Healthy High Achiever Blog

Feeling Overwhelmed, Exhaustion and Being Overweight Go Hand in Hand

Why are so many people tired, stressed and overweight? It seems the majority of people have a motivation problem; overeating and lack of exercise are implicated as the causes of the overweight condition.

You could say we are overweight because we eat too much and live sedentary lives and that both are causes of obesity and you would be right, at least in part, acknowledging the obvious.

But what is not so obvious, are all the hidden causes of obesity and overweight that are by far more influential in the rise of the obesity epidemic, that reinforce our food and fitness habits to begin with and many motivated people fall prey.

These are matters of lifestyle. How we manage time, spend and recuperate our energy, including but not limited to, the quality of the food we eat and our activity levels every day as we achieve our goals are things that factor into this equation.

Physical inactivity plays a major role in gaining weight, but the reason we are physically inactive most of the time, is exhaustion. How often have you said “I want to exercise” but you find yourself simply too tired throughout the day to get anything done. We’re overwhelmed and tired, lacking time, space and energy to do what we need for healthy bodies. Inactivity is a result, an effect, but not the original cause.

What about the claim that overeating is to blame? We are overeating, yet the primary reason, long before discussing a market saturated with addictive fatty foods, is that most people faced with relentless demands on their time and energy, are worn down and looking for a quick pick me up.

In that besieged state, not only do they eat more for the stimulation they crave and more of the addictive fatty foods that are extraordinarily convenient, but the combination of excessive stress and nutrient-poor food virtually guarantees they will overeat. Overeating is a result, an effect, but not the original cause.

Overwhelmed and exhaustion is the greatest threat to our wellbeing and our weight. They go hand in hand. Look at your life for a moment and think of the ways you feel overwhelmed or exhausted. How often do you feel this way? What makes you feel this way?

Where are you putting your focus - cause or effect?

Are you combating the negative effects of your lifestyle by eating less and exercising more? Or, are you addressing the lifestyle that is promoting over eating and inactivity…?

You can only deal with the primary causes of weight gain at the level of lifestyle. Everything else is an attempt at manipulating your current condition for a short term gain and the results of this approach are well documented.

Do you ever wonder why diets and fad exercise programs don’t work for you? Do you wonder why you start off good for a week or so but then the big plan fails and you feel even worse than you did before?

The high protein/low carbohydrate fad was the classic example of manipulation. Millions of overweight people, addicted to super stimulating junk foods, stopped eating refined carbohydrate and started eating no-carb animal protein to manipulate the storage of carbohydrate in their body to lose weight.

This so-called “solution”, while beneficial in the sense that less junk food was being consumed, replaced an already unhealthy way of life with another (consuming large amounts of high fat, nutrient poor animal protein) to lose weight. In the end, this does not lead to a healthier person. You are replacing one bad habit with another and this doesn’t really get you anywhere further into the downward trend.

Where in this grand misdirected project was there any talk of the lifestyle that was giving rise to the consumption of junk food to begin with? Or talk about food quality? The discussion was about weight loss and was non-existent. Meanwhile millions of people struggled, got sick, including Atkins himself (who died) and gave up. This is discouraging to anyone who hopes they can break free of this downward trend. But there is hope out there- once you discover the real problem.

The Real Problem

What is the real problem? Most of us are not managing our energy well. We are overwhelmed, caught up and overcommitted and this excessive energy expenditure promotes the downward trend – exhaustion, over consumption, physical inactivity and being overweight.

The addictive, stimulating food and drinks all around then purport to give us more energy and they don’t. Over stimulation by its very nature is exhausting. These nutrient-poor foods then drive us to over consume in an effort to get our nutrient needs met and it doesn’t happen. Our now overwhelmed and exhausted bodies are no condition to be active. And the answer is eating less and exercising more? You could not assemble a better trap for staying stuck.

Countless weight loss programs are sold as lifestyles and what’s really being said is, “lose weight for life” and of course it just doesn’t happen. Human beings are not robots, we want the natural experience of life and living on a weight loss program is not natural. It’s not that these weight loss solutions don’t or won’t work; it is that they don’t work alone, forever or in some cases, at all.

And so the cycle continues…

Few solutions address the real problem; your lifestyle – why you are tired and overeating, and physically inactive to begin with and the downward trend stays in play. It is this trend, complicated by all the solutions that do not solve the problem that give consistent rise to obesity statistics, even though we spend billions of dollars per year on weight loss.

This graphic above illustrates the downward trend on a population basis and it makes the point that the weight loss industry is not working. Eating less of foods that don’t serve you and exercising a fatigued body even more does not work. You will not see success and any illusion of success will be short-lived.

How you look, feel and perform ongoing are the direct result of your lifestyle, not the result of “eat-less” diets or “exercise-more” workout programs created for the express purpose of losing weight. There are many different factors that go into this lifestyle and contribute to the “downward trend”.

Looking, feeling and performing better is about avoiding becoming overwhelmed, exhausted and overweight. The only way to do that successfully is to manage your energy, including the quality of the food you eat and your activity levels in the process of achieving your goals. That’s means live athletically!

When it comes to your weight, it comes down to your lifestyle and until your lifestyle reinforces your both your health and success, you will find yourself in an extended stay on the downward trend, wondering how to turn it around with the latest weight loss program. 

John Allen Mollenhauer, known as John Allen or “JAM”, is the lifestyle coaching columnist for MyWeightLoss.com. He is a premier lifestyle trainer and coach, and is the founder of Performance Lifestyle Solutions, www.MyTrainer.com and www.PerformanceLifestyle.com, where thousands of people are learning how to achieve their goals in better, healthier more practical ways – like Pros!

Do you have a Performance Lifestyle? If not, it’s probably about time you get one!

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How do you view your lifestyle?

Is it simply an aspect of your life? Or do you see it as the way in which you achieve your goals?

Are you achieving your goals with your health and well being in tact or are you driving yourself down?

These are fundamental questions that Healthy High Achievers have asked themselves, though not necessarily in that way.

When it comes to lifestyle your frame of mind is everything, it starts with how you look at it.

I’m perplexed when I here people say something like, "I’ve got my finances in order or my business in order and now it’s time to take care of myself more, or now I’ve got to eat better, or exercise", as if heath and fitness was a slice of your life. It’s not, it’s the core. Every thing else you do, depends on it.

Health High Achievers, those people who achieve their goals with their health and wellbeing intact looking, feeling and performing better than the rest see things differently than the rest.

John Allen Mollenhauer

You’ll notice at the top of the brower it says, the Lifestyle that works for YOU, the achievement of your goals and thew world around you. There are many reasons why we describe Performance Lifestyle this way, but one of them really hit me square in the face this morning as I kick off the New Year.

For one, having reviewed the new video - the Story of Stuff, I am remined how many times each day I talk with people who, for purposes of weight loss for example, are being told to eat foods that literally rape our planet of its resources. They think the foods they are eating are helping them, but really, all they are doing is "losing weight" and ultimately their plan does not work for the achievement of their goals.

You can just imagine what I’m talking about.

When it comes to how we live and how we achieve our goals there is usually a way that is great for you, the achievement of your goal and those around you, including the planet we live on. It’s usually the right way. But so many of us are caught up in a system that keeps us stuck, and compromises our health… chaising our tale in a world designed to keep us consuming.

To learn more about what I’m talking about watch this video.  Beyond managing your energy, eating and exercise and all other aspects of a Performance Lifestyle, this video will give you an understanding of the bigger picture. 

You know I have to say that this mindset shift was the best things that every happened to me.

For some time, I was living to be healthy and it cost me a great deal of success. I was all wrapped up in food and fitness and missed the most important element of both health and success, which is managing your energy to look, feel and perform better, and achieve your real goals. It wasn’t until I made this distinction in my mind that I was able to revolutionize my lifestyle and really focus on success.

The distinction between living to be healthy (how I was thinking when I was exhausted and overweight) and living healthy "to live" on purpose is powerful. What is so powerful about the difference between these too ideas is that in both cases your value for healthy living is in place, but ironically, when you’re not focused on being healthy, and you decide to live healthy to live your purpose and achieve the bigger goals you have in life, you will live healthier than ever before and it will go way beyond food and fitness. 

It’s a phenomenon, and it’s true. And I’m suggesting that it’s going to work for you too. It’s the reason why the entire Performance Lifestyle idea even exists so that you can achieve your goals powered by the healthiest, best performing, most successfully energized and productive body you can imagine.

Doesn’t it sound strange to be trying to achieve your goals in an overwhelmed and exhausted body, maybe overweight? Of course it does. Performance requires that you maintain yourself in top condition, just like athletes.

It takes just as much energy, endurance, and stamina to be a super mom, a parent, a business owner, heck a student these days as it does to be an athlete. We are all athletes.

Sports athletes just have a stronger purpose than most people do, they always have an event to prepare for and target, big goals that they are striving for and more. That’s why they live Performance Lifestyle’s, the healthiest and most successful lifestyles in the world and here’s the big irony -

They don’t wake up and "live healthy" at all! They just do what works, and I can tell you, mismanaging your energy, eating poorly, being inactive, living with a fuzzy purpose and unclear goals, not to mention making goals out of things that aren’t even real goals, that end up being distractions from your real purpose in life does not work.

Over the next two weeks I’ve got a series of events planned with some top experts in Performance Lifestyle, who are also helping to revolutionize the way we think and live today.

• Tonight September 13, I’m talking with Rob Poulos of Zero to Hero Fitness, a warrior for better lifestyle.  
• Tuesday, September 18th I’m talking with Scott Colby of SC Fitness and My Ultimate Fitness Mindset
• And on September 19th, I’ll be talking with Dr Brad Swift, Author of Life on Purpose -Brad Swift, the author of Life On Purpose: Six Passages to an Inspired Life

Performance lifestyle is not only about transforming your lifestyle for better results in your body, life and business; it is to live our lives on purpose. That’s why lifestyle training and coaching is so valuable, because it’s about your success.

Keep your calendars open for one night per week starting the end of September!