Balance Your Hormones to Lose Weight

You are probably reading this book because you are frustrated about your weight. You have read every book, tried every diet, and you are aware of the health benefits of weight loss. You have probably lost weight on a diet but gained it back, or you struggle to keep it off. You are discouraged and don't know what to do next.

It is not your fault.

Weight problems do not develop because of lack of motivation, overeating, or not enough exercise. Weight problems occur because your hormones have evolved over thousands of years to force your body to gain weight. Your hormones keep you fat so you can survive when food is scarce. In the developed world, food is not scarce. Your hormones don't know that. This book will help you understand, eat, and live in harmony with your hormones so you can lose weight and keep it off permanently.

Obesity is one of the greatest health challenges our species has ever faced. According to the World Health Organization, there are more than one billion overweight and 300 million obese adults in the world. There are more than 120 million overweight adults in the United States. Seventy percent of Americans have an unhealthy body weight. This number has almost doubled in the past fifty years and is expected to increase further. Obesity costs an estimated $300 billion in medical bills and lost productivity each year. One in five children and one in three young adults under the age of twenty-four are obese. Worldwide, 92 million children are at risk from becoming overweight in the next decade. Obese children are seven times more likely to be severely obese by their early thirties. Children and teens typically have accelerated weight gain as they enter adulthood and are especially susceptible to the profound health risks of excess weight.

The obesity epidemic is out of control.

Our comfortable couches, our reliance on fast food, our speedy cars and road systems and spread-out cities that mean we never have to touch a foot to the ground — they help make us fat. We spend billions of dollars on diet books; we throw $100 bills at bottles of diet pills; we scarf up diet supplements, diet magazines, and turbo-quick diet weight loss plans; we sign up for subscriptions at health clubs that we never use, book appointments with doctors whom we ignore, and make half-hearted attempts at starting exercise programs that we don't continue.

And still we are fat and getting fatter every day.

Why is this? Why can we not lose the weight? Why can we not be the thin, svelte, sexy, beautiful human beings we picture ourselves to be? The human body is a terrifically complex machine. Each piece of the machine has an impact on every other piece of the machine, and the machine is continually analyzing input from inside and outside and adjusting itself accordingly. If one part of the machine goes "off," other parts can follow.

Becoming overweight can be a result of the human machine getting off track. And one purpose of this book is to help you understand why it gets off track and how it gets off track — reasons that are greatly influenced by our hormones. And, finally, it tells you how to maintain your body so that it doesn't get off track at all and your weight is under safe and healthy control.

Hormonal Balance reveals important information about hormones that influence the body and the brain, explaining why we feel hungry and why we crave food.

Make This Diet Your Last Diet

In a study of more than 180,000 dieters, it was concluded that 83 percent of people who start a diet pick one that is virtually guaranteed to fail. Ninety-eight percent of people who lose weight on a diet gain it all back within five years. Some gain more than that.

You can be among the other 2 percent.

Obesity is not a problem of willpower. It's a lot more complicated than that. Fortunately, the past few years have brought a change in the way doctors and scientists view obesity. Previously, most thought of obesity, except in the rarest of patients, as a question of willpower. Obese people ate too much. They didn't exercise. They didn't have a balanced diet or a regular workout program. They could lose the weight if only they'd have some guts and determination. Today, nine out of ten doctors now believe that losing weight is as emotionally and physically difficult as quitting smoking.

In a study of nearly 1.5 million people published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2011, it was concluded that being overweight or obese dramatically increases the risk of dying early. Obesity has passed cigarette smoking as the number one preventable killer because it's connected with a host of medical problems ranging from heart disease and high blood pressure to diabetes, arthritis, gall bladder problems, Alzheimer's disease, and even cancer. Due to our growing waistlines, experts predict that by 2050, one in three Americans will have diabetes. Despite this, 74 percent of doctors believe that overweight people are in denial about their weight.

Americans are experiencing more weight-related ailments than ever before.

The New England Journal of Medicine reported in 2010 that even a small amount of weight gain increases the risk for dying. Every pound you gain increases your risk of dying. Overweight people have a 13 percent increased risk of dying early, and the risk increases to 44 percent once a person becomes obese. The study reported that those with higher body weight are at even higher risk for dying.

Pharmaceutical companies get rich making the vast array of medications needed to treat the medical problems caused from being overweight. I'm not putting down medical science; these medications have extended our lives and prevented certain death for many people. But it's a sign of the times that instead of treating the root causes of our problems, we treat many individual diseases with drugs. In fact, these diseases — which are known as "diseases of civilization" — were almost unheard of generations ago among our lesser-weight ancestors. And doctors have discovered that even a miniscule amount of weight loss — say, 5 or 10 pounds — can reduce our risk...