Why You Are Really Fat: It's Time To Wake Up!

By Robert Greco

Everywhere we look obesity continues to make top headlines, as so-called ‘developed’ nations become fatter by the day. Current statistics indicate that there are almost two billion overweight and obese people across the globe, and that well over half of the population of countries like America, Australia, New Zealand and the UK are either overweight or obese.
But what is really driving this fat epidemic, and more importantly, what can you do to better manage your weight? The truth is that without understanding the real problem, no amount of gyms, diets, weight loss pills, surgery, doctors, nutritionists or personal trainers will ever fix your weight issues. These solutions fail to get to the heart of the problem and address the most critical factor fuel-ling your bulging waistline —low conscious living.
Rather than adding to the multitude of existing bandaid solutions, this book will take you on a journey of self-discovery. It will reveal the missing pieces in your weight loss equation, including the crucial mind–body–soul link. You will learn exactly how your current mode of living is keeping you fat despite your best intentions, and will for the first time, be given a ‘choice’ to break free.
Once you understand the real reasons why you are fat, then there is no turning back to your old way of living. This book will change the way you look at losing weight and the way you live your life forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Greco
• Release date: Nov 7, 2011
• ISBN: 9780987196613

Robert Greco

Robert Greco has more than a decade of experience in the Health and Fitness industry and is the founder of Holistic Health & Fitness, which aims to focus on the whole person instead of just the physical body. His many roles have included personal trainer and exercise scientist, lecturer, healer, speaker and author. Robert is extremely committed and passionate about helping people live happier, healthier and fitter lives, largely by helping them to gain back their own power, live true and restore balance back into their lives. He continues to travel nationally, awakening and teaching individuals to not only manage a healthy weight, but also in the process help raise planetary awareness. Robert is a fully registered member of the Australian Fitness Network and Exercise & Sports Sciences Australia. For more information on speaking, coaching, seminars, retreats, book sales, products, health and fitness tips or to contact the author, please visit http://www.whyyouarereallyfat.com.au Similarly, if you have a question for the author, or would like to leave a comment regarding your experiences of holistic weight management, please do so at [e-mail]

Book preview

Weight loss today is a multi-billion-dollar industry with hundreds of weight-loss solutions available. But how many do you think really work and if they are all so effective, then why are we getting fatter and fatter? Unfortunately, the search for a quick fix is evident through the thousands of contraptions, magic pills and diets that apparently help you to lose weight and get fit. There are many people who want to lose weight who are willing to give up their responsibilities for their bodies to a weight-loss guru — often someone who boasts about certain methods that temporarily worked for them. Of course many people like this idea and look for someone else to take control and as a result, often become weight loss junkies who take everything they hear as gospel truth. Ultimately, they usually don’t lose weight and end up feeling even worse than when they started.

One thing I want to make clear is that this is not a diet or exercise book. In fact, after reading this book I promise you will never be asked to diet again. In writing this book, my intention is not to provide a quick fix for weight loss — there are already thousands of doctors, trainers, nutritionists, celebrities and everyday people doing this and adding to the weight loss frenzy. Instead, what I will do is show you why it is you are really fat and also why all previous attempts to get your weight under control have more than likely failed. This process will also shed profound light on the challenges that you face personally, in your family, your relationships, your work environment and ultimately, with your health. It is a process that will require that you examine every area of your life and especially the way you perceive your life — from your emotions, to your eating and exercise habits, to where and how you live your life. It also considers where you work and what you do, and the state of your relationships too. In short, it will require some mental effort, but the investment of finding out about holistic health and fitness will give you the key paradigm for dealing with your weight issues by providing you with wisdom, guidance and power in overcoming many of the most significant health obstacles that you face.

The growing magnitude of obesity and the failure of society in general to address the problem for what it really is, rather than just offering bandaid solutions, has influenced me to write this book. And while I have felt compelled to write this book by something transcending myself, I really am just so sick to death of seeing so many fat people drinking these awful chemical shakes or eating bland protein bars — that I feel someone needs to take control! I truly feel the real cause for our ‘battle of the bulge’ has largely been missed, dismissed, or even both by society as a whole. I say this because up until this point, the way we have approached weight management, has been the same way we approach most medical problems — very Newtonian and mechanical. This is evident not only by the lack of research into the holistic treatment of obesity — in particular the ‘mind–body link’, but also by obesity’s continued and somewhat explosive growth despite all efforts to curb this trend.

The truth is that being fat is never really about the weight at all — it’s much deeper than that. And as you’ll find out, this has got a lot to do with your relationship to yourself, or the lack of it. It has been the remarkable parallel between the ignorance of being and the increase in body weight in a more and more fragmented world that has been the driving force behind this book. There is also the desire to reduce the negative effects which obesity–related complications have for you, your family and your life. This book provides you with a roadmap that will lead you from a body of pain and suffering, to a body of health and vitality.

Obviously I can’t wave a magic wand and make you lose weight forever, but I can assure you that, if you follow what you will read in this book, you will be well on your way to not only gaining a much healthier body, but also to creating the life you always wanted in many areas. It is at this point however, that I will suggest that the solutions to managing your weight offered in this book may not be easy for you to digest, especially if you are used to the ‘three easy steps to weight loss’ approach — exercise more, eat healthier foods and summing up enough willpower to motivate yourself to keep on going. Why you might ask, mostly because, unlike the latest fad diet, this book won’t provide you with immediate and somewhat instant results. Sure it could, but more than likely it won’t. And that’s because it is about a permanent and lifelong solution — not a short-term one. So, if you are looking to temporarily lose weight with little concern for your weight in the future, then you have picked up the wrong book — but don’t worry there are thousands of other books you can read, just take your pick — they are all the same.

This book instead is rather heavy going, because anything that requires deep introspection generally just is. Its key component revolves around change, that although necessary for most of us, is not an easy process. Therefore, your level of success is determined by your level of commitment and personal investment in yourself. The chances are that you may find that you pick this book up, begin to read a bit, and then put it down for fear of what it will call upon you to do next in your life, especially if you have up until now lived your life ‘untrue’ — either deliberately or unconsciously. And that’s okay if you want to stay where you are — not everyone is really ready to get to the heart of their weight issues. But at least give it a go, and if you can’t follow it or are not ready to change just yet, then put the book down and pick it up again when you are ready for the challenge.

If on the other hand, you are truly sick of having an unhealthy body and are willing to take a holistic approach to your weight-loss efforts, then read on. As you do, you will begin to discover more about who you really are and that real change will finally be possible, and in fact inevitable. This book offers a seismic shift in the way you perceive your life — and in the way you relate to the world around you. It really does offer an opportunity to show you how to move closer not only towards the body you want, but also towards the life you deserve and should be living. In fact, your life will begin to become fuller and richer and you will wonder how you ever lived an unhealthy life, in an unhealthy body for so long. If you have struggled with excess fat for most of your life, then this book provides your one ticket out — enjoy your journey!

Please Note: This book may contain some specific terms that you may not understand or require further clarification on. If so, please refer to the Glossary towards the back of the book.

****

PART 1

The Problem

Chapter 1: Our global fat epidemic

Obesity is the dominant unmet global health issue,

with Western countries topping the list.

—World Health Organisation(1)

Everywhere you look, obesity continues to make headlines. The truth is that humans have existed in one form or another, for over half a million years, and during this time the vast majority of us have been lean. However, in the last twenty to thirty years this has changed as our lives get busier and busier. Lifestyle-related diseases and in particular obesity is spiralling out of control. Australia’s image may be that of a sun-drenched ‘healthy’ nation, but in reality this is far from it. Australians are fatter than ever before, but worse still, the ranks of our obese are expanding at a record rate. In fact, Australia has some of the highest levels of obesity in the developed world — in excess of nine million people are currently classed as overweight or obese.(2) That’s not good for a country that prides itself as a ‘sporting nation’.

This obesity picture is similar in developed countries across the globe, including the United States and the United Kingdom. Other developing countries such as China are also facing similar trends with over 300 million people overweight or obese. On current projections, it is estimated that within the next decade, more than three-quarters of the population in countries such as the United States(3) and Australia will be overweight or obese. Just pause for a minute and take in the enormity of this. Also consider the fact that almost two billion people in the world today are already overweight or obese.(4)

But do we really need any more proof of how fat and unwell we are becoming? Simply take a walk through your local shopping centre and take a good look around — do you really think most people look healthy these days? The sheer magnitude of obesity today is not only evident by the number of overweight and unwell people you see walking around, but also through the changes in everyday items. In our houses we have extra-large king-size beds, armless chairs, reinforced and extra-large sofas, and even larger garages to house our bigger cars that have bigger seats to carry us around comfortably. Even plane seats have been increased in size to accommodate obese travellers, and you can even get special seatbelt extenders to make sure your belt fits. In offices we are seeing fewer or no stairs, larger restrooms and increased air conditioning to keep obese people cooler. In health clubs, we see oversized heavy duty treadmills, extra-large blood-pressure cuffs and bigger scales. In department stores, size Large (L) has now become the norm, with sizes increasing right up to XXXXXL. We are also seeing overcrowded hospitals with obesity-related complications, oversized wheel chairs, extra-long needles to reach through the fatty layers and in the end — oversized coffins and graveyards to put them in. Where will it end?

Is obesity preventable?

Obesity is what is termed a ‘lifestyle disease’. Lifestyle meaning that something in regards to the way we go about living our lives has caused the problem. This means that if we change the way we go about living our lives, then we can prevent the problem in the first place. Yes, in some cases, genes and other factors may contribute to being overweight, but statistics show that over two-thirds of modern diseases have a lifestyle-based cause. Such causes are grounded in the readily available processed foods, effort-saving technology and high-stress work and lifestyle patterns of modern-day industrial living. The less we move, the more muscle wastage we obtain, known as sarcopenia. It comes from the Greek meaning ‘poverty of the flesh’(5) and generally describes the decrease in muscle mass that occurs with ageing, in as early as the fourth or fifth decade of life. Together, the increase in body fat and decrease in muscle mass characterising sarcopenic obesity can have important effects on body composition, inflammation, sickness and mortality. It results in the development of a fat and frail population who experience the worst of both worlds as they age — increased weakness due to sarcopenia, plus a need to carry greater weight due to obesity. Combine this with a largely dysfunctional mind-state, as well as movement inertia, and it becomes easy to see how obesity has become an almost unstoppable epidemic.

Obesity really is a common symptom of modern living, predicted to have major ramifications for world health systems over the coming decade. And, although many countries do have national health objectives to reduce the prevalence of obesity, data suggests that the situation is worsening rather than improving.

Other effects of obesity

While obesity may only appear as a cosmetic problem, beneath the surface it is a problem that negatively affects the entire body in a plethora of ways, and increases the risk of health conditions, including high blood pressure, arthritis, high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, cancer, birth defects and many other complications.(6, 7)

While these sound like diseases found in only the sick or elderly, instead they are today being found in everyday people, and in many of our children — a frightening fact. Apart from the obvious physiological lifestyle diseases associated with obesity, there are the effects it has on mental health, including psychological and social disorders. Discrimination effecting fat people is especially common in schools, the workplace, the media and personal relationships also. This can lead to low self-worth, anger, hopelessness and even depression. In fact, depression — the number one mental health issue of this century, has been shown to have a strong link to inactivity and obesity. And, as you will see, not loving yourself as a result of being fat has major ramifications, affecting your quality of life in every area and especially your health.

The financial burden of obesity goes far beyond individual costs — they extend to the nation as a whole and are a prime contributor to the nation’s soaring healthcare tab. Not only are our overweight kids a ticking time bomb for our health system, but already the annual medical costs for an obese person are almost double those for a person of normal weight.(8) In the UK, the cost of disease associated with obesity has become so out of hand that the British Government has started to pay its fat citizens to lose weight — sterling pounds gained for weight pounds lost.

Is your weight healthy?

The best way to determine if you are fat is to strip and stand naked in front of a full-length mirror and check yourself out. Now, turn to the side and do the same — does your stomach or butt deviate beyond the normal contours of your body line? If so, then the chances are that you are overweight. However, if you want to take a more scientific approach to determine if you are fat, then perform a simple waist measurement test.

Many people measure their waist incorrectly, or rely on their belt or trouser size, which is often inaccurate. For an accurate waist measurement, measure directly over your skin after breathing out normally. The tape measure should be snug, but not compressing the skin. Measure yourself mid-way between your lowest rib and the top of your hipbone, which is roughly in line with your belly button. A waist measurement of over 100 cm for men, and over 85 cm for women is considered to indicate that the individual is overweight and possibly even obese.(9)

If you are fat, deal with it

So how did you go? If you are overweight, obese, or as I prefer to put it, ‘fat’ then simply acknowledge that you are. So many overweight people believe that they don’t have a weight issue — which usually means one of two things. It could mean that they have accepted being fat as normal or that they are in denial that they have a weight problem. One thing this book requires of you is to live true, because if you don’t, it will be of no benefit to you. Ask yourself now, does your body reflect who you really are? Do you honour and respect your body the way you should? Does your body support everything you want to do with your life?

Having good health is so much more than how much you weigh. Being healthy means being able to walk a decent distance without becoming puffed out, or to be able to jog around the block. It means being able to weed your garden without pulling up too sore. Being able to play with your kids without getting puffed, or having a great sex life, and about looking at your body in the mirror and being proud of what you see. But most importantly it’s about feeling energetic and happy to be alive, to jump out of bed in the morning with passion and enthusiasm. Good or better still, great health means all of these things and so much more, rather than just ‘getting by’, or existing as such.

Too many people wrongly mistake good health with simply living a mediocre existence. Making it through your day does not equal great health — surviving is not thriving. Although optimal wellness is our birthright, the truth is that most of us have actually forgotten what it feels like to really have good health and be fit. It’s mostly for this reason that many people often overestimate just how fit and healthy they are. The truth is that most of us are very unfit and we generally have mediocre health. And, as mentioned, many of us also have a distorted perception of our current state of wellbeing. Sure some of us are in denial, but many of us are just too tired or stressed or unmotivated to do anything about it.

So if you do feel as if your weight is getting in the way of your life and affecting the areas that are most important to you — family, leisure, your sense of adventure, relationships, career and so on, then don’t be angry but rather make the choice now to accept that you are where you are and that you can only move forward from this point. Just because you are overweight there is no need to settle for a mediocre life or health — you do have a choice and you can change. Taking responsibility for yourself and ‘where you are at’ will only help you to get where you want to go. This is the first step to resolving you weight-loss woes. I stress this point, because so many people find this hard to accept. Once you truly make the decision to change your life including your weight, then your intention and desire to change will become evident in every aspect of your life — enabling your choices to support your priorities and this way, you will begin to lose weight naturally and automatically.

Chapter 2: If only being fat was a simple energy-balance equation

Energy and matter can neither be created nor destroyed.

—Albert Einstein, Theory of General Relativity(1)

On my travels through Europe, I was fortunate to stay in the beautiful little city of Bern, Switzerland, where I visited the house that Albert Einstein resided in from 1903-05. It was here that he formulated some of his most ground breaking theories including the theory of relativity. The house is open to the public as a museum, and has been set up as a monument to his work. I was so excited that I had the chance to sit at the same desk where Einstein studied, it was a real buzz. On the wall adjacent to his desk was his Theory of General Relativity — a theory I was already familiar with, having studied physics at school. However, having not come across this theory for some time, upon seeing it again I also had my own realisation, and that was that I could apply the theory to the obesity epidemic in the simplest form. Fortunately we don’t have to understand Einstein’s theory fully to understand how to lose weight. But what we do need to understand is that in order to lose weight, we must burn more calories than we consume. In effect, this changed state of energies can be produced primarily through increasing the amount of exercise we do, or by decreasing the amount of calories we consume — that is a given. I think most of us understand this, at least at a basic level, and know that regular exercise and sound nutrition are two of the most important things we can do to balance the energy equation.

However, part of the problem is that we live in an ‘obesogenic’ environment which discourages physical activity, while at the same time surrounding us with an array of unhealthy food choices. So while it is clear that the fundamentals of weight loss are contained within a simple energy equation, the vast majority of us simply find it hard to balance the equation in our favour. Don’t you find it rather ironic that in a digital information age where there is more advice on how best to lose weight than ever, we are simply getting fatter and unhealthier by the day. It seems as if we are willing to try any number of weight-loss techniques providing they don’t involve a serious change to our lifestyle — or even the possibility of thinking about change.

So here we are in the twenty-first century, more educated, more informed and more equipped to get in shape than ever before, yet becoming fatter and unhealthier than ever before. This is an age where we have an enormous number of weight-loss resources and tools for change available at our very fingertips, yet still we fail to put knowledge into action. Surely if ‘knowledge is power’, then we would all be thin, right? So why is it that we know what to do but fail to act? Is an increase in unhealthy food and lack of exercise the only real cause of our obesity epidemic? And if so, should we blame Ronald McDonald for fast food or Bill Gates for making us less active or even the Cookie Monster for encouraging us to eat crap from a young age? Why are we really growing so fat? I find it rather disturbing that in the twenty-first century, Westernised countries such as ours are suffering from a spiralling obesity epidemic, while a large proportion of the rest of the world, particularly developing countries, are suffering from the opposite problem. While our hospitals are filled with obese individuals dying from an ‘excess’ of food intake, the camps in third-world countries by contrast are filled with people dying of starvation and malnutrition. Is it really gluttony that we are collectively suffering from, and if so, why have we reached such a state? This is not an easy question and unfortunately the answer is not so simple — or is it.

In search of an answer — ‘are you fat because you are lazy?’

For a long time, fat people have too often been ridiculed or even stereotyped by society as being lazy, slobbish, greedy and even out of control. Some go as far as labelling all fat people as sloths, with popular media and TV shows often fuelling these beliefs by presenting extreme cases of overindulgence and gluttony. In reality however, while this is true for some, for most people there is nothing further from the truth. Because if you fail to look holistically at the fat epidemic choking the Western world, then it becomes very easy to dismiss the situation as nothing more than an ‘epidemic of laziness’ — where almost two billion people are overweight or obese ‘just because they are lazy’.

Clearly this is not the case and to show you why, I would like to take you back to my initial journey into holistic weight management. Through a personal interest in weight management and people’s motivation or rather lack of motivation regarding regular exercise and healthy eating, I began to investigate why people behaved the way they did. And why no matter how much I tried to advise people to engage in healthy lifestyle practices, it would fall on deaf ears. So I began to question, why was it that I valued my health and looked after my body, but many others didn’t. And what was I doing differently to maintain a sense of balance in my life that they didn’t do. Why did they mistreat and abuse their body, when they clearly knew of the consequences of their actions, or inactions for that matter.

In search of an answer, I soon realised that there was much more to weight loss than I had anticipated. In fact, I recall the day that was a real turning point for me — when I had an epiphany in regard to understanding weight management. I was working as a gym instructor at my local gym and it was there that I first began to help people structure healthy eating and exercise programs, largely in relation to weight management. I enjoyed the work very much. However, as time went on, I become increasingly frustrated when so few people actually followed the simple advice that I recommended to increase their physical wellbeing. It wasn’t because they didn’t know how or what to do, but it almost always had much more to do with everything else that was going on in their lives.

Mostly, people were just too stressed out and tired to exercise and cook healthy meals, and much of this seemed to revolve around emotional stress. Others just seemed to have a sheer lack of motivation for life, or lack of respect for themselves and their bodies. Many were so focused on making money that their own health was not even really considered a priority. This fascinated me, as I could not understand why almost everyone I knew was putting everything else but their health first, which is really their number one asset. So I began to ask questions, lots of questions. I was certain that I needed to take a holistic approach, one that incorporated mind, body and spirit, to truly help people with weight management. I knew I had to first understand how the mind and body are linked, as well as also understanding about spirituality — something which I was already aware of and familiar with throughout my life. In fact, I was absolutely convinced that weight management had a lot more to do with not only the mind, but also the spirit — and more so than most people might anticipate.

Over the course of the next decade I completed both home-based and tertiary studies in Human Movement, natural medicines, holistic health, quantum physics and psychology. In addition, a lot of my learning has been the result of travelling and just observing different cultures and through the many conversations on the topic of spirituality with people from all areas of life. More importantly than any formalised field of study however, I focused on continuing my own spiritual journey, in learning much about myself and life. I spent time in daily meditation as well as in personal development. As I transformed my own consciousness, I also become interested in the consciousness of all of those who I had coached. As I progressed with my study, I realised that by studying myself I was also studying everyone else, because regardless of where we live or what culture we come from, on an energetic level we are all the same. We all come from the same source, live in the same world and then we all return to source again. With each new bit of understanding I got closer to my goal, closer to experiencing the essential unity that underlies everything. And it was this understanding that helped me to better understand why we are really fat!

Conducting my own study into why we are really fat

As I was unable to find scientific research regarding what I had anticipated obesity was attributable to, I decided that the best way to find out why so many people were overweight was simply to ask them. The question was: ‘Why have you become overweight and what are the barriers which prevent you from losing or maintaining a healthy body weight?’ I asked this question of hundreds of gym members, family and friends, even strangers — a question that I still ask today to anyone who walks into my weight management centre. Obviously their answers differed, but based on my own qualitative analysis, the themes were consistent throughout the study, just as I had expected and related to what I believed the weight issue to be. In correlating these answers, the top ten reasons for being fat were as follows. (Note, as you read through the list, please tick a reason if you also relate to it being a barrier regarding why you are fat today):

1 Being too stressed out or busy to think or even worry about your health despite knowing what to do.

2 Fear of weight-loss failure again — little inclination to even try again.

3 Despite knowing what is healthy, using food for emotional eating — including in response to relationship or work issues.

4 Attitude of ‘got to die some day, may as well die happy’, so just enjoy food.

5 Struggling to find enough