Someone recently tweeted about Happy Calories Don’t Count, “Dangerous philosophy, but I like it!” While I’m honored to have earned a tweet, and the comment does seem to be complimentary, it makes me wonder. Why is the idea that “Happy Calories Don’t Count” dangerous? Is “dangerous” simply a colorful synonym for “fun” or “nice”? Or did this person really mean “dangerous”? They always say that there is a bit of truth in every lie. So I can guess that even if this person was simply trying to be entertaining or provocative, this person, on some level, really does believe that it is dangerous to live by the Happy Calories Don’t Count motto.
So again, I ask “why?” Why is it dangerous to eat when you’re hungry and eat foods you enjoy? It’s “dangerous” because it flies in the face of all that we’re taught to believe based on the traditional “diet and exercise” model that is ingrained in our weight-obsessed culture. This model suggests that one’s body shape and size can be changed simply by diet and exercise and as such, implies any number of erroneous ideas. These ideas include, but are not limited to the following:
1) You are a balance sheet: consume fewer calories than are expended and you lose weight, consume equal calories that are expended and you maintain weight, consume more calories than are expended and you gain weight.
2) A scarcity mentality: You only get so many calories in a day, or else!
3) Food is something you “earn” or it is a “price to be paid” either through exercise or through negative effects in your body shape.
4) Food choices must be controlled, or else!
5) Your body cannot be trusted – it must be controlled.
6) Your body is controlled by balancing a math equation of “calories in” vs. “calories out.”
7) Controlling your body’s shape and size is an on-going war in the “battle of the bulge.”
8) To win this war, sacrifices must be made.
9) These sacrifices include hunger and food or exercise that you may not enjoy.
10) Everyone knows what to do to lose weight – diet and exercise – so if you don’t look good, you’re simply unmotivated, undisciplined or lazy.
So now let’s look at some results of this traditional “diet and exercise” model for weight-loss or weight-control.
1) Ninety-seven percent of American dieters regain all the weight they lose within five years.[1]
2) Sixty percent of American dieters regain all the weight they lose within a single year.
3) Over $46 billion is spent on the diet industry in the US each year.[2]
4) Over 55% of the US adult population is dieting at any given time.
5) Thirty-five percent of “normal dieters” progress to pathological dieting; of those, 20 – 25% progress to partial or full-syndrome eating disorders.
6) Over $12 billion is lost each year on wasted gym memberships, 80% of the 40 million people paying for memberships are not using them.[3]
Happy Calories Don’t Count is a weight-loss paradigm that recognizes you are more than a balance sheet and that your body has an intelligence of its own. Happy Calories Don’t Count embraces the totality of you – your body, your thoughts, your feelings, your beliefs – and seeks to integrate them in a congruent manner. By viewing your actions through a perspective of alignment and happiness, Happy Calories Don’t Count teaches you to eat when you’re hungry and to eat foods you enjoy. This satisfies both the physical needs of your body and the mental, emotional and spiritual needs of your mind and spirit. You don’t need to worry about eating “too much” because your body will tell you when to stop. And you don’t need to worry about not eating the “right” food because if something wouldn’t be “right”, your body would not want to eat it in the first place. Happy Calories Don’t Count teaches that exercise is not something you do to lose or maintain weight. It is not a price to pay for eating or for getting your body to look a certain way. Rather, the purpose of exercise is to connect with and tune your body. In sum, Happy Calories Don’t Count is a model that takes the pain and struggle out of losing weight and creates effective, long-term results.
So now I ask, which philosophy is really dangerous?
[1]www.mirasol.net/eatingdisorders/information/eating-disorder-statistics.php
[2] www.money-central.msn.com/content/invest/forbes/P114424
[3] www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/23696.php