Health

Let’s get personal: Why do you want to lose weight?

Jan 19, 2016

There are some general personal issues that I want to canvas, prior to revealing my W.E.D. Method, that I believe will help you in your quest for weight control.

My mind considers deeply about whom you might be and your personal background. What age; male or female; married; with or without partner; student; housewife; father; mother; grandparent; working; not working; overweight; obese. One cannot know, and in some respects does not need to know, my method is on the surface, a very simple one, but whoever you are and whatever your background, I am certain your willingness to accept my method to assist you will be influenced by your situation and, of course, your reasons behind wanting to lose weight.

Positions I have held over many years during my life have meant working with people from all walks of life and backgrounds; different nationalities and businesses, including the fitness industry. These have been a mix of supervisory, regulatory, and management roles where the behaviour of people has required, and meant, an ever vigilant watchful one for me and of prime consideration when needing to advise, monitor or control staff as to their working performance, and at times, their personal lives.

This watchfulness extended into my day to day life. Whilst active in the fitness business, its public and altruistic goal to help people with their weight issues became dominant in my thinking, watching and observing of people in general as to their overall fitness and image. Over time, it has become the motivating background that has influenced and driven my desire to share my W.E.D. Method more widely.

I have already shared my frustration earlier about involvement with people beginning a weight loss program and then stopping, despite many efforts to convince them otherwise. When running the fitness centre, which was a female only facility, to see women join with a real need to lose weight and then often not continue attending despite having paid for a membership, added to my appreciation of the challenge facing those wanting to lose weight.

My other motivating factor was seeing so many people in our day to day world showing highly visible evidence of the impact of not being able to control their weight. People who struggle to get on, and off, public transport; people in doctor’s waiting rooms or in hospital; people having difficulty in just walking; everyday examples of the epidemic that is so visible on our streets and so widely publicised in our media and on television.

There does seem to be a general mindset that being overweight can be acceptable, which of course, if it is a personal choice for someone, then that is that person’s right, despite the harm and cost it may incur over time. What is behind this general acceptance mood I cannot say?

I am neither a psychiatrist nor a psychologist, though having their knowledge and understanding might help one to understand what is behind people’s behaviour who are obese and would be most welcome in the quest to assist with certain people’s predicament.

A book I have been reading does provide an excellent explanation when considered as an answer to this question of why so many people today are overweight or obese. The book is titled The Motivation Manifesto by a Brendon Burchard. In this section of his book, Avoiding Reality, he has this to say:

“To the immature or unconscious person, it feels sane to avoid the hardships that life thrusts at them. It makes sense to remove their attention from circumstances that bring discomfort. It’s easier to stop doing the hard task right in front of them, to disperse their attention onto multiple easier tasks. It is tempting to check out, to run and hide. But in so doing, we avoid life itself. The casualty is our own presence and power. When we lack the courage or discipline to address what we must, our presence is never wielded and honed, and so life becomes devoid of feeling and happiness. Avoidance may be the best short-term strategy to avoid pain and conflict, but it is also the best long-term strategy to ensure suffering”

Courage and discipline are needed to address your weight issue and it may take pain and conflict. Perhaps in the past, you stopped doing the hard task of controlling your weight and eating and looked elsewhere. Please think deeply about these words and how they might apply to you and your life and if they reflect why you are today reading this book.

Are you prepared to accept that “avoidance” is not the answer to your situation and you are ready to adopt a long-term strategy to escape suffering in the future?

I clearly stated that my objective in adopting the W.E.D. Method was very selfish. I did not, and do not, want to become fat and/or obese. Avoidance was definitely the driving force behind the commitment I was making to this weight control behaviour path.

Why? Aside from having, and wanting, pride in how I look, even at my age, when I do see overweight or obese people facing so many day to day difficulties and medical problems, such as diabetes and heart disease to mention just a few, this is definitely what I want to avoid and so readily prepared to follow my W.E.D. Method religiously.

Ageing does bring physical difficulties that sometimes cannot be avoided but being overweight or obese magnifies the chances of developing serious medical problems, at any age, with greater effort and difficulty needed in dealing with such health problems, so why would anyone tempt fate in this way?

What is most important in taking on the challenge of controlling your weight, irrespective of what your weight is today, is your reason for doing so, as I have already strongly highlighted. This reason needs to be extremely motivating and not superficially adopted, which can happen. The motivation needs to be self propelled, not someone else wanting you to do it, or for example, someone teasing you to lose weight. You have to be the driving force. It has to be about your self belief and self desire to achieve the weight outcome that you seek for yourself.

If you strongly believe you do have that self belief and self desire to succeed with your weight challenge, whatever that may be for you personally, you now have the mindset to be introduced to my W.E.D. Method.