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A patient asked me yesterday how did we get so fat as a nation. He was overweight and his family was too and he had come in at a young age of 42 for high blood pressure.

It seems as though everyone has the answers to this question, yet we are still getting fatter. So what is the answer? I believe that it is very complex and the reason we have gotten fatter as a nation does not have just one answer.

We are fatter because:

• We eat too much
• We don’t cook at home
• We do whatever is fastest and easiest- so we don’t take the stairs, we use the elevator etc.
• Our kids watch too much TV and video games.
• If we are not running around like chickens with our heads cut off, then we are too tired to do anything
• We shop for convenience foods, because they are fast and easy.
• We don’t make the time for ourselves.

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Ok today we are going to tackle the big question of, EXERCISE. First, I would like to review some of the greatest excuses that I have heard over the years:

• “I would walk, but the dog doesn’t like to go that far”
• “It is too hot outside”
• “It is always raining”
• “I might miss my favorite show”
• “I can’t get up early”

Exercise is one of those things that I have found that a majority of my patients don’t do for one reason or another. I have found that for every excuse there is an answer to the problem. For example:

“I don’t have time when I get home”- Get up earlier or try to walk on your lunch break. If you can’t do it all in one block break it up, into time segments that you can manage.

“I have bad knees, I can’t walk or run well”- Try to bike to help the knees or get a video that uses chair exercises for the upper body. Swimming is also a great low impact exercise. Many people have also had success with an elliptical machine that is low impact on the knees and back.

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Ok now it’s time to have some fun. Have you seen the barrage of commercials lately? Lose ten pounds in 2 weeks? Kristi Alley is now noticeably sitting in a car and no longer in a bathing suit? Has she finally gotten tired of her prepackaged high sodium meals that she is eating like her normal self again? What happens when you quit buying their meals? Do you actually think you are going to be able to keep it up on your own without someone handing you the food every week?

Have you noticed all of the celebrities that are pitching diets on infomercials? The miracles of modern television allow their before pictures to be stretched out and the after pictures to be stretched up. Of course you are going to lose weight because the meals are calorie controlled. The food that they show in the commercials looks like something out of a gourmet restaurant. It is really hard to believe that the Fed Ex box that it arrives in can make it look like that. The meal system will teach portion control, but will not teach much about eating well. The upside is that you spent so much money upfront that you are determined to finish the entire month of dehydrated meals just because you don’t want to waste $300.00, so you will probably lose a few pounds. In my opinion I would not trust the infomercial industry in general. Usually most of them are very misleading; people are much more believable when they endorse a product without being compensated. Do you believe that all of the celebrities you see are not being generously compensated?

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Do you own a Blackberry or some other device that helps you keep track of your schedule and days? Now do you know what you are going to have for dinner tonight or tomorrow night? In my experience working with patients that are overweight most have a plan for their days and weeks, but don’t have a plan for one of the most important components of your life, food. So why is it that we don’t invest the time into taking care of ourselves?

If you want to lose weight one of the easiest ways is not to wait until ten minutes before dinner time to decide what you are going to eat. Taking ten minutes a week to sit down and plan your meals and this can save you from giving into your cravings when it is too late to defrost anything.

One wise tip is to plan your meals and then do your shopping according to your list. Each night if something is frozen, put it in the refrigerator to defrost for the next nights meal.

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Hi everyone, I want to welcome you to my Reality Diet blog for this week. I hope that everyone takes some time to ask me some questions about weight, health, or exercise. Also if you have any experiences to share about Reality Diet or losing weight in general, I would love to hear from you.

I have had a lot of fun and have worked very hard over this past year promoting Reality Diet and the rewards have been great. People have really found the plan easy and simple to implement into their daily lives. This week I plan to share with you some of those everyday tips and ideas for losing weight and getting healthy. So let’s get started.