If you think you can control your waistline without trying, I want you to take a look around and keep these two things in mind: 1) nobody gets fat on purpose and 2) everybody gets fat at some point in their life. Yes, even if you aren’t now, you have a greater than 90% chance that you will be overweight at some point in life– and that’s a fact.

So, can you control your waistline without trying?  No, not in today’s world.

“Only at the brink of disaster do we evolve” – and let’s hope that’s not necessary

As overweight and obesity continue to climb in the face of well known dire consequences, the message society is sending to researchers is very clear: due to 21^st Century demands, the majority of people will not make lifestyle changes. In fact, the small population of successful weight losers had to reach a point of being near death or in search of a new mate, and I would argue that’s not a position in life you want to reach. Therefore we have to figure out how to make life itself keep us fit. How do we live in harmony with the “landmines” of everyday life, such as stationary jobs and entertainment, our need to quickly acquire tasty food (fast food), and exercise not being intuitive or fun, or just too time consuming?

In a nutshell, weight control for adults living in the modern world doesn’t happen by accident, but weight gain does. Adults don’t curb their eating automatically to get or stay in shape because humans simply are not designed to ignore good food or to move around unnecessarily.

Daily changes in body fat are easily overlooked
These daily changes are so tiny they’re not measurable, which means we can ignore it when weight goes up and then we’re frustrated as we attempt to lose it. We let weight gain continue even though we eventually see and feel it happening. We certainly don’t continue to let weight increase on purpose (most people don’t think it’s attractive or healthy). Our belated signals include moving up a notch on the belt, an increase in clothing size, seeing ourselves in the mirror, and stepping on the scale and finding that the number is significantly higher than it was when we looked and felt better.  Whether it’s visual or numerical, we are being semi-regularly warned. And THAT’S the whole problem. Controlling our waistline is not innate (in fact it’s innate to grow our waistlines) and warnings are too slow thus excusable. So we ride the train to being overweight another day – out of sight, out of mind – and the next day, and the next day . . . and the next stop?  Fat City.

We have the same problem when we try to reverse weight gain. Weight/fat loss or reaching our desired look happens too slowly for our liking, especially because the process is usually painful and unsustainable. Most, or all, of a dieter’s lost weight is gained back and as a society we continue to get fatter. This proves that current weight loss methods or treatments are virtually useless against our 21^st century environment.

If you can see it, you can lose it –and do it your way

All of this proves that you need to be able to, at any time, see your gains and losses no matter how small. Because at the end of the day, we can’t or won’t manage what we don’t see! But give us instant visibility to our daily body fat fluctuations and we can fix it on the fly – without pain! Pain happens when you can’t see anything and have to fix it later.

Enter the exerspy:  allowing life itself to be your training partner

It’s the first and only program that “talks to you,” informing you when to stop eating or start moving so you can look the way you want. Every minute, every day, whenever you want, the exerspy will keep you on track to your goal by giving you the ability to see fat loss and gains before they happen. This way you always know when to take one less bite or move another few steps. When weight loss is the goal, there is nothing more motivating than to SEE it every hour, everyday or any time you want. Seeing it in real time also allows action any time – YOUR WAY.

Simply put, when you know how many calories you burn, you know how many calories you can eat. The more you move, the more you can eat. Our life becomes our fitness program: eating what we want, moving or exercising the way we like. The exerspy is your training partner because with exerspy, life is exercise and YOUR food is your diet.  Ready to get yours? Check with the dotFIT club near you or order online at www.dotFIT.com/exerspy.

A recently publicized study by Northwestern University claims that their research sheds new light on obesity. In this study, mice fed a high fat diet during normal sleeping time led to a greater increase in weight gain than the same diet given during normal waking hours. This, they assert, proves that obesity is more than simply calories in vs. calories out. The researchers were looking to apply this outcome to shift workers who work irregular hours and experience weight gain.

Animal studies play a role in human research, but we need to be careful in a mouse-to-human transference. The subject of meal timing and weight gain has been looked at quite a bit in human research with mixed results. Basically, I can find studies that show it matters and I can find those that show no difference. It kind of goes that way with research.

The difficult thing about human research and outcomes is the human. We are forgetful, prideful, inaccurate and at times untruthful. This makes it hard to come to definite conclusions in human research, unless you can sequester the participants for a period of time and provide the only food they will eat. Even then, you develop research that falls into the “so what” category, because no one will do actually do in real life what they did in the study.

Let’s get back to the late shift factory worker. If they have been gaining weight, then what is the solution? Don’t eat? Get a different job? Not likely. The ultimate solution for this person will be to either increase their activity, eat less, or a combination of both. So, increase calories out, decrease calories in or a combination of the two. Sounds like a calories in vs. calories out relationship to me.

Why do I care enough to write a blog about this? Because every time something like this comes out, it gives people an excuse for weight gain and declining health. It isn’t my fault, I work the late shift; it’s my genetics; my parents were overweight; I eat too many carbs; I have a slow metabolism. There is, to date, no instance of weight gain that cannot be traced to an excess amount of calories consumed IN RELATION to calories expended. Where this gets lost is that even subtle changes in activity or food intake patterns can affect energy levels and appetite. I make this distinction here because at the moment these influences are just that — a feeling: a desire to eat sweets, to snack, a craving or a lack of energy and enthusiasm to move or workout or even a spurt of energy to move more.

What follows determines the impact of the feeling. That is why we stress the need for cognitive awareness: being aware of what you are eating and doing and what impact that has on your energy balance. If you can track that you are eating more calories than you want or need, then you can take action. You can simply reduce portions, not eat certain foods or make substitutions that take a smaller chunk out of your daily calorie allotment. Measuring your activity level can motivate one to purposely be more active, using the calories burned as a score for the day. Periodic weighing can get your attention when weight begins to creep up, not when it has blindsided you with a huge increase.

Ultimately, you are in control of your weight, within reason of course. It is you that eats the food and makes the food choices. Ultimately it is you who makes the decision to move more or less. Allowing for genetics and other factors beyond your control confuses the issue and takes control from you. To date I have never seen a single person whofailed to lose weight when they consistently altered their calories in vs. their calories out to do so. The choices are yours and completely in your control.