With only a few exceptions, weight loss is really not a complex problem. But we tend to make it a problem, don't we? I know, because I have recently lost approximately 100 lbs. It took two things for me to be successful - a lot of will power and a big change in my lifestyle, both my eating and exercise habits.

Related Articles

Take responsibility for your weight problem

How I lost 100 pounds

Why is healthy eating such a mystery?

We all know these are the two solutions to weight loss - a determination to succeed, and a change in lifestyle. It's a common-sense problem.

I am often perplexed when overweight friends, family, and acquaintances ask me about how I lost 100 pounds. "What was your secret?," they ask. Or, "What did you use?"

Both questions imply that there is a quick fix to obesity. And that there's some mystique surrounding weight loss. Which there's not. Rather than "bite the bullet" - as I finally did in my life - we often choose to look for something that will do it for us. However, quick fixes have proven to make no permanent change, and in many cases they leave us worse off than before.

Anyway, why do we think we need a quick fix to help us deal with what is inside of us? Really, obesity is something we've caused for ourselves and something we can cure by ourselves.


In a silly effort to block the fat we still choose to eat, we take prescription and non-prescription products that might cause heart disease. Or else they sometimes decrease absorption of nutrients in our guts, thereby depriving our bodies of vitamins and minerals.

Then we take products that speed up our metabolism, to burn the excesses we choose to consume. Many who choose this path are in danger of abnormal heart rhythms, high blood pressure, even heart attacks and stroke. These drugs can be purchased over the counter (OTC) or with a doctor's prescription.

Even if one survives the drugs, the end result is that a brief period of weight loss is almost always followed by weight gain to even greater levels. The basic disease has not been treated.


If you are skeptical of natural products or infomercials filled with people who have lost 100 pounds "easily" with the latest discovery from the Mookamamba Tree in the GoshRUaSucker Islands, have no fear. There's always bypass surgery and bariatric medicine.

Bypass surgery: Some people argue with employers and health insurance companies to cover all of the costs of stomach bypass surgeries, which is another dangerous way to have someone do what we won't do for ourselves. Many of these folks ultimately gain the weight back as well because they have not addressed the problem, which is that they consume too much.

Bariatric medicine: Even though obesity is the result of overeating, an industry has now sprung up to help us avoid helping ourselves. We have created a whole new medical specialty - called bariatric medicine - just to deal with weight loss. Clinicians (licensed health care providers) use combinations of prescription and non-prescription medications, fasting diets, and more to "help" you lose weight.

We have medicalized our excess. We give it a name and make it a disease. We say: "I am not eating too much, no, in fact, I have an eating disorder. I am not to blame! It's the disease. I need a pill, surgery, group therapy, supplements, precooked meals, special counseling, hormonal therapy, shots, and understanding because it is a disease."


A pre-packaged weight-loss program may be helpful for some people. Because of all our differences - heredity, culture, gender, age, and mind sets, everyone needs a personalized approach to weight loss. What works for you might not work for me, and visa versa. I encourage you to find your own way. The challenge is to find it.


The problem with pre-packaged meal programs, bypass surgery, and weight-loss pills or hormones is all these approaches are potentially rife with dangerous side effects. They rob you of your humanity. They rob you of control of your body and, therefore, of your life. And lastly, they rob you of your hard-earned cash.

Most other developed countries have far less obesity than we do in this country (although we are exporting to them our "food poisoning" fast food chains and the media that support their use.). Curiously, in other countries, folks stay trim without the billions and billions of dollars that we spend on the new medical paradigm of weight loss, health care, diets, medicine, surgery, etc.

Obesity is an "un-problem" that we have made into a problem.