The Five Real Reasons Why People Struggle to Lose Weight
Ever wondered why people these days struggle to keep their weight down, here are the five real reasons
The Western world is in the midst of a weight crisis, more people than ever are overweight. The popular argument is sedentary jobs are the main problem along with fast-food and processed food, and they do play a part, but there is more to it. Here are the five real reasons why so many people are overweight.
Instincts
Historically, we have never had an abundance of access to food. There were no supermarkets, no convenience stores, for much of history we had to find our own food, and rarely did we know when our next meal would come along. Even after the dawn of agriculture, up until recently, it was still a battle to put food on the table.
That’s why when we have access to food, we instinctually want to eat as much of it as we can because our instincts are telling us that it could be the last meal we have for a long while. The downside to us having instincts like this is that because we now have supermarkets and convenience stores, our instincts tell us to make use of them.
This means that some people cannot stop eating because their instincts — which are built for a world in which we no longer live — tell them that they need to eat as much as possible. Considering so many of us in the West have access to so much food, this is inevitably causing a weight crisis.
We now live largely sedentary existences
Any person who is overweight in the modern world, in the old world would likely not have been overweight but instead would have been in terrific shape. Not just that, their slower metabolisms when added to the sheer level of hard work that people of the past had to put in, would mean they would be in better shape and better suited to the old world than those with faster metabolisms.
Yep, a slower metabolism in the old world was actually a good thing. It meant you preserved calories. People with fast metabolisms burn off calories simply by sitting around doing nothing. In the old world that would have been terrible. You needed to preserve those calories, not only to fuel how much hard labour you would have to put in but because food was in short supply.
This is why the majority of people have naturally slower metabolisms. Meaning ironically the reason so many people struggle with their weight, is because they have metabolisms that are designed for a world where food is in short supply and they have to work hard labour.
The stress factor
When we are stressed many of us look for a dopamine kick to help us deal with that stress. People who struggle with anxiety tend to especially succumb to the need for a dopamine kick to help them cope with their anxiety.
Food gives us a dopamine kick, especially foods high in sugar and fat. This is how many people in the modern world become addicted to food. It is not the food per se they are addicted to, it is the dopamine kick.
Because the world is such a stressful place for many these days due to the fact that we are a transitional generation, and have to deal with so many things that our instincts simply have no tools to manage, many people are becoming addicted to sugary foods and snacks as a coping measure for that stress.
So, a lot of people are overweight not because they can’t stop eating, but because they are so stressed that the only way they can cope is through finding a dopamine kick. And the way they are finding that kick is through food.
The data intake factor
Our brains are capable of taking in 74 gigabytes of data a day, and each day through the use of smartphones, watching TV, everyday living, work and much more, it’s believed that the average person intakes approximately 34 gigabytes of data. That means every day the average person takes in 34 gigabytes of data. That is a lot of information.
To put things into perspective, five hundred years ago a well-read and highly educated person would over their entire lifetime be expected to take in around 74 gigabytes of data. So, the average person today takes in more data over the course of two and a bit days than the average well-read person five hundred years ago did in a lifetime.
That is not even the crazy part, every year the amount of data that we intake each day is increasing. This is why so many of us feel completely mentally overloaded. Because none of us have ever at any point in history taken in anywhere near the sheer amount of information that all of us are now taking in on a daily basis.
Our brains are capable of handling this — the lifetime intake of our brains can handle over 2.5 petabytes of data. However, because none of us are used to this, we have not evolved any of the tools to handle it. One of those tools that we need to be able to handle it is the capability of sugar intake.
The brain is largely fuelled by sugar, the more we use our brains, the more our brain craves sugar to fuel it. You can no doubt see where this is going. Because we all now use our brain so much through sheer data intake alone, we all crave a lot more sugar. This craving is helping to fuel the weight crisis. The irony is if we eat too much sugar not only do most of us pile the pounds on, but it hinders our brain function and causes our brains to not only shrink but puts us at greater risk of Alzheimer’s in later life.
Yep, let’s hope that we all instinctually evolve to be able to better handle data intake sometime soon.
The science factor
Food companies have one goal, to sell you food. That means they spend billions upon billions every year with the goal of creating food that you will not only eat, but that you will want to eat again and again and again.
They are very good at their jobs, take sugary foods, our instincts tell us that sugary foods are good — natural sugary foods are good mainly because naturally sugary foods are fruit. Scientists though have managed to separate sugar from fruit, and the more sugar we have in one go the higher the dopamine kick we get. But, if you take away everything else, they don’t leave us feeling fulfilled meaning we want to eat more. That’s why sugary foods are so tasty, but it is also why they rarely leave us feeling fulfilled. It’s by design.
That means we eat lots of sugary food because our minds think that it is fruit and so healthy, but it is not fruit, and because it has been stripped of everything else it leaves us not feeling fulfilled. This is why we want more. So, our minds have been manipulated by science into thinking that we are eating healthy fruit, when in fact we are eating unhealthy sugary snacks that will screw up our bodies and minds. And because all the goodness has been taken out, our minds think we should eat more to try to get that goodness — which is not there.
Yep, the majority of processed and sugary foods are foods that are designed to trick our minds into thinking they are healthy for us, but at the same time leaving us feeling unfulfilled after eating them so that we will eat more. In a way it is quite a devious trick, our minds think that sugar equals fruit, fruit has everything we need it, but if you take everything we need from it but the sugar, we keep eating more thinking that we will get what we need. The same trick is used with processed meat and many other products, increase the fat level but reduce everything else and Bob’s your uncle.
To make matters even worse, because our minds think that the foods are good for us, and yet because we are not getting what we need from the food, our minds want us to eat more. So, the more we eat the more we need to eat to get that dopamine kick that tells us we have done the right thing.
Because of this, many people end up eating a lot of sugary and fatty foods and so pile on the pounds, not because they want to, but because food companies are manipulating their minds into wanting to eat foods that are bad for them. That’s the main reason why we have a weight crisis. It’s profitable.
Final words
Many people say that we have a weight crisis because people won’t eat healthily and won’t exercise, but that is not remotely the full story. It is for many more reasons, and only once we start addressing those reasons can we start improving people’s health and fitness levels and thus lives.
That’s all from me, thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, you may also enjoy the following:
Seven Ways to Stay Fit and Healthy If You Don’t like the Gym
Ten Simple Ways to Lose Weight and Keep It Off
27 of the Best Jokes to Brighten up Your Day
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