There’s one simple fact about human nature and if you understand this, you will be halfway through getting fit.
According to statistics, more than two-thirds (68.8 percent) of adults are overweight or obese.
This is despite the fact that, the global market for weight loss has reached US$586.3 billion of worth by 2014.
US$586.3 Billion weight loss industry doesn’t seem to be helping.
Why is that?
Evolution at work
Living beings evolve according to their environment.
That’s the essence of evolution.
Humans have seen many periods of famine.
When you are hungry you feel a tremendous desire to consume calories. Your body rings the alarm bells of hunger. You go and eat, give your body the calories it needs.
In addition, your body adapted to handle as many low calories as possible. Your metabolism slows down in a caloric deficit.
Also, your body learned to store the extra calories as fat, in case there is a future famine.
In short, your body learned that you may die if a famine should occur, and adapted to those conditions.
So, humans managed to survive until today in spite of countless brutal famines.
The times have changed
Everything suddenly changed in modern times.
From 1961 to 2009, daily calories available per person has increased by a whopping 1000 calories!
For the entire human history, food has never been this abundant.
When the food supply increased, food consumption increased accordingly.
In terms of evolution, 45 years is a short time. Evolution didn’t have enough time to handle a daily 1000 calorie increase.
It will take generations after generations of food abundance for evolution to adapt.
Your body didn’t evolve to efficiently fight excess calorie intake
Since your body evolved to survive famines, it stores the extra calories as fat. When there is a famine, this extra fat will keep you alive.
When there is no food around, your body will use the calories it stored as fat.
In our times, we discovered that having excess fat in our bodies is fatal too. Obesity had never been an issue in human history until today. This is new.
Your body didn’t evolve to handle obesity. It didn’t experience extended times of food abundance and obesity epidemic like it experienced famines.
So, your body actually doesn’t know that being fat is dangerous. Extra fat in your body is simply an insurance against famine.
After at least a few generations, the human body will evolve to prevent obesity too.
After the human body evolves to handle the food abundance, there will be less obesity in the world.
Future humans will have a body that will have a warning system for the excess consumption of calories, just like it has for the shortage of calories right now.
But the problem is, you will not see this in your lifetime. It will take hundreds of years.
You will probably die before this happens.
So what you should do now?
You could curse at the evolution for working too slow.
You could blame your genetics.
You could blame food producers.
You could say you are a victim.
None of these is going to work if you want to lose weight.
Instead, you should take personal responsibility.
It’s YOUR responsibility to control your eating.
You should deliberately control what you eat if you don’t want to be fat.
Understand: This is your only option.
You need the willpower to eat less. There is no other way to work this out.
Nobody in the world can do this for you.
You have to do it yourself.
Start monitoring your calorie intake now.
If you don’t do this, you will spend your life as a fat person.
It’s as simple as this.