Weight loss is so easy, so why is it so hard?

Cause food tastes so good!!!! And our bodies become addicted to salt and sugar.

It may seem easy as we are provided with the tools of calorie counting but its all down to food choices and being deternined to stick with it without being swayed so easy.

I am good all day although sometimes i do get swayed and eat junk. But i am determined to change that and eat healthy have the odd treat once a week and lose the weight. We can only relie on ourselves to make the change.

Its definitely not easy...food is very tasty and as a society we love fast foods! or at least some of us do. Plus you have to work hard at eating right and excercising day in and day out.

When you really think about it, weight loss is easy. Count your calories (so that you keep yourself above starvation but at a deficit when you consider your BMR) and exercise. That is it. That is the magic bullet. So, why is it so hard to do for so many?

Actually if you don't have much to lose you should not eat below BMR. BMR is not maintenance, BMR would be what you would need to maintain your weight if you were in a coma. maintenance is what is used to create a deficit not from BMR. (You will lsoe weight eating BMR) Go to goals and look at calories burned from normal daily activity. that is maintenance calories, and eating under that number will have you lose weight.

It is so hard because temptation is everywhere.

Turn on the TV... Skinny people are hocking McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Taco Bell, etc.

I bet you can't watch TV for 30 minutes without a commercial or some other form of product advertising, or placement telling you how great their product is.

It's not just TV, but radio, billboards etc.

It is socially acceptable to eat C.R.A.P. which puts it into a category worse than smoking. In that it's legal.

C.R.A.P. is also accessible. I guarantee you our forefathers didn't have to worry about a drive thru just around the corner. If they wanted to eat, they had to cook it. Usually from fresh ingredients too.

We live with temptation and C.R.A.P. is easily accessible.

That is in part why it is so hard.

Because food is not just fuel. Because as newborn, when we are uncomfortable, the we use our mouth to comfort us at the most basic level. Same thing for the first few months/ years of our life (sucking our tumb for exemple). Then we use food as reward, as comfort. When we decide to lose weight, we are going out of our comfort zone and doing things differenly......it is VERY uncomfortable to do something different when we are so used of doing something a certain way (sitting in front of the TV and eating at night for exemple.) It's that uncomfortable feeling (arggg something is not right!!!!) that is hard to overcome.

Because....food tastes good. Because people hate feeling deprived. Because our lifestyles have changed so that we don't have to do hard work on a regular basis. We have cars to drive us around. We have machines to do our work for us. We're sitting at desks instead of gathering food in the fields. And because many of us haven't replaced that work with regular exercise because many people don't like to exercise, at least, not on gym equipment or in aerobics classes. Because food has become a source of pleasure rather than a source of sustenance. Because we have TV and video games to entertain us and lots of people would rather watch the game on TV than go outside and play the game themselves. Because the body is genetically adapted to gravitate to high caloric food for survival (sugar and fat) because they provided much needed energy boosts when we were hunter-gatherers. And because when you decrease your caloric intake (especially without increasing exercise), the body thinks you're going through a period of famine so it better reduce your metabolism in order to reserve your fat stores to live off of and you start losing muscle because your body figures it can afford to get rid of some of it so as not to have to feed it during said period of famine. Then let's not forget the convenience foods. A lot of people in the USA don't know how to cook. They grew up in families where both parents work and didn't get home 'til 6 or so and that's just too darn late in the evening to have too fool with dinner. So they eat dinner out of a box, or get take out or pizza. The portion sizes in restaurants and fast food joints are SOOOO out of whack with what actual portion sizes should be that people have grown up overeating and become accustomed to it, and have no clue how much a serving of meat or potatoes actually IS. And then there's the food commercials on TV and the billboards and the magazine advertisements, all of which are geared to make you think that you just won't be satisfied until you have a Big Mac (yuck) right now. Fourth meal, anyone? I personally think the Taco Bell people should be shot for that one.

I could continue, but I think I've made my point. Yes, eat less and exercise more is the magic formula. But that doesn't mean it's easy.

The tools aren't enough. GImme scalpels, sutures and forceps and I could, in theory, perform surgery.

I'd do a lot better if I had education, experience and, most importantly, being emotionally and psychologically prepared to operate.