Since people seemed to like the body fat = debt analogy, let’s look at it a bit more closely.
Take a look at your excess body fat.
Now imagine it as a negative number.
In this sense, extra body fat is the same as excess debt.
It’s stuff that you purchased and consumed, but couldn’t afford.
An ultimately, for long term health, it’s stuff you eventually need to pay for.
So the debt of overeating is bodyfat, it’s sitting there…staring at you as a daily reminder that you owe.
If you have 20 pounds of excess body fat, you owe 20 pounds fat worth of calories.
In other words: In the calorie out, calories in equation, you owe some calories.
And just like debt, wishing it away doesn’t work.
Neither does pretending it’s not there.
And just like debt, there’s a weird sort of interest on body fat.
Extra body fat slows you down, and in a weird sort of way, predisposes you to slowly gain fat.
The other thing is that excess fat just kinda happens, like debt.
It’s either a slow creep, or a culmination of a couple big events.
It’s the splurge on the boat, followed by the emergency roof repair, then the Coach purse for the Birthday then…BAM, debt.
Or the slow mismangement of your monthly expenses where one day you wake up, and even without a giant shopping splurge you look at your account to see…debt.
So fat and debt are a lot a like, something NEEDS to be paid back, AND paying it back will take work.
And just like debt, paying back body fat just takes time and patience.
Typically, the quick fixes are temporary, and the only true solutions tends to be a reallocation of resources, for several months..sometimes years.
But it is possible.
In fact you can think of Eat Stop Eat like a twice a week debt repayment plan.
Not enough to really comprise your way of life, but enough to get you out of debt in a couple months.
And once you are out of debt, the trick it to never get back into debt.
BP