Weight Loss ~ What You're Up Against

Do you really know what you are up against when it comes to weight loss? The odds are stacked against you. But, the good news is that with hypnosis for weight loss, you can be successful. The following is from my book, Becoming Slender For Life.

What You’re Up Against

Americans are among the fattest people on earth. Now, an estimated twenty-one million Americans over 60 are obese, a 43 percent jump from 2000. A whopping 64% of all adults in the U.S. are either overweight or obese, according to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. “Americans need to understand that overweight and obesity are literally killing us,” warns Tommy Thompson, former Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Left unchecked, almost all Americans would be overweight by the year 2050.

Around the world, westernized people no longer eat as their ancestors did, or even as their parents did. Meals used to be prepared at home primarily using fresh foods and without adding much fat, salt, or chemical preservatives.
Today, most of us are too busy to prepare foods from fresh ingredients, so we purchase foods that are partially or fully ready to serve—foods processed with much added fat, sugar, sodium, and chemical additives.

The percentage of meals eaten or prepared away from home (restaurants, take-out) has increased more than 50 percent since 1970. Meals prepared outside the home are much higher in fat and sodium and lower in vitamins and minerals than home-cooked meals.

The challenges to losing weight are great, and there are many. Let us not forget impediments created by the food industry. Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found the following:

• In 1977 the average fast-food hamburger weighed 5.7 ounces; in 1996, the average hamburger was 7 ounces, with 100 extra calories. (Hamburgers at non-fast-food establishments are now often smaller than 7 ounces.)
• During the same time period, sodas went from an average serving of 13 ounces to about 20 ounces.
• As of this writing in 2010, McDonald’s medium fries have 380 calories and 20 grams of fat, and the large fries have 570 calories and 30 grams of fat. The McDonald’s Angus Bacon Burger is a whopping 790 calories – 350 of them FAT!
• Homemade portions of most foods also have increased in size, with the average American eating 50 to 100 more calories per serving of each food (or upward of 500 additional calories each day) in 1996 versus 1977.
• Candy bars and snack foods also have been super-sized, with even the smallest packages of some including more than one serving. Most consumers, however, equate one package with one serving.

Many restaurant meals are now super-sized. A serving of McDonald’s French fries ballooned from 200 calories in 1960 to 320 calories (late 1970s) to 450 calories (late 1990s) to the present 570 calories! What was once a 590-calorie McDonald’s meal is now a whopping 1,550 calories. ONE MEAL! And McDonald’s marketing goal is for every fast-food eater to consume a McDonald’s meal twenty times a month! McDonald’s is not alone in this. Plates in restaurants have grown from ten inches to twelve inches to fourteen inches. At a Mexican restaurant in Long Beach, California, I was served a portabella mushroom fajita on two 12-inch platters!

Between 1970 and 1994, the USDA reports, the amount of food available in the American food supply increased 15 percent— from 3,300 to 3,800 calories or by about 500 calories per person per day. During about the same period (1977–1995), average individual caloric intake increased by almost 200 calories, from 1,876 calories a day to 2,043 calories a day. No wonder 65 percent of the population is overweight!

And of course, there are the holidays, social nights out, eating in airports while traveling, family events and the list goes on. So this is our culture—this is the food trance in which we live. Choosing to be slender for life is abnormal in our culture. The norm is to eat and drink what you want, when you want and in the quantity you want.

At this point in time, it is abnormal to be at a healthy weight. It is abnormal to eat fruits, vegetables and grains and to stop eating when your body tells you it has enough fuel.

If you choose to let go of the excess pounds, you’ll likely have people around you who consciously or unconsciously try to sabotage you.

As reported in the Seattle Post Intelligencer, November 23, 2005, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the average adult male today weighs 191 pounds compared to 166 pounds in 1960, and is only half an inch taller. The average female weighs 164 pounds today, compared to 140 pounds in 1969 and is one inch taller.

The effects of this are all around us. Our cars have gotten bigger. Even the once 24-inch-wide coffin is being made wider and reinforced to hold more weight. Stretchers are being enlarged and reinforced. You can now buy extra wide reinforced lawn chairs. Airlines are reacting to the dramatic increase in the weight of their passengers. The average weight of a traveler has increased over ten pounds in the last decade. As a result, airfares have gone up to cover the increased amount of fuel needed. In 2000 the extra fuel cost was calculated at $275 million. Some airlines now require “customers of size” to buy two seats.

Obesity and the diseases associated with it were once relegated to kings and queens of Europe and the Alii of the South Pacific. Today, we are a nation of gluttons. As Dr. John McDougall, MD would say, every breakfast has become Easter, every lunch and dinner have become Thanksgiving.

from Becoming Slender For Life,
second edition pages 12 – 14

If achieving your goal weight and maintaining that healthy ideal weight through out your life seems impossible, find out how weight loss hypnosis can help you move through everything that you are up against. Make 2012 the year you achieve your goals. With self-hypnosis, you really can become Slender For Life™.

In 2012, I will devote my Sunday blog post to passages from Becoming Slender For Life. Next week, “Taking Stock”.

Check out Slender For Life™ and call (206) 903-1232 or email for your free consultation.

Remember to sign up for your FREE 8-part audio course, Understanding Hypnosis, at the right side of this page NOW!