Obesity.....I'm Loving It!!
Having been there I can safely say that “I didn’t love it”! There’s nothing to love about walking into a clothes store knowing nothing will fit you, feeling constantly tired and out of breath, being told “you need to lose weight” and then battling everyday against food cravings, going on stupid diets (cabbage soup anyone!) and then putting on even more weight after....its no fun at all!!
I was at work one day and a colleague said “how did you let yourself get so fat?!”. I smiled, resisting the urge to re-arrange his teeth and asked him “how did you get to smoking 60 cigarettes a day?”.
It’s easy to sit complacently and feel pity or disgust for the person who is obese but the truth is they have an addiction the same way smokers or drug addicts do, and we need to understand how they got to where they are so can understand how to reverse the issue.
My own journey is not dissimilar to many who have gained a significant amount of body fat over time so I’m going to use part of that as an example of how easy it is to become obese.
Growing up I was fortunate to have a mum who made sure that we had great food with lots of fresh meat, fruit and veg. Sweets and take outs were limited to weekends and for the most part my body composition was well balanced and I was healthy.
At the time obesity wasn’t really a front page issue as it is now so I continued blindly through life without much attention or understanding as to what a balanced diet was.
Roll on into my twenties and at 23 I was laid off from the job I had and loved. Options were lacking so I decided to take up a management position for a well known fast food chain.
Looking back now, I know that this was the start of my downhill slide to obesity as the job had high levels of stress combined with long hours and free “food”. To save time many of us would just eat what was available at the “restaurant” and that often meant eating there twice a day, six days a week, for months on end!
So what makes “fast food” of this type and poor eating habits so damaging over the long term? Here’s a few pointers..
Bread products are made with finely processed flour and have a relatively high sugar content, its what gives you the smooth crusty surface when the bread has been in the toaster. For the most part these products have no nutritional value whatsoever, just empty calories.
Some of the meat products are processed and in many cases utilise mechanically recovered meat like chicken whereby the carcasses are blasted with steam to remove the last parts of meat. These are then formed and mixed together with spices and large amounts of salt to make them palatable.
Cooking methods are for the most part deep frying. The “shortening” is generally vegetable oil and won’t be of the highest quality. The main issue here is that the oil will be heated up and cooled down many times over as food (often frozen) is placed into the vat. This then occurs day after day and the concentration of carbon and trans fats increases. You can often tell how old the oil is by looking at the colouring of the product in front of you, the darker it is, the older the oil.
Obviously this is not an exhaustive list but most fast food chains and local take aways will follow similar setup as its both cost effective and allows the fast turnover of product. The end result is a product which has little to no nutritional value but tastes really good due to high levels of salt and any flavouring additives.
….…and I was eating this stuff blindly a dozen times a week for nearly three years!
Looking back I was packing away at least 3,000 calories/day (over a couple of meals) worth of poor quality food with very little in the way of quality proteins, fats and little in the way of vitamins or minerals. A lack of exercise reduced my active muscle mass and body fat was creeping up on me faster than a Porsche on an autobahn!
Even when I changed jobs my habits didn’t change, I was hooked on take away food and needed the intense taste provided by the excess salt, etc. Simple fresh foods like fruit and vegetables lost their appeal and sweetness because my taste was changing.
By the age of 28 my bodyweight had DOUBLED to 365 pounds (26 stone or 165kg for us metric bods), and at that point I started to pay attention. Alas I still had no idea what proper nutrition actually was, I didn’t know the difference between a carb and a fat or even what a calorie was. All I knew was something had to change so I started to shift towards home cooked meals and away from take outs, the weight started to drop.
Slowly I started to change my habits but I just couldn’t go “cold turkey”, I was still addicted to the junk and needed to have a “fix” every now and again which slowed my progress. When bad things would happen I would turn to food for comfort. I couldn’t eat just one piece of chocolate because that one taste would lead to my eating the whole bar regardless of size.
In the end I realised that it was my lack of knowledge and the choices I’d made that caused my weight gain in the first place. It wasn’t the fault of the suppliers for creating poor quality food, it was me, it was my decision to eat what they produced. I had to identify the problem, educate myself and then do what I could to rectify the issue. We have to take responsibility for our own situation and make the changes necessary to move forward....it won’t be easy but it is necessary.
I’m a big believer in moderation and that means if you want that take out or beer and wine then go for it, but understand that it will be a treat for your psychological state rather than your body and you will have to make other corrections to stay the course.
It comes down to this……total energy intake is paramount. Use whole, natural foods to make your meals with, reduce the processed stuff. Think ahead, prepare in advance and have a back up in case things go wrong…..and finally….Educate yourself and ask for help!
If you need help then reach out, don’t sit quietly hoping it will magically change. Why not drop me a line on the contact page, I can help.
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