Diets in January are just not natural

I don’t know if anyone has ever done a study to see how many people actually promise to get in shape in January but I’m sure the figures would be pretty high. But the question I need to ask is, why January?  Who in their right mind would choose to start a diet at the beginning of snow season? Every other animal on the planet knows that winter is a time to get fat and hibernate, not exercise and eat right. Yet for some reason human beings, the most intelligent of the species, have decided to ignore their basic instincts. They plan their diets around a man made calendar instead of following the rules of Mother Nature. Well, maybe that explains why so many people fail to keep their New Year’s resolution to lose weight – because exercising in winter is just not natural.

Survival of the fittest -Of course people need to stay in shape, and I did a blog about winter weight loss last January, so let me ask you a different question. Why do you think we are so obsessed with attractive people, and how come “regular” looking people don’t make covers of too many magazines? Recently I discovered the answer to that question and, again, it goes back to our basic instincts. It’s the old survival of the fittest rule. We are instinctively drawn to people who look strong and appear physically fit.

Now that makes sense and it’s even kind of motivating but once again, we let our intelligence get in the way. We start looking for the easy way out and we try to cheat the system. We know that we are on the top of the food chain, so it doesn’t really matter if we get fat and lazy. It’s not like we have to run for our lives and we certainly don’t even have to break a sweat searching for food. Besides who needs good looks when you have a great personality!

A look in the mirror – Are you beginning to see why losing weight has become such a difficult task? Well, let’s throw in another human creation to complicate the situation. Mirror Mirror on the wall, it’s not my reflection after all. Mirrors, or even scales, have no place when it comes to weight loss. They only distort reality and confuse the situation. A thin person can look in the mirror and think they are fat, and a large man can stare at his reflection and still see the image of his old football days. Other animals aren’t self critical and they don’t judges themselves based on irrelevant data, yet in every bathroom in America, hangs a mirror (and probably a scale too). The thing is, if you are overweight or out of shape you know it. You can feel it. Your body will tell you when it’s time to slim down if you would only listen to your natural instincts and stop judging yourself by the reflection you see in a man-made mirror.

And finally, the biggest cover up in our weight loss dilemma – clothes. Animals don’t wear clothes. They just grow thick hair and get fat to help them stay warm. Then as the weather gets warmer, they naturally shed the hair along with the added few pounds. It sounds so simple so why can’t humans do that too? Because what little body hair we have is shaved on a daily basis, and then we layer our bodies with clothes . We do everything in our power to control our environment so that nature fits into our lifestyle, not the other way around. So if it is cold outside and the calendar tells us that we should be snuggling by a warm fire, well that’s just too bad. As thinking human beings we don’t let a little thing like instinct get in our way. We are perfectly capable of keeping a New Year’s resolution to get in shape – at least for the first few weeks of January that is.

What type of lettuce should you eat
when you start a diet in January?

 ICEberg