Occasionally it’s your failed efforts that qualify you to give others guidance; more so if your misfires finish in eventual victory.
I finished playing sport when I was 31 years-old. Looking back that was too early by a long way, but I was newly married, had a child on the way and was not really enjoying it as much as I once did.
Around that time I was a somewhat athletic 175 lbs, but on my march to middle-age I managed to plump-up to around 287 lbs; an increase of over 100 lbs in a just over 10 years.
What brought about the weight gain? My eating habits for one thing, I lived on candy and pizzas and was rather uncontrolled in my appetite. Add to that the fact that my job caused me to lead a pretty sedentary daily routine - that’s right, sitting on my behind - and another thing was that I am more than six feet tall and decidedly broad, so I never looked all that fat. At least I thought not.
Having said that, by the time I reached forty-five I was not very mobile; struggling to extricate myself from sofas without an effort and happy to watch my slim and limber spouse bend down and retrieve dropped items for me now and then. I knew that I was technically obese and that it was a problem that I needed to try to put right.
During that period I had an acquaintance who was regarded as a evangelist for a famous weight loss company and he got me to use their online system to track calorific intake. It wasn’t very long before I too was a fan, I lost 30 pounds very quickly and couldn’t really understand why people regarded losing weight as hard.
At least, I didn’t before the diet got spoiled by a touch of gastroenteritis. I lost 6lbs in less than four days because I couldn’t consume food and when I got better I decided that I could be permitted a fews days feasting to make up for the large weight drop. That was the end of that diet.
After that it was about two years before I could muster the enthusiasm to try again. When I did the result was almost identical; exciting weight loss, shortly followed by a an interruption to the diet. The same thing happened a couple more times, before I decided that I needed to look elsewhere.
That is why I starting reading books by the very best nutritionists (Patrick Holford as an example); people who actually read the research papers that come out of top universities and otherwise engross themselves in the science of the human mind and body.
I learned an awful lot about the foodstuff that I was eating and how our bodies use them. I finally garnered a a greater knowledge of the many sugar types and which carbohydrates release sugars the quickest and how that is associated with blood sugar hikes and resulting rapid energy deficits.
By altering my dietary habits quit substantially I quickly began to control my blood sugar levels better, which in turn diminished the desires that I too often had for sweet foods. The occasions when I suffered glycemic overload became less frequent, the foods that I ate took on a greater nutritional value and with some exercise included the weight has come down a good deal.
And the moral of this story is as follows. The food industry is adding sugar to virtually everything that comes in a packet these days and if it’s fizzy and arrives in a can they are adding quite a bit more.
Our governments are too broke and disinterested, apparently, to put the food industry to rights. Were they to do so they would probably be required to take on the pharmaceuticals industry and the agricultural mob as well. So it will not happen.
If excess weight is a problem for you, what you really should to do is shoulder the responsibility, as I did. Set some evenings aside to study nutrition. Take notes and study. I know it’s unappealing and maybe not top of your priorities, but Ipromise you, it’s a fascinating subject and you will be very glad of it in the long term.
I finished playing sport when I was 31 years-old. Looking back that was too early by a long way, but I was newly married, had a child on the way and was not really enjoying it as much as I once did.
Around that time I was a somewhat athletic 175 lbs, but on my march to middle-age I managed to plump-up to around 287 lbs; an increase of over 100 lbs in a just over 10 years.
What brought about the weight gain? My eating habits for one thing, I lived on candy and pizzas and was rather uncontrolled in my appetite. Add to that the fact that my job caused me to lead a pretty sedentary daily routine - that’s right, sitting on my behind - and another thing was that I am more than six feet tall and decidedly broad, so I never looked all that fat. At least I thought not.
Having said that, by the time I reached forty-five I was not very mobile; struggling to extricate myself from sofas without an effort and happy to watch my slim and limber spouse bend down and retrieve dropped items for me now and then. I knew that I was technically obese and that it was a problem that I needed to try to put right.
During that period I had an acquaintance who was regarded as a evangelist for a famous weight loss company and he got me to use their online system to track calorific intake. It wasn’t very long before I too was a fan, I lost 30 pounds very quickly and couldn’t really understand why people regarded losing weight as hard.
At least, I didn’t before the diet got spoiled by a touch of gastroenteritis. I lost 6lbs in less than four days because I couldn’t consume food and when I got better I decided that I could be permitted a fews days feasting to make up for the large weight drop. That was the end of that diet.
After that it was about two years before I could muster the enthusiasm to try again. When I did the result was almost identical; exciting weight loss, shortly followed by a an interruption to the diet. The same thing happened a couple more times, before I decided that I needed to look elsewhere.
That is why I starting reading books by the very best nutritionists (Patrick Holford as an example); people who actually read the research papers that come out of top universities and otherwise engross themselves in the science of the human mind and body.
I learned an awful lot about the foodstuff that I was eating and how our bodies use them. I finally garnered a a greater knowledge of the many sugar types and which carbohydrates release sugars the quickest and how that is associated with blood sugar hikes and resulting rapid energy deficits.
By altering my dietary habits quit substantially I quickly began to control my blood sugar levels better, which in turn diminished the desires that I too often had for sweet foods. The occasions when I suffered glycemic overload became less frequent, the foods that I ate took on a greater nutritional value and with some exercise included the weight has come down a good deal.
And the moral of this story is as follows. The food industry is adding sugar to virtually everything that comes in a packet these days and if it’s fizzy and arrives in a can they are adding quite a bit more.
Our governments are too broke and disinterested, apparently, to put the food industry to rights. Were they to do so they would probably be required to take on the pharmaceuticals industry and the agricultural mob as well. So it will not happen.
If excess weight is a problem for you, what you really should to do is shoulder the responsibility, as I did. Set some evenings aside to study nutrition. Take notes and study. I know it’s unappealing and maybe not top of your priorities, but Ipromise you, it’s a fascinating subject and you will be very glad of it in the long term.
