Every day patients come into my practice and ask me why they can’t lose weight. You would not believe the multitude of excuses I have heard from people who just can’t seem to lose the extra pounds. Their reasons include everything — being born with a slow metabolism, being fat because of the way they were raised, thyroid problems, and my personal favorite, “I am fat because I enjoy being fat.”

As I teach people the principles of maintaining a healthy weight, I am constantly amazed at how often I hear, “I am already doing all that stuff. There is something about me that is different. Isn’t there some drug you can give me to take the weight off?”

The fact is, there are only a few metabolic diseases and hormonal imbalances that can make losing weight more difficult. In addition, there are only a few medicines that can be prescribed to help reduce appetite and take off the pounds. The reality is that for the overwhelming majority of people, it comes down to relearning how to eat and exercise better.

We, as a society, have been duped into believing things about good health that are simply not true. Unfortunately most of this information comes from corporate marketing strategies that are trying to sell you their products.

In the 80s, we were taught that the reason we were all gaining weight was because we were eating high fat foods. Hundreds of food companies rushed to create foods that were “low fat.” The shelves of our supermarkets were inundated with these low fat foods.

Interestingly however, the fat was replaced by something much worse…….SUGAR. I am in the process of writing a book called It’s The Sugar, Stupid that explains that Americans aren’t fat from eating fat, but from consuming pounds and pounds of sugar. This sugar can be disguised in many ways, but ultimately, it’s still sugar.

They recently took all the soda out of the soda machines at my children’s school. The Administration did this because they said that the children of America are getting fat from drinking sodas (which are full of sugar). I thought that was a noble idea, but was amazed to find out that they replaced the sodas not with healthy alternatives such as juices — but with Gatorade, PowerAde, and vitamin water.

While the promoters of these drinks love to tout them as being healthy, the fact is that their sugar content is equivalent to that of a soda. There is no difference. So we replaced one sugar-laden drink with another, but the schools are happy because they are promoting “healthy” alternatives to soda. It’s truly insane when you think about it.

By simply paying attention to your sugar intake, you can dramatically affect your total calories and the quality of those calories — for the better. Read food labels carefully, checking for sugar content listed under carbohydrates. A good rule of thumb is that if it has over 10 grams of sugar per serving, don’t eat it — no matter what!

I actually use 5 grams as a cutoff, but 10 is a good place to start. An even healthier alternative is to put the processed food down and pick up natural whole foods like fruits, vegetables, and nuts.

We are constantly bombarded by advertising that tries to convince us of what’s good for us and what’s not. We need to train ourselves to see past what the advertisers want us to see and actually read the nutritional labels. If there are more than 10 grams of sugar per serving, make a healthier choice.

[Ed. Note: Tim Reynolds, M.D., is a practicing physician and a health and lifestyle expert. For more information, click here.]

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