Why is Weight Gain so Easy?

Weight gain is easy, but it is difficult to lose weight permanently once we have gained weight. We would all agree with that statement. Even before we start on the latest greatest new diet, there are many factors against our success.

Here are the Top 15 excuses, that I have heard through the years:

• Family - We buy and cook for our families, and they want non-healthy foods. Does anyone have teenagers in their family?


• Culture - Everything is centered on food in our culture and it is hard to escape food eg. Movies, television ads, magazines, sporting events, any activity......! Everywhere we go we are surrounded by food!


• Lack of activity, and increased use of television, computers, video games, and jobs where we sit all day rather than work up a sweat.


• We grab fast food because of lack of time. Fast food is served in huge portions and high in calories. Many fast food meals, serve us an entire day’s calorie amount in one meal.


• Most of us sit at our jobs, and are also inactive at home, because of all of the gadgets that we own.


• We are lonely, stressed, depressed, bored, tired, in bad marriages, or have kids with problems. We eat, for any of these emotional reasons to comfort ourselves.


• Processed foods we buy to save time, are often calorie laden. Most people are not in the habit of reading food labels. Most of us simply do not eat real food.


• Healthy foods are too expensive.


• Fruits and vegetables are too expensive.


• Food just makes us feel good. Yeah, chocolate!


• Food shows we love someone. How many of us bake to show our love to our family or friends.


• Job dissatisfaction causes us to eat to feel better.


• We don’t have enough money at the end of the month to buy good, healthy foods.


• Life is so busy, that we do not have time to exercise.


• Life is so stressful, that we eat comfort foods full of fat and sugar to feel better.

Basically, we love to eat, and many of us have turned to food as a way to feel better when we have problems. We are very good at this!

We do not practice healthy diet habits on a daily basis. We are not programmed by dieting to make healthy lifestyle solutions, that we will adopt into our lives. We are trained to lose weight quickly, but this does not work long term and we are left with excess weight gain.