The Truth About Weight Loss: Chapter 1
A “Growth Industry”
We are a nation of fat people, and we’re getting fatter all the time. According to the 1999~2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a full two-thirds of American Adults are overweight, and nearly a third are obese. Contrary to what many people believe, there is a difference between the two.The definitions are based in the relationship between a person’s height and their weight, typically referred to as the Body Mass Index, or BMI. A person is considered overweight if their BMI is between 25 to 29.9, while individuals with a BMI of 30 or more are considered obese. For those of you who are into math, here’s a formula for figuring your Body Mass Index, courtesy of the National Institutes of Health website.
The Truth About Weight Loss: Chapter 5
Knowing Your Body’s Real Hungers
When you are struggling with weight problems, the first step in the “Truth” and “Honesty” part of the D.E.P.T.H. process is identifying your “real” hungers versus “phantom” hungers. By “real” hunger, I refer to your body’s actual need for nutrition. Although overweight and obesity are not always caused solely by overeating, most people who have a weight problem do have issues with food. Therefore you need to begin paying attention to your behavior so you can figure out when and why you eat, especially when you are not necessarily hungry.
The Truth About Weight Loss: Chapter 6
Identifying The “Phantom” Hungers
That Food Will Never Satisfy
Whereas eating is a purely functional activity for the majority of the animal kingdom — or so we suspect, anyway — it is an activity that affects humans on many different levels. Since we derive pleasure from certain foods and displeasure from others, we frequently attribute qualities to food — and the act of eating — that have nothing whatever to do with nourishment. If you doubt the truth of this statement, just observe the expression on the face of a chocoholic as they bite into a Belgian chocolate truffle. Think that near-orgasmic expression is just their natural reaction to good nutrition? If so, please put this book down and contact me immediately, as I have a magnificent bridge for sale, and I’ll make you a great deal on it!
We humans are very much sensory-driven creatures who tend to assign emotional qualities to our sensory experiences. There is nothing wrong with this tendency, so long as we don’t let it dominate our actions to the detriment of our physical and emotional well being. As a matter of fact, many of our greatest pleasures are of a sensual nature. It has even been said that we only fall in love as a secondary effect of our powerful sex drive. Now, I wouldn’t go that far, but it’s impossible to deny the fact that we make many of our decisions based upon emotions, and many of those emotions are borne of some positive or negative sensory input.