Why are WE so fat?

I went to out to dinner the other night.  As I looked down the rows of tables, I noticed obese person after obese person, then maybe a "just" overweight person and occasionally someone at a healthy weight.  Trust me I'm not judging, just noticing that I'm not the only one with a problem here.

So why are WE so fat?  I've been thinking about this question a lot lately.  I'm a firm believer (thanks to having an engineer for a husband) that if you don't know what's really broken, you can't fix it reliably. 

I know I've changed my diet and I work out now and I'm thrilled that I have lost so much weight.  But what made me so fat to start with??

Was I eating too much?  Was I eating the wrong things?  Was I just not getting enough exercise?? Why does this diet work, when NONE of the others did for me?  Is it possible that we've just been fed a lie and 10 or 20 years from now we'll look back at the experts and shake our fists at their ignorance of today?

Can you believe 50 years ago they didn't realize that smoking was dangerous??  Seriously what were they thinking, or not thinking??  So what is the thing now that we're doing NOW that's making us so fat? Will we figure it out and fix it??

As I think through my life I think it's a combination of factors.  Did I eat too much.  Yes!  Not a ton too much, but quite often more than I needed.  A little extra over a long period of time.

Did I exercise too little?  Exercise, what was that??  Guilty as charged.

Did I eat the wrong things??  Yes, apparently I did.  But isn't a calorie a just a calorie??  I don't think so.  I think the food we are eating today is so nutritionally defunct, but yet emotionally addictive that even though we eat more than any other generation in history, we're still starving nutritionally. 

I've been watching a lot of food related documentaries lately and reading a few book about eating, trying to figure out what it was that made me so fat (so I can be sure I don't ever go back there)!  They talk a lot about the combination of salt, fat and sugar and how addictive that combination is to us.  There is also a lot of discussion about diet pop and it's addictive qualities.  All along I was drinking diet thinking I was saving myself so many calories, now I learn it was doing just the opposite, that it was actually helping make me fat.  And it's sooooo addictive, I still haven't completely shaken its stronghold from my life ...not yet anyway!

I'm sorry this post has a lot more questions than answers.  That's kind of where I'm at right now.  I'm in the process of evaluating everything I used to believe about food and healthy eating.   I'm learning that a lot of what I used to believe is just wrong!  I'm convinced that if you eat the typical fast food American diet that unless you have incredible portion control or incredible genes, then you will be fat!

Oh, then add in all those other factors?!?!  Am I a stress eater (YES)?  Am I eating because something's eating me?   Am I eating to fill an emotional need or to make up for the fact that I never got the special toy I had asked Santa for??  Or was I eating too much to keep things away??  Or could I just be addicted to food??  YES - Absolutely YES.  I do love to eat and cook. 

I'm learning to love eat on my healthy weight loss plan and praying for strength to stay on the plan.  But I will admit while most people say "TGIF" for Friday, I say "TGICM" Thanking God its Cheat Meal time.   I get one cheat meal each week!

So why do you think we're so fat?  I'd love to hear your thoughts on it, because I do NOT have it all figured out, not by a long shot!

Also check out this article about obesity and restaurant eating!