Ten years ago, back when I used to weigh more than 300 pounds, I could have never imagined that one day I would be sitting in front of a computer, giving advice to people on how to lose weight and re-gain their lives back. It has been a long and difficult journey full of disappointment, hurdles and failures. As I have mentioned in some of my previous posts, I tried pretty much every diet there is out there. I did that for more than 6 years, entering endless cycles of yo-yo dieting which always resulted in me becoming more and more fat. After the repeated failures, I realized that if I was ever going to lose weight and avoid the inevitable early grave, I had to dig down to the core of the problem. I had to read, self-educate and most importantly understand my own body better – especially what was happening in my head. Because, make no mistake, obesity is not a problem of genes, hormones or even excessive eating. All of these factors of course play a role, but the real problem is what is happening inside our brains. The non-stop eating is not the cause, but only a symptom resulting from a diseased lifestyle and thought-process, troubled personality, problematic behaviour and chemical imbalance inside the mind.

Taking all of the above into consideration and using my experience (and medical degree), I have decided to write a series of articles talking about what I consider the most important rules when it comes to weight loss. It will be a list of simple but perhaps controversial and unconventional topics which I consider essential to know before one starts yet another attempt to lose weight. Statistics show that 95% of dieters will regain every single pound they have lost within a year, with a large portion of them piling up even more pounds than what they started with. This list is not meant to be a magic solution and I doubt it will even make the struggle with weight loss any easier. But knowing these rules will perhaps put you in that 5% who will manage to succeed and regain a life worth living.

EATING TOO MUCH IS NOT THE CAUSE OF YOUR OBESITY

The biggest mistake obese people make

I was one of those fat guys who fully acknowledged their problem. I was a realist and fully pragmatic. Every time someone told me to ‘go check my thyroid’ or ‘take some vitamins’ to boost my slow metabolism, I would smile and just reply back: ‘There is nothing wrong with my thyroid or my metabolism. I am fat because I eat too much’. Biochemically that is 100% true. Obesity, according to most people, is a simple consumption of excess calories. Once you convince yourself about that, then the only thing left to do is to create a diet with a caloric deficit and it will be only a matter of time before getting those amazing abs. I was 240 pounds when I first went to a dietician, searching for the answer to my obesity. After I paid 100 dollars for a 15 minute visit, I went home with an A4 paper containing the 7-day ‘magic solution’ to my problem. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, I became part of that 95% group of failures and ended up gaining almost 100 pounds more within 2 years. My mistake? I was trying to solve the wrong problem.

The two WHYs

I made the above picture to show in the simplest way possible, why in my opinion, the majority of dieters fail. Most people’s view, which is promoted by the food industries and verified by the ‘experts’ is that fat people are fat because they eat more than they should. That is of course true but it fails to give the solution to the problem, as the excessive eating is only a manifestation of a much bigger problem that is hiding underneath. To explain this in a more simple way, imagine you are an ER physician and you have a patient who is pale, feeling weak and with a rapid heart rate. You do a quick blood test and you realize that the patient has low haemoglobin levels. This can easily explain WHY he is exhibiting his symptoms. You give your patient a blood transfusion, intravenous fluids and you send them home. A few hours later the patient is brought back to the hospital with critically low blood pressure and in a state of shock. This time you ask yourself WHY your patient had low haemoglobin levels in the first place and you discover that he has an active bleeding in his gastrointestinal tract. The only way to cure the patient is to stop the bleeding and treat whatever caused it. This time, you asked the right ‘WHY’.

The most difficult thing you ever had to do

Getting to know your own self can be a quite complicated thing. It is even more difficult for me to tell you what exactly is causing you to eat too much. In every single case, including mine, the root of the problem is the inability to handle, cope with and overcome emotions. Whether it is stress in your life, lack of goals and motivation, confidence problems, childhood trauma or absence of the desired social relationships, it is up to you to look into yourself and discover that. Before you even start to ‘diet’ you first need to find solutions to your underlying emotional issues. Fix whatever is making you anxious or find new ways to deal with your stress. Stop pursuing happiness as your long term ideal state but instead set up various short-term goals and enjoy the content and feeling of self-accomplishment you will get once you achieve those goals. Write down whatever is wrong with your life and work continuously towards fixing that. Adopt new habits and force yourself to follow a fixed, steady schedule. If something is bothering you, talk about it with someone or write your thoughts down, in a calendar or even in an online blog. Once you start fixing all these little components in your life, then it is time to adopt some healthy eating habits and work on yourself. There are various rules and ways to do that and I will cover them in the following articles.