"Battle Your Biology? Fat Chance," proclaimed a headline recently in medical area of the New York Post newspaper. Quoting new research and citing psychologists, Antalya diyetisyen and physicians, the content says that more and more evidence proves that your weight is genetically determined, and if you're fat, "it's not your fault." "We've known for some time that genes - more than environment and behavior - explain obesity" argues Dr. James Rosen, an eating disorder specialist and professor at the University of Vermont.
While genetics are certainly one factor, believing you are destined to be overweight for life because you've inherited "fat genes" is probably the most disempowering and self-defeating attitude you may ever adopt. The only way you'll lose weight permanently is to simply accept total responsibility yourself and acknowledge the fact that you have the energy to improve, regardless what mother nature has given you to work with.
There's no denying that heredity plays a significant role in how difficult it will soon be for you yourself to lose fat. You inherited a human body type, a predetermined amount of fat cells, a metabolic rate and body just like you inherited your eye color and hair color. In the 1930's, Ankara psikolog Dr. William H. Sheldon developed a classification system for these different body types called "somatotyping." While you will find no absolutes, Sheldon identified three basic somatotypes: ectomorphs, mesomorphs and endomorphs.
Ectomorphs are the lean, lanky types. They're usually very thin and bony, with fast metabolisms and extremely low body fat. An ectomorph can eat like a horse without gaining an ounce. Mesomorphs are the "genetically gifted." They're lean, muscular and naturally athletic. Mesomorphs lose fat and gain muscle with ease. Endomorphs are the "fat retainers." Characterized by round features, excess excess fat and large joints ("big bones"), endomorphs usually have great difficulty in losing body fat. They've slow metabolisms, they're often carbohydrate sensitive, they gain fat quickly when they eat poorly or don't exercise, and they lose fat slowly - even on a healthy diet.
The tendency of endomorphs to store fat easily could be partly attributed to metabolic problems. Like, endomorphs often metabolize carbohydrates inefficiently. Normal people can eat a lot of carbohydrates - around 60% of the total calories - and they still stay lean. Endomorphs produce too much insulin once they eat carbohydrates and this contributes to increased fat storage and difficulty in losing existing fat. This condition is known as "insulin resistance" or "Syndrome X."
Scientists claim that the tendency to achieve weight easily may also be as a result of chemical imbalances in mental performance that cause people to overeat. Researchers at Johns Hopkins recently announced the discovery a compound called C75 that blocks an appetite-regulating hormone in the hypothalamus. In mice injected with the substance, 30 percent more weight was lost as the drug caused the mice to eat less. More research is planned to develop an identical appetite-suppressing drug for humans. Unlike Xenical, which blocks fat absorption in the intestine, this new drug would affect the brain's chemistry so that individuals feel full sooner.
Many physicians and health professionals consider these metabolic disorders and chemical imbalances as genetically transmitted "diseases" that need medical treatment. "Obesity is a disease and ought to be treated like one" says Jackie Newgent, spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association.This idea should be looked at with a lot of suspicion however, because fat loss is potentially the largest market on earth for drug sales. Ankara diyetisyen
According to Justin Gillis, a staff writer for the Washington Post, more than 45 companies worldwide are trying to develop new obesity drugs, and the stakes couldn't be higher. Gillis writes, "In world the place where a blockbuster drug is worth $1 billion a year in sales, analysts give $5 billion as the lower estimate for sales of an important obesity drug. In case a company developed a truly safe, effective fat loss drug, and sold it for $3 a day to 1 quarter of the 97 million American adults estimated to be overweight, sales would exceed $26 billion a year in this country alone."
Basically, what the medical community is attempting to inform you is that if you should be overweight, it's not your fault; you're born fat, so don't feel guilty - and don't worry, we've a drug that could "cure" you. Seems like there's an ulterior motive at work here, wouldn't you agree? Before you run to obtain a prescription for the next "miracle" drug, you'd better wonder whose interests are increasingly being served; yours or the pharmaceutical giants.
Besides, drugs can never be the clear answer when they treat the symptoms and not the cause. Drugs should be thought about a last resource for the morbidly obese who have already tried everything else without success and who will face serious health consequences when they don't lose weight.
The editors of obesity.com said it best: "Fat loss drugs do not take the spot of diet, exercise, patience, and perseverance."
"Dieting can be an uphill battle against your genes." says Post writer Joyce Cohen. Unfortunately, if you're an endomorph, Cohen is right. Losing weight is certainly easier for a lot of than for others and that doesn't seem fair. But that's the way life is. Life isn't fair. Let's be honest; not everybody will become an Olympic Gold medallist, a Mr. America or a fitness model. But don't despair - you are not doomed to live a life of fatness in the event that you don't have "athletic genes."
Obesity is the consequence of many influences. Genetics is just one of them. Like it or not, the principal cause of obesity is your personal behavior. Most of the factors that affect body composition are entirely under your control. These factors include how much you eat, that which you eat, when you eat, which kind of exercise you do, how frequently you exercise, how long you exercise and how hard you exercise.
If you have the genetic predisposition towards obesity, you are able to lose fat like everyone else, you're just going to have to work harder and longer at it than other people. "There's a genetic component to weight," Says Dr. Thomas Wadden, a Antalya psikolog from Syracuse University, "but no body is destined to be obese. If weight has been a major problem in your household, may very well not be able to become as thin as you'd like, but you are able to lose weight."
If you learn slimming down to be a slow and difficult process, the empowering move to make is always to view it as asset, because overcoming this obstacle will force you to develop discipline, determination and persistence. These traits will carry over to other aspects of your life and make you a tougher person all around. Arnold Schwarzennegger said, "Strength doesn't originate from winning. Your struggles develop your strength. When you overcome hardships, that is strength."
The very first thing you have to do if you wish to lose weight or succeed in any part of your life, is to simply accept complete responsibility for the situation. In a quick but powerful little book called "As Man Thinketh," the writer James Allen wrote, "circumstances do not produce a man, they reveal him." What he meant was that we aren't products of our environment or our heredity (our "circumstances"), instead, we products of our own thinking and belief systems.
We create our own circumstances through positive thinking and positive action and we create negative circumstances through negative thinking and insufficient action or wrong actions. In other words, we're accountable for where we're, what we've and how our anatomical bodies look.
Some people get very angry with me when I tell them this: They say, "Wait a minute. Are you currently trying to inform me that whenever bad things happen in my experience, it's my own, personal fault? That I brought unemployment, financial hardships, failed relationships, weight gain as well as health issues onto myself? Because if that's what you're saying, that's totally unfair!"
Well, my friend, with hardly any exceptions, (some things actually are out of your control) that is exactly what I'm saying.
If you refuse to simply accept the very fact that you're 100% accountable for your weight, you'll never be successful. When people find themselves in undesirable situations or they aren't getting the outcome they desire, it's all too easy to produce excuses: It's my genetics, I've big bones, I've a slow metabolism, I don't have enough time to exercise, etc. etc., etc. Making excuses is relinquishing control. It's conceding that you a prey of circumstances rather than the creator of your circumstances. Stop blaming and start taking responsibility for the life. Take action! Begin working out. Eat better. Do something - do anything - but don't just sit there on the couch and curse your chromosomes.
So, are you a frustrated "endomorph?" Do you feel like dieting can be an uphill battle against your genes? If your answer is "yes," please don't just quit and chalk in around "bad genetics," and don't feel that drugs are the solution either - they're not. Your genetics will largely dictate your athletic ability and how easily you'll lose weight. That doesn't mean you can't get lean; it only implies that you're going to have to adjust your diet plan and training to fit the human body type and you may have to work harder and be more persistent than the "genetically lucky" ones.
Maybe obesity should really be classified as a genetically inherited "disease." But frankly, if you have a "disease" that forces you to find out more about exercise and nutrition, to eat nutritious foods, to adopt a healthy lifestyle, to develop a powerful work ethic and to become a more persistent person, that seems like a benefit in disguise to me.
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