Why is losing weight so much like joining a slave labor camp?
Think about it: you’re forced to do extreme physical work while living on rations…..
Seriously!
Our approach to weight loss is totally draconian – it’s all about coercion and ultimate suffering: You can’t do this, you have to do that; you can’t eat this, you have to eat that.
And the only way you can possibly survive the weight loss experience is through super-human willpower.
Well, just for the sake of argument, let’s say that you do make it through this life-harrowing experience. Let’s say that through all the work and deprivation, you do finally lose weight and get in shape….
Are you going to do what you just had to do – for the rest of your life?
It’s enough to make a grown clown cry….
Till the End of Time
Are you going to spend the time and money, endure the deprivation, and maintain the super-human willpower – for the rest of your entire life?
Well, I don’t think I’m being too mean if I say that the odds are pretty high that you won’t.
But, you shouldn’t have to either!!
I met a man in church the other day.
Teaching a lesson, he introduced himself by saying that those who knew him probably recognized that he had recently lost weight – about 40 pounds of it – and he assumed everybody would want to know how he did it. So, he explained that it was a combination of eating food from a well-known, well-advertised diet nutrition company, an hour of strenuous exercise every day, all supported by an exercise of tremendous willpower.
He seemed justifiably proud of his accomplishments, and I think all in attendance silently applauded his efforts.
But, I could not get past the question…. so this man is going to pay to eat this proscribed food and take an hour each day pushing his body to the brink of premature death – for the rest of his entire life?
I’m sorry….
First, I don’t think he CAN continue that regimen for the rest of his life, and second, I don’t think he SHOULD!
Escape the Extremes
The basic premise behind WEMPS – the principle that underlies it all – is a recognition that there is WAY too much fanaticism when it comes to losing weight and getting in shape.
Every year we set New Years’ resolutions, starve and kill ourselves for a month or two, then quit because we realize it’s not enjoyable.
Look at all the diets out there. No this, no that; you gotta eat this, you can’t eat that.
We pay to have someone make us special weight loss food. We pay to have someone make us a pill so we don’t want to eat. We’ll even pay to have a doctor surgically alter one of our vital organs so we CAN’T eat.
This is just way too extreme – and it doesn’t have to be that way.
We have to escape the fanaticism….
Losing weight, getting in shape, and feeling great CAN be enjoyable. It can be easy. There is an easier way to lose weight – a lazy way.
You can find something you enjoy doing. You can do things that are good for you where you start small, build strength, and it becomes enjoyable. You can enjoy your food, savor it and get in tune with your body. You can lose weight, get in shape, and feel great – the self-indulgent way. And you can enjoy that self-indulgence – for the rest of your life.
