I’m often asked why I think it is that with all the information and diets out there, people are more obese and out of shape than ever. My answer is always the same. It’s our mindset. Now stay with me, this isn’t some woo-woo article where I tell you to think about your fat melting away to make it happen. This is more than that. It’s about what people want vs what they need.
To illustrate this I’d like to talk about something I call the “illusion of health”. The illusion of health is what most diets and exercise gadgets promise us that we just can’t help but to chase. When you watch some late night commercial about an ab machine that promises to melt the fat away from your midsection and have you displaying a gorgeous set of chiseled abs in just minutes a day, what they are promising you is the illusion of health. There is no way doing some crazy crunches using the Ab Blaster 7000 is going to bring you to good health. It’s not going to reverse the damage of the processed foods you eat, it’s not going to help your body get the nutrition it’s been deprived of, it’s not going to clear your arteries of the garbage that’s caked in them, it’s not going to balance your hormones, it’s not going to heal your damaged organs or lower your risk of cancer, it’s not even going to burn fat! It’s really not going to do anything for you and that’s why you don’t see any of these things promised.
Instead they show you a bunch of fitness models that lead lifestyles that do all of these things and have the body to prove it and tries to convince you that some glorified crunches will give you a body like theirs. These things then sell like hotcakes because people want that body. They care more about the illusion of health (that body) than actual health. The problem is that if a body is not healthy in all regards, it will never look like that.
uh huh, yeah, I guess this belt works your biceps too huh?
Diets are exactly the same way. Millions of people have decided that fat and carbs are enemy #1 to a lean body. Some people even avoid life giving fruits and vegetables because they contain carbs. This despite the libraries of studies that say that carbs and fat are essential to the body functioning as it should. Take them away and you cannot be at optimal health. That’s not cared about though because people are more interested in the illusion of health than health.
The illusion of health can be summed up as the characteristics that a healthy body displays: slim, muscular, athletic, shapely, clear skin with healthy glow and elasticity, healthy teeth and gums, etc. All the things the magazines accomplish so well with Photoshop for their covers.
The reason people are failing is simply because they are chasing the illusion instead of the real thing. You can’t eat crap or avoid major nutrients and expect to have a healthy body. It just doesn’t work that way. However, if people would concentrate on health instead of chasing some illusion, I think they would find that the illusion would no longer be an illusion at all. It would instead be the person staring back at them in the mirror day after day.
You may want to ask yourself which one you’re chasing right now. Chances are, if you’re following restrictive diets or doing an 8 minute abs DVD in the morning, you’re probably chasing the illusion. If instead of saying you want to be healthy you’re always concerned with weight loss, you’re probably chasing the illusion.
The illusion is the quick fix and if you chase it, you will end up with nothing. If you decide that becoming healthy is what you really want to do, your body will often take care of the rest.
Until next time,
Kris
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