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As indicated on the World Health Organization’s global website [https://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight],

“The fundamental cause of obesity and overweight is an energy imbalance between calories consumed and calories expended. Globally, there has been:

– an increased intake of energy-dense foods that are high in fat and sugars;

– an increase in physical inactivity due to the increasingly sedentary nature of many forms of work, changing modes of transportation, and increasing urbanization.

Changes in dietary and physical activity patterns are often the result of environmental and societal changes associated with the development and lack of supportive policies such as health, agriculture, transport, urban planning, environment, food processing and distribution, marketing, and education.”

While I fully agree with the above fundamental causes of obesity and overweight, I also believe that the rapid increase in the number of overweight people can be also caused by the following situation that has arisen in modern society over the last decades:

– manufacturers of all types of food products and drinks, as well as fast food and delivery services use direct and subliminal advertising extensively to promote their products and increase sales, reduce prices to increase demand, apply all sorts of achievements of the chemical industry in order to ensure longer shelf life, reduce production costs, and make their products look more appealing. They are at pains to increase sales growth and double down on such “engines for sales” as sugar, fat, salt, flavor enhancers in the fierce and aggressive competition for customers;

– I would call this situation a food paradox: food producers provide people with work, create jobs, pay taxes and produce food products, which, however, in a certain sense cannot be called fully useful and healthy for consumers (including due to the widespread addition of dyes, artificial additives, preservatives, flavor enhancers, salt, sugar, oil, deep processing of the initial ingredients by various chemical methods). I will try to explain my idea in more detail: industrial food manufacturers sell us their products, which, it seems to me, are less useful than their main initial ingredients in the form of, for example, fruits, vegetables and cereals, meat and milk, and I believe that all modern developed economies are built this way;

– every day, we consume enormous amounts of sugar added by food manufacturers to their products which contributes to the risk of developing fatty liver disease and even more excess weight;

– people all over the world are far less mobile than they used to be since they no longer have to run away from wild animals or hunt mammoths. Moreover, they don’t even have to go shopping: It is only one call to the delivery service away. However, our eating habits which have been developing for decades, as well as the food instinct which is hundreds (if not thousands) of years old, cannot change so quickly, or rather, they almost don’t. Due to the improved food availability, we eat more often and in larger quantities (in many cases during the entire day and into the night) than our ancestors, who led physically active lives and toiled with hands for a living (as we would say, “by the sweat of their brows”). But we also became much less mobile than they were. Therefore, the unspent energy obtained from food in greater quantities than our daily physical activity requires “accumulates” on our waists, bellies, and thighs in the form of fat cells, making us grow stout, “swell” and, as a result, provides fertile ground for such dangerous diseases that significantly lower our labor productivity, reduce our life expectancy, and decrease the quality of our lives, such as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, arterial hypertension, polycystic ovary syndrome, osteoarthritis, cardiovascular diseases, some types of cancer, hypertriglyceridemia, dyslipidemia, obstructive sleep apnea syndrome, gastroesophageal reflux disease, etc.;

– the cumulative budgets of individual market participants and various industries (including pharmaceutical, food, and medical services industries) that are directly or indirectly related to the issues of weight loss, proper nutrition, and a healthy lifestyle, I am sure, increase with the increase of overweight and obesity issues in our society. And I doubt that the beneficiaries of these industries will still derive significant economic benefits if the excess weight issue is finally brought to a close: In this scenario, who is going to buy all these diet pills and dietary supplements, seek and apply new diets, and go to fitness studios in the hope of losing weight?

– media and social networks are the main advertising platforms for food and pharmaceutical manufacturers and other market participants who cash in on weight loss, proper nutrition, and a healthy lifestyle. Every second they bombard their readers and listeners with tons of advertisements that their customers pay for. And I believe that this advertising information rarely serves the interests of the readership and listenership;

– as it happens, the eating process has become an integral part of almost all important events and rituals in our lives. Most of the solemn occasions involve eating (holiday feasts, birthdays, weddings, banquets, picnics, funeral repasts, business meetings in restaurants, and many more);

– apart from satisfying the need for energy, food is often used as a remedy for boredom (so-called boredom eating), stress-reliever (comfort eating), or fuel for binge-watching at home (hello, chips, nuts, and beer!) or for a new movie in the cinema (don’t forget popcorn and cola!).

Let us think together, what are the chances of an ordinary person to successfully resist the said “avalanche” of information, everyday situations, habits, and circumstances that are all related to food, without overeating or gaining excess weight? I am convinced that this is a losing war and humans have practically no chances to assert their rights to life without excess weight unless they are aware of the danger of the situation they find themselves in and agree to take active measures to protect their health from excess weight and weight-related medical complications. The one in a pickle is the one who’s got to tickle, isn’t it? And so, no wonder that the obesity issues have reached epidemic proportions in recent decades, and every day more people face it (our children, parents, friends, and acquaintances). I once fell into the same “information trap”. And trapped I was for the first fifty years of my life, which led to significant excess weight after turning thirty. With each passing year, I gained more weight, got a “beer” belly, experienced non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, a steadily increased total cholesterol and triglycerides levels (looming signs of serious cardiovascular diseases), snoring, and obstructive sleep apnea syndrome. But I found a solution to these problems, managed to lose excess weight and get out of the “eating trap” that had arisen due to the messiness of life. I acquired a “stable immunity” to it and now I feel very optimistic about the future. However, every time I see overweight people (among which, come to think of it, there are even people who are, in the court of the public opinion, quite successful and prosperous, who have achieved great triumphs in business, politics, art, etc.), I find myself thinking that they are the same “victims of the undeclared food war” and “involuntary hostages” of the above life circumstances, as I used to be before devising and applying my own weight loss method, which is described in the pages of this book. Put in another way, what is the point of having plenty of money or being popular if you are overweight, which, as suggested by numerous medical studies, is harmful to health and even shortens life expectancy? There is a once-famous saying, “It is better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick”. Let me paraphrase it a bit and say: “It’s better to be rich and slim than poor and overweight”. And I would really like to witness the world’s transformation when every day there are fewer “victims” and “hostages” and more of those who emerge winners in their battle with excess weight. This is also the main purpose of authoring this book: To tell my weight loss story to a wide range of readers, to support overweight people in their difficult struggle for their natural right to life without excess weight.