When I was five years old I had a blood disease and was hospitalized for a few weeks. It turned out that the only reason this condition became so serious was because the doctors couldn’t figure out the right diagnosis. Finally, after my entire family was at the point of thinking I wouldn’t survive, a doctor discovered the actual cause of the problems I was having, and I was treated and survived (obviously!). The most damage to my body didn’t come from the disease, but from all of the treatments I received for diseases I didn’t have.
How many of us actually know the “cause” behind us getting fat, becoming unhealthy or even unhappy?
If you really do know the actual cause, you would do something about it so that it stops creating problems. Otherwise, you take the risk of hoping you have the right target (get rid of the fat!) – and then hoping you have the right solution (eat less and exercise more).
I want to stress “hoping” because it takes a huge amount of optimism to decide to “try another solution”. I know, personally.
The problem here is that with each wrong diagnosis; the doses of failure, frustration and despair increase. The worst thing is that even if you do win (and lose the weight), you know you’re never getting out of this game now…because the moment you simply “relax” it creeps right back in and unless you want to continue your rigid methods and sacrifice any pleasure in eating; be prepared to become another statistic (but hey, misery loves company, right?).
So…you have high hopes, you have high stakes, you take the gamble and try another gimmick, idea or crazy “this is what I did and you should try it” thing…and I know when you want something so bad, it takes all of two seconds to abandon all rational logic for the “magic pill that melts ten pounds away at night” – because this just might be the silver bullet!! Funny.
At best, just like any “disease” (if you really want to call it that) – without knowing the real underlying cause, you will either get worse, temporarily get better and then worse, or experience no change at all. Enter the “yo-yo” weight problem – gain weight, drop the pounds, gain back more weight. Repeat.