Fat Loss Lie #7: "Drugs or surgery will take the fat off and keep it off"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Drugs. Magic Bullet Or Lethal Mistake?
For many people who are frustrated with little or no results, despite their best intentions, physique-enhancing drugs or hormones appear to be the only legitmate "miracle cure." After all, supplements are iffy, but drugs are, well, drugs!
Steroids have been around for a long time. So have obesity drugs. Lately, there's been a push for the use of Human Growth Hormone or Testosterone under the harmless sounding labels of "anti-aging medicine" and "Hormone replacement therapy."
Of course, these are sometimes needed for clinical purposes, but the sales pitch I'm referring to is being made to perfectly healthy baby boomers, who desperately want to regain their youthful looks and vitality or to young people who want a "short cut."
Dramatic short-term results in body composition can be achieved from using all kinds of weight loss drugs, steroids, thermogenics, thyroid drugs, growth hormone and other chemicals. No doubt about that. One look around my own sport of bodybuilding is proof of that.
However, appearances can be deceiving. The road of drug use for cosmetic enhancement can be a wild ride in the beginning, but in the long run, it's a dead end street.
What The Pharmaceutical Companies
Don't Want You To Know About
Regardless of whether we're talking about illegal steroids and performance enhancers, prescription obesity drugs, or even over the counter "fat burning" drugs like ephedrine, these are all really one in the same:
(1) multi million dollar moneymakers, and
(2) Short-term attempts at treating effects, not causes.
Lets take weight loss drugs, for example:
What would happen if the pharmaceutical companies finally came out with a "safe and effective" obesity drug and brought it to the marketplace on a massive scale?
Here's exactly what would happen:
THE PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES WOULD GET RICHER
AND THE OBESITY PROBLEM WOULD CONTINUE!
Think about it: Did Xenical cure obesity? How about Phentermine? Meridia? Adipex? Bontril? Didrex? Tenuate?
What about Ephedrine? Tens of millions of people were taking it. Did that solve the obesity problem?
How about surgery? Gastric bypasses? 100,000 were performed last year. Did that solve the obesity problem?
In a few cases where someone's health is at stake, and when time is of the essence, the benefits of drugs may outweigh and justify the risks.
However, most people are not facing life-threatening obesity, and even in these rare cases, you have to concede that drugs or surgeries are last-resort treatments - not first lines of defense. They are absolutely not a substitute for proper nutrition, exercise and lifestyle change.
Here's the fatal flaw with thinking that any drugs will be a long-term solution:
We live in an orderly universe where everything happens for a reason (by "law"). For every effect, there is a cause. There are no accidents.
A lean body never happens by accident.
An overweight body never happens by accident.
A lean body and an overweight body are effects. Both of these effects have causes. If you're overweight, you can create lasting changes 100% of the time if you uncover the cause of the overweight condition and remove it.
The cause of body fat in nearly all cases is inactivity, poor nutrition and often negative self-image issues. Drugs and surgery can only treat an effect (the fat). Even if the fat (the effect) is temporarily removed, it will come back if the cause is still there.
You can't expect pills, drugs or surgical procedures that only treat symptoms/effects to create permanent changes.
Depending on your genetics, you may never look like a bodybuilder or fitness cover model, but you always have the power to improve your body and your health above and beyond where you are today.
You can always improve, no matter where you are now and no matter what your genetic disposition.
How? By accepting responsibility for your situation and then taking positive action every day for the rest of your life to improve it. You simply have to change your lifestyle!
Try to fight "the law" or shirk hard work by looking for short cuts if you want, but in the end, you'll always lose.
Try to ignore "the law" if you want, but ignorance of the law does not excuse you from its operation.
Lifelong health, fitness and a perfect body weight do not come out of a bottle or needle and never will - no matter what new concoction they cook up in the lab.
Those who think otherwise may gain temporary relief from health woes or enjoy some short-term benefits, but unless they alter their lifestyles, they'll have hard lessons to learn in the long run.
I envision a day when both the medical and fitness communities will join together to help stop this error in thinking, and begin to teach people how to improve their lifestyles with a natural approach and alter their mental attitudes instead of writing prescriptions and selling "magic" pills.
To permanently become lean, you must identify the causes of excess fat,. These can include:
Excessive caloric intake
Poor nutrition choices
Inactivity
Unhealthy lifestyle habits
Psychological and emotional factors
Then, you must treat THESE CAUSES. Only when the source ("the cause") of your problem is removed, will the unwanted effects disappear for good. Until then, anything else will only be a quick fix, band-aid, temporary solution
