Weight problem... or is it?

When I look around and listen to the media, watch tv and read newsletters and newspaper articles I see EVERYTHING referencing “weight”. Weight management. Weight loss. Weight watch. Loose weight, control your weight. Get your ideal weight, reduce your weight, weight, weight, weight. It’s a number, a value. It fluctuates. It is hardly ever “ideal”. It is a subject of many health issues; eating disorders, exercise addictions, too much, too little - is it really ever ideal?

Is it really ever the problem or the solution??? Does weight exist alone, does it develop by itself, and does it live independent from, say, lifestyle, nutrition, personal choices, and physical fitness???

Again, it is one of my pet peeves of the media mind twisting and the individual responsibility taking, when we do not address the actual problem, we do not try to fix what’s wrong, we do not build from a foundation, but we do single out something from the whole picture that can be quick-fixed and marketed and blamed. Focus on your weight. Stress about it. Get depressed about it. Keep it in check with pills and crash diets. Do the water and air diet, the Hollywood diet, the i-don’t-eat-real-food diet, and watch your weight drop! Then what…? Go back to your regular life. And watch your weight get out of whack again. Why? Because weight alone, is not anything. It’s not your enemy, it is simply the end result, the end value that depicts your personal choices, your lifestyle, your fitness habits and your state of physical fitness. There! Who wudda thunk it? Now, the problem we’re facing is much bigger, isn’t it?? What do we fix first? Because all the above listed facets that make up, pretty much, our whole life, are not easily fixed. At all. That’s why.

So I say it again: there are no shortcuts! If you want real results that will enrich and extend your life, than you must be honest with yourself in the first place. Admit the problem. Chances are, it’s not all of those but one or maybe two things. Let’s say you hire a personal trainer to get yourself motivated and started on the path to regular physical exercise. You pay him for three months and you work out religiously for three months. Then it’s over and you start dropping off, forgetting your routines, you have no accountability or commitment to an outside source, you quit. Waste of money… You failed to search within and find what you like, something enjoyable. You failed to learn your sessions, not just do them. You failed to make plans for when you’re on your own, and a new commitment to yourself to stay in the game. You failed to set a goal.
Or let’s say you pay good money to be part of this awesome diet plan, furnishing meals and systems by which you can monitor your indulgence and still pat yourself on the back. And you are dropping the pounds, measuring and grinning and starving yourself, or fooling yourself. Then the program stops and life happens. Again, you fail. You fail because you failed before when life “happened”, that is why you got here in the first place. You fail, because you wanted a quick fix and didn’t think about the future. Didn’t educate yourself and didn’t commit to make better choices and stick with them for life. No one taught you how to, they just helped you drop the weight.

So see, you set yourself up for failure, and invest your time and money to get nothing in return. You have not addressed the actual issue and have not committed to make lifelong changes, have not found a way to enjoy this process so you can maintain it. No shortcuts, guys! None! And I don’t just preach this, I have lived it in many horrible ways I don’t care to share on the world wide web, just believe me when I say this: I saved my own life, and have jumped many hurdles to get here. Now I have an actual race to run and I want to get FAST!
Will you be at the finish too? Decide…