WeightLoss and Blame

Short of sexuality, nothing permeates our culture quite like the issue of weight. Specifically, the loss and management of it. One could make a case that sex and fat are two sides of the same cheeseburger, but nonetheless we are bombarded by images and messages that remind us we don't look at all like swim suit models or Health practitioner.Cynics would tell us that it's all about the money, the selling of fashion and cosmetics and self-worth, and the selling of the health clubs and magazines and diet plans that promise to get us there while they remind us we're light-years away from being a planet were everyone enjoys the perfect body weight.Either we are not all that fat and are being conned into believing that we are... or we truly are on the plus-side of healthy poundage and in committed denial about it. For the former, we say: wake up and smell the low-fat yogurt. Because we outnumber you five to one, and we're too busy eating ourselves into oblivion to worry about you and your anxiety about moving from a size six to a size four. Three words: get a life.For the rest of us, we too need a wake-up call. Because behind the pop psychology that would have us believe our excess weight is really all about self-image and unrequited childhood trauma and even hormone imbalance and the pressures of life itself, at the end of the day it boils down to one simple factoid: we eat too much. We eat wrong, we eat too often, and we eat to compensate for things that don't really relate to food at all.Not to sound unsympathetic to the very human tendency to seek ways to alleviate our pain, but blaming our weight problems on life is like saying your bad hair is the result of the stock market. Sure, we don't like it, but the truth sometimes hurt. The trick to weight loss or a successful diet is to work your Diet Plan, or plan to fail. Dr. Phil would have us believe that we won't lose weight until we heal our inner chef, until we learn to feel good about ourselves. That same cynic might say that we'd feel a lot better about ourselves if we lost a few pounds.But even that's too complicated. The solution is much simpler.The truth is, life is difficult, and you're not Healthy. Get busy and deal with the Truth. Get clear on both issues, and you'll be better equipped to move forward and turn that two-sided cheeseburger into delicious piece of rye toast, no butter. And that is something you can feel terrific about.