Fat Isn’t Your Fault
People with obesity not only suffer from physical handicaps, but also from mental stigmatization. Overweight people are deemed lazy and not motivated to change. But here’s the good news if you’ve been struggling with weight management, portion control and emotional overeating….
It’s not your fault!
There are genetic considerations that have been recently discovered that contribute to obesity. This includes the lack of beneficial bacteria in the gut. (An abundance of unfriendly bacteria in the gut leads to more bloating and metabolic dysfunction.) Researchers have also found that in certain people with obesity, the brain doesn’t receive satiety signals from hormones that control appetite. That’s why some people continue to eat even after they’ve eaten a huge meal.
The personal trainers and so-called weight loss experts are failing the obese population. In an excellent article for Huffington Post, “Everything You Know About Obesity Is Wrong,” author Michael Hobbes writes, “Years from now, we will look back in horror at the counterproductive ways we addressed the obesity epidemic and the barbaric ways we treated fat people—long after we knew there was a better path.”
As for how medical doctors are treating the obesity epidemic? Most get a failing grade, too. In fact, according to Hobbes, “Doctors have shorter appointments with fat patients and show less emotional rapport in the minutes they do have. Negative words—“noncompliant,” “overindulgent,” “weak willed”—pop up in their medical histories with higher frequency.”
Hobbes concludes, “Doctors are supposed to be trusted authorities, a patient’s primary gateway to healing. But for fat people, they are a source of unique and persistent trauma.”
Challenge your conventional approach to weight loss
If you’ve tried losing weight by going on diets only to be frustrated by the lack of long-term results, you’re certainly not alone. But how can you break the cycle of insanity, the doing of something over and over and expecting different results?
The answer lies in rethinking your relationship with food.
And it’s really quite easy to do.
To begin, let’s use an example. Let’s say you’re addicted to chocolate, and not the healthy, 90% raw cacao kind; you go for the highly-processed, high-sugar Hershey’s milk chocolate. Every day, you need your Hershey bar fix. But every once in a while, guilt and shame washes over you, so in a moment where you feel like you have an ounce of willpower, you do your best to avoid the candy aisle in the supermarket.
Good strategy if you’re trying to lose weight?
Nope.
The first thing you have to understand is why you’re choosing to eat the chocolate in the first place.
It likely has to do with your childhood. When you were a little kid, let’s say you got hurt. Did your mom try to make you feel better with something sweet? And when you experienced your first heartache, did mom bake you a cake to ease the pain?
The lesson here isn’t that it’s mom’s fault. Rather, the lesson is you have come to associate chocolate (or ice cream or doughnuts or whatever unhealthy foods have power over you) with release from pain and a stress-coping mechanism.
It doesn’t matter that your thinking brain says, “If I eat this, this is not good for me and won’t help me lose weight.” The power of cognitive association is far more powerful than conscious thought—just ask Pavlov’s dogs, who salivated every time he rang the bell, even if no food was present in the famous science experiment.
When you reach for that candy bar because you’ve had a challenging day or you’re feeling down on yourself, indulging offers instant relief. The problem is that the feelings of guilt and shame return immediately after the endorphin surge has subsided, those feel-good chemicals in the brain that chocolate helps release.
Stop Trying To Lose Weight With Your Thinking Brain
Again, your conscious, thinking brain can’t help you lose weight. That’s why so many diets fail. Sustained weight loss strategies shouldn’t center around willpower and discipline. Rather, overeating should focus on the psychological aspects of why we do what we do, in a way that helps us overcome the subconscious, magnetic factors that make comfort food so powerful. Instead of associating comfort food with pleasure, think of high-sugar, high-salt snacks as a medieval torture device. If only mom had handed us a razor blade when you skinned a knee, then perhaps all these years later, your subconscious brain wouldn’t associate chocolate with happiness.
Obviously, don’t harm yourself in order to avoid overeating or junk food addiction. Just simply be aware of the catalyst for comfort eating: the pleasure principle programmed from childhood, imprinted deep in your subconscious, constantly battling your conscious brain. This awareness is the first critical step in overcoming junk food craving and emotional overeating.
And if you’re looking for something healthier that will help provide pleasure, CBD can help. Full spectrum CBD oil attaches to endocannabinoid receptors in the body, promoting homeostasis (balance). CBD oil is a smarter choice to destress the body than reaching for that pint of ice cream.
