... I know that I for sure ate too much food high in calories, and thats the reason why I got obese, and I think every single obese person will agree with that. The problem is food... too much at the wrong time... Simple as that. The solutions that are offered as a "cure" for obesity are in my opinion WAY off track, and by that I mean weight loss surgeries. I know many people think they are the greatest thing that ever happened, and there are many people that have gone through it and lost a lot of weight, and I am not critizing their decision to go through a WLS. I am just focusing on what the big picture is with the WLS. So again I am not critizising anyone or anything, I am just writing down my thoughts and observations on the matter. Back to the topic: It is in fact really extreme in my opinion to make such drastic alterations on the digestive system, so people can lose weight. To make people unable to consume large quantitives of food, to literally make the digestive system unable to work properly in order to lose weight. Am I the only one to see the madness in this? Just think about it: I know of a non-op woman on another board that lost a lot of weight simply by following the nutrition plan of a WLS patient recovering from the operation. So it seems that the only thing that the surgery really does is to make it impossible to eat large quantitives of food, and to make it difficult to consume junkfood, so the surgery doesnt even have a purpose except causing post-op patients to be unable to eat properly. It is like if the cure for alchoholism was to glue the mouth shut. In fact I remember few decades back, that many obese people had their teeth wired shut together to be unable to eat anything except fluids. Besides all this, I can just look at people I know that have had this operation, and the problems they are having with the digestive system and themselves. Many of them have gained all their overweight back, and others are slowly but steady gaining it all back, because the main issue: Attitude and view on food and food addiction hasnt been dealt with. In my opinion the focus on WLS and other drastic weightloss "solutions" has had the affect that the focus is not on the real issue, The food! I am convinced that the real problem of overweight people and the thing that is causing all the excess weight is their view and attitudes towards food. And then I am not talking about person to person, but a problem that the whole society structure in the western world has on food. By that I mean that in our society there is not a single social event that occurs without food consumption. And the food is most often the one that has the highest calorie content of all food. It is nearly always the food that is filled with fat or sugar or both. Societies standards and perceptions make people feel obligated to make or bring that kind of food into the events and they also feel obligated to consume it. Just think if instead of a cake we would serve fresh fruits in an event. I really doubt that people would get disappointed if we would do so, in fact I think we would get compliments on the healthy food, so the question is: Why do we keep on making and bringing and eating the food with so many calories, the food we know will make us gain weight? I think most people would say: "because thats what we always have on christmas/birthdays/bbq parties..........!!" etc. So is it just the fact that we feel obligated to repeat the event (including the food) as we did the year before and the year before........... that is making us do it. Lets face the facts: Just think about all the extra calories that we are getting from the food on all the events through the year (if you eat 100 calories extra everyday you will gain 12 lbs in one year). Those events and the food that goes with it, is maybe the hardest thing to resist when we are trying to lose weight, because we feel so obligated to eat the food, and in fact we are incouraged to do so by others tending the same event or the host himself. Who doesnt recognize delaying a diet-attempt simply because it was christmas time, or their anniversary etc. Just because there was food on the event that HAD to be consumed. The events with food are just a part of the obesity problem. Another big issue is our view on food that is high in calorie content. It is like we divide food categories into FUN food, and healthy food. The fun food is of course the sweets, cakes, fast-food, sugar sodas etc.... We have the idea in our head that this food should be consumed when we are doing fun things, like the events I mentioned before. We are also connecting a bunch of emotions into the "fun" food. Who doesnt recognize the thought: "Mmmm, if I eat that chocolate, it will make me feel so goooood". When you think like that, you are linking happy emotions to a chocolate!!, so in fact you are training your mind to crave chocolate, because it links happiness to the experience of eating chocolate. The fact is: Food is food, taste is taste and food doesnt have small molecules of "happy-atoms" lodged in it, it is all in your mind!! And therefore we get cravings. We crave the effect certain foods has on us, and those effects are in my opinion conditioned in us from the society, with maybe the biggest influence being TV-food commercials and the whole consumer oriented propaganda for junkfood. Just look at a commercial for a fast-food chain or a brand of chocolate. Those products are presented as something you will get happiness and satisfaction from, simply by eating it..... And not a obese person in sight in the junk-food commercials!!! Just imagine if a tomato or a carrot would be advertised the same way, as something that will give you satisfaction, happiness and success, if the society would condition you to link happiness and satisfaction to a cucumber. That brings back the whole healthy food issue. Food that is actually good for you, and will actually give you much more happiness and satisfaction then all the donuts in the world, is seen as a quite a different thing then the "FUN" food. It is rather viewed as something that you HAVE to eat to get down to a certain weight. It is not seen as a food you would ever crave for, something you GOTTA have. It is rather seen as a food you are OBLIGATED to eat to lose weight. Thats why people that are trying to lose weight think its such a burden to eat correctly and to avoid junkfood. They havent severed the positive emotional link to the junkfood, and they havent built up an positive emotional link to healthy food. Instead the healthy food gets into the "BORING, BUT OBLIGATED TO EAT" category. Thats why people have to fight cravings all the time, and that is also the reason why people fall for their cravings. It is simply the idea they have in their mind that certain food can make them feel good. It is in fact possible to turn the cravings to healthy food, but it takes time and effort. This is how I gained positive emotions to healthy food: What I started to do was to be grateful for every piece of "healthy" food that I ate. I simply repeated to myself "mmm, I am so lucky to be able to eat this, it tastes great, it makes me feel so much better and it makes me lose weight". You dont have to say that word for word, just think of the healthy food with gratefulness and choose the words that work for you. After some time this mentality becomes automatic, and it really works! Now I love my healthy food, and believe or not, sweets, cakes and junkfood doesnt move me a bit. I can look over a whole table filled with sweets and cakes and the feeling it gives me is similar to look at a flower decoration, it simply doesnt move my emotions, because I have cut off the emotion connection. Before that kind of food would have screamed at me from the table "EAT ME, EAT ME....." but no more, because it all lies in your mind. Now it is just food that I dont eat, I know how it tastes but I have no craving to eat it, because taste is taste, food is food, no more no less. I simply dont feel its worth it to eat this food just to taste something, I would rather taste the "good" food and keep on feeling so damn good, because the junk food and sweets dont make you feel good, they are just taste that you have linked with emotions, and thats why you think it makes you feel good. This is how I gained negative emotions to junkfood: It is important, is to expose what is really going on when you crave certain food or feel the urge to binge. Dont accept cravings as a feeling or emotion that you have to obey, that you have no control over. To say "I cant help it" is giving up on the spot, because then you cast away all responsibility of your own actions and you accept to be out of control. If you think you are not responsible over your actions then who is? To withstand cravings for food you have to debate to yourself, you have to tell yourself good reasons why you shouldnt obey to the cravings. F.ex. if you have a crazy cravings for icecream (or any other food that makes you gain weight) then you should ask yourself: Is it really worth it to throw away everything I have worked for, to lose the belief in myself, to feel out of control, guilty, a loser, failure...... just to have the taste of icecream in my mouth for few minutes? Is the taste of icecream more important then my success in life? Is the taste of icecream more important then my health? Is the taste of icecream more important then feeling good in my own skin? Is the taste of icecream worth having people stare at my fat butt orifice everytime I go out in public? Is the taste or icecream in my mouth for a few minutes worth having people point at me and making fun of me? Is the taste of icecream good enough to risk my own health and ultimately my own life? Wouldnt it be better to have a piece of fruit instead, they taste great and they DONT ruin my life ................. Just continue debating in your mind all the reasons why you shouldnt have that da... icecream untill you dont want it anymore. It sounds incredible but this thing works!! Just remember also to tell yourself that you are in control and not that craving, and never ever never tell yourself "I cant help myself", because then you have just made an excuse for having that icecream, not a very good excuse but just enough to convince yourself that you should eat that icecream. Do this to every craving you get, one icecream at a time, one donut at a time, one candy at a time. I could write forever about this subject, but I think I stop now. You can read more on my weightloss journal. http://kilokiller.blogspot.com