Why is it so hard to lose weight?
I believed I could make it happen eating fewer calories and increasing my exercise. The Calories In – Calories Out dance.
WRONG. WRONG. And WRONG
“Reducing Calories In works only if Calories Out remains stable. What we find instead is that a sudden reduction of Calories In causes a similar reduction in Calories Out, and no weight is lost as the body balances its energy budget.”
Jason Fung, MD The Obesity Code
After decades of behaviors based on my calorie reduction belief, I’m being re-educated. I had a nagging discontent with my approach – as I always seemed to hit a wall eventually. Documenting my food helped me be aware of my choices; and regular exercise benefits me in many ways. But at some point I stop trying. Probably because I hit a plateau that won’t budge. That stretch when even robust runs don’t make a difference.
In his book The Obesity Code; Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss, Jason Fung, MD explains many of the barriers and obstacles to what I believed and acted upon. And I’m not the only one.
We were all born into an era that pushed the calories in – calories out propaganda. We’ve been hoodwinked by society, the government and media to believe this hooey. There’s a grain of truth to most good cons. Yes, I can lose weight when I eat less and exercise more. But the story is only partly true; they leave off the part that it’s often a futile effort. If I don’t make the changes permanent, they don’t stick and I gain it all back, and then some!
It’s not the calories; how much we weigh is related to our insulin production and our body set-point.
Now let me get back to his revelations – and see what I can do to believe differently!
“Everything you see I owe to spaghetti.”
Sophia Loren
Nope. No Poop Fairies – not for our pups, not for us.
Why is proclaiming this as my mantra to EVERYONE undesirable?
Bill Gates and Barak Obama included the book Factfulness, by Hans Rosling on their 2018 summer reading list. I’ve been a Rosling fan since I stumbled onto his TED Talk: 
“Being humble, here, means being aware of how difficult your instincts can make it to get the facts right. It means being realistic about the extent of your knowledge. It means being happy to say “I don’t know.” It also means, when you do have an opinion, being prepared to change it when you discover new facts. It is quite relaxing being humble, because it means you can stop feeling pressure to have a view about everything, and stop feeling you must be ready to defend your views all the time.”
“Each and every one of us has been born into a given historical reality, ruled by particular norms and values, and managed by a unique economic and political system. We take this reality for granted, thinking it is natural, inevitable and immutable. 
We can’t know how tomorrow will look. Before Model T’s showed up few believed the horse-drawn carriage would disappear. Or 25 years ago in Blockbuster’s heyday, who knew they’d vanish – and we’d have #NetflixAndChill? What’s next? Land lines, keys; cash? Who’s next? Cashiers, taxi drivers; the mail man?
When I reflect on how humanity is simply subjective experience – and what that actually means, I can fall into a funk – in a hurry. Mostly though I’m swept up with everyone else and believe the story of today. Stories give us meaning; they unite us. Yuval Noah Harari says: “All large-scale human cooperation is ultimately based on our belief in imagined orders.”