Not all large babies become fat people. Most obese people are not programmed to be obese genetically, although it’s likely, if some weight-loss research is to be believed, a few are. So why are so many people, some as young as five years old, overweight? Visit almost any website on “weight loss”, and you find the major causes are too much food and not enough exercise. It’s obvious isn’t it. Fat people eat too much, and don’t exercise enough!

Eat less, exercise more. Yes! That’s the answer to losing weight.

But is the answer really that simple? Ask any overweight teenager how difficult weight-loss is!

The question to ask is, why do overweight people eat more than they need in the first place? Only then can we begin to understand how to fix the weight-loss problem. For every obese person, there is a different set of reasons why they put on weight. I call them your “Weight Gain Gremlins”
Let’s examine a few major WGGs that might apply to you.

G# 1. Your family “taught” you to eat too much. Your plate was always too full, and then you were told to “clean it up”! (We all have heard stories of that happening. It may have happened to you).

G#2. Food makes you feel happy and content. When you feel “down” you seek comfort in food – especially fattening foods (unfortunately vegetables, (no calories) just don’t seem to rate do they?). This is a weight-loss Gremlin that often appears for the first time in your teen years, and then later becomes entrenched.

G#3. Your eating is regimented. You eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, with regular snacks in between. All with extra calories well above what you really need. Is it any wonder you put on weight if you continually munch food you neither want nor need? Food, for you has become a habit. And what a nasty habit, as far as your weight is concerned, and weight-loss is impossible!

G#4. Exercise has never been a component of your life. Several people I know come from a families that despise sport. Life is about “getting on” and sport just a “waste of time”. We know now that, apart from burning off calories, exercise is vital to weight-loss and the proper working of your body. If you scorn exercise, you could be in for an unhealthy, and probably short life. Sorry, but that is the way our bodies have been made. (No matter who you are, there are ways of actually enjoying exercise!)

G#5. You simply haven’t realised – until now – of your problem. The weight has crept up on you slowly (Just 100 calories too much a day, eaten for a year, equals around 5 kilograms weight gain on your body). It is only now when you are so short of breath you cannot do simple tasks, like making the bed, or weeding the garden without puffing and blowing like a runaway train. It’s now time for weight-loss, but how?

One or more of the above Weight Gain Gremlins may apply to you. You may have experienced one completely different, for example you could have been bedridden through illness for a period in your life. In any case, it is very useful to understand why you have gained your unwanted fat before you make a beginning towards losing it. When you understand yourself and your WWGs, you can confidently work towards the correct weight-loss steps forward.

One thing is clear – everyone takes a different pathway to weight-loss.

The Weight Wise Man

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