Are the barriers of dieting psychological or physical?

Section 1.

At last count the word ‘diet’ produced more than 157 million web pages of diet plans, pills, potions and dieting tips from health institutions, diet companies, nutritional professionals and otherwise – from all over the world. But we are approaching the peak of the epidemic of obesity that causes untold mental anguish and depression, apart from the ever increasing debilitating diseases associated with those who are overweight or obese. With an abundance of information available – how can this be?

This trend is unforgiving and is second only to smoking in terms of self-inflicted cause of premature loss of life, but left to its own devices in the next five years obesity is sure to take the number one slot. Mother Nature is ruthless in his approach to life, in the sense that it only allows the fittest to survive and the trends that we see today is a reaction to the effects of a diet which is obviously not suitable for human well-being of body and mind. We just have to stop, take a step back and look around us to see that there is one hell of a serious problem. No need for statistics, reports, or news media to tell us that. It is clear that we as individuals must make changes in what we do if we have any intention to reverse the current obesity trends. The main responsibility lies with each and every one of us to act for the benefit of ourselves.

We must accept the fact that the grocery industry is a contradiction in selling both food products along side the very products that cause us to become overweight or obese in the first instance. It is so obvious in our supermarkets today. It has become human nature that the advantage of having a higher weighting than human health, and this is evident in many industries around the world, and far from unique among diet. We must also remember the food companies, while they describe the atmosphere of interest and concern, in reality they really depends on your failure to diet for the survival of their own business. If they are good at what they do – their business is bound to fail. So who can we trust other than ourselves. The evidence is clear-there is no debate.

We may have one reprieve but it will someday, but not now. Science and technology is getting closer and closer to the possibility of a miracle drug with an ever-increasing understanding of the human genotype and genetic engineering. But in fact, who would want or want to become dependent on diet drugs, potentially on an ongoing basis every day, just because of a lack of understanding of the relationship between the food our body has been designed for, and the food we eat. Why, we are aware overeat when we know it’s bad for us and that we do harm ourselves? Why, that time only we choose to ignore our food when we eat it!

So, whether it is psychological, it is physical or both?

To answer this we must see changes in our diet over the last 50 years. Consumption of refined carbohydrates like sugar trend has increased dramatically, but at the same time the consumption of fat and protein remained fairly stable. Saturated fat has become and is still a problem although thankfully now overall consumption of saturated fats has declined slightly, but still remains a problem.

Many studies, especially related to research in how the Atkins diet worked revealed that the effects of refined carbohydrates and fats both have a form of addiction associated with them. Research has shown that refined sugars have the effect of playing havoc with a good balance to maintain the level of glucose in the bloodstream. This in turn has a detrimental effect on our hormonal activity, such as insulin and glucagon which are both responsible for maintaining glucose levels to normal levels after the intake of ‘wave’ of refined carbohydrates in our diet. This is an acceptable level of glucose in the blood stream is maintained at surprisingly narrow margins.

Therefore, refined sugar induces excessive hormonal activity in an attempt to restore homeostasis. It’s not natural ‘swing’ in hormonal activity often cause changes in mood that is different from being happy and satisfied to be sad, anxious, and even feelings of anxiety or panic. Too long swing of this hormone can often cause the entire process becomes less effective and subsequently diabetes can be the final result.

Other studies have shown surprising that the effect of eating significant quantities of fats actually leads to unexpected human reaction in terms of nutrition. You would think that eating foods rich in fat will have the effect of satisfying feeling of hunger. But medical research has shown remarkable opposite to be true. Clinical trials have shown that a diet rich in fats actually encourage people to eat more not less. At the time the results of such an innovative experiment because they are completely contrary to the thoughts of nutrients from the time.

It is also interesting to learn that further medical research has shown that foods rich in protein has been associated with a response that indicates that you have consumed enough food. In other words, it is believed that proteins in some way, triggers the “I’m full ‘response.

And of course there are major changes in our energy expenditure. We used to hunt and gather food, but now we happily pop to the local supermarket to buy, or even worse, have it delivered to our front door. Food has changed from being rare to be in abundance (at least for us), and we have changed from an ‘active’ relatively ‘active’. Move less and eat more … what should we expect?

And many believe that even the act of not exercising can trigger the body’s response to lower metabolism and build up a layer of fat under the skin for 2 main reasons, both related to human survival. In evolutionary terms, it is possible that you can not ‘hunt’ and therefore is not for securing food. Reduce your body’s metabolic rate reasonable total energy conserving. Secondly, if food is available during a spell of non activity, does it not make sense to lay the whole burden of the layer of fat under the skin to retain body heat and secure source of energy during the ‘lean times’ potential. It makes sense, perfect design, but we do not understand ourselves and if we do, many choose to ignore the warning signs out body is offering.

In essence, therefore, very clear that part of the diet world problem in which we humans face is certainly related to the physical interaction of the type of food we eat with our bodies. And obviously, during the last 50 odd years our diet has changed out of all recognition and yet our bodies do the same as it has done for well over the last 100,000 years. We are in the 21st century, our bodies are still in the ‘Stone Age’. Evolution is a slow slow process but over millions of years of relations and reactions of chemicals in our food with cells of the human body has been cemented and cast, for eons of time.

So, we need to be changed … because Mother Nature will not entertain us for thousands of years to come …

Run with it, eat what your body has been designed for and successful weight loss will surely follow …

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