Understanding: The importance of it

By Kelly Clark / Understand

I was sure I knew how to lose weight
Misinformation takes you far away from your goals
Understanding is the difference between weight loss being easy and hard

Recently I came across this quote:

You don’t understand something until you think it’s obvious.
-Matthew Bassett, PhD researcher

I love this statement! When you understand something it makes perfect sense.

Not understanding how to lose weight set me up to fail

It took me 10 years to lose 10 pounds because I didn’t know the facts. Everything I learned from the diet industry lead me to believe losing weight was complicated. For instance, I thought I couldn’t reach a healthy weight unless I took extreme measures. Clearly I had no understanding of how to lose weight at the time (even though I was certain I did).

The problem with misunderstandings is that they take you, as the song Starlight says:

… Far away
This ship is taking me far away …
–Starlight, Muse

Misunderstandings take you far away from your goals.

Understanding breaks down barriers

If you don’t understand something, it’s natural to guess the answer. But when you make assumptions it’s easy to be wrong. This can lead to false beliefs, which builds barriers between you and your goals.

It’s important to get the correct information and keep asking questions until the facts become obvious.

Understanding makes everything easier

After a decade of struggle I finally lost weight when I understood I needed to ask for help. Then I learned what healthy eating and healthy exercise look like. By focusing on making choices I knew were healthy — choices that I understood — rather than following a random diet, I lost weight. When time passed and I had the necessary distance to reflect and understand how I reached and maintained a healthy weight, it occurred to me that when you have good information and know why it makes sense, weight-loss is straightforward.

Unfortunately, when you hear something is simple, it can sound ”too good to be true.” But now I know the difference between something being difficult and easy often depends on whether or not you understand it.

When I finally grasped how to lose weight, I became frustrated that the world sells weight loss as difficult. And that’s why I started writing this blog.

My goal is to give weight-loss facts and explain why they make sense.

Trusting a source is not enough. Blindly following information or simply accepting information as the truth is self-defeating. You need to fully comprehend it.

Understanding allows you to determine if the information you have is true. Additionally, when the right choice is obvious; when the healthy choice makes sense, it’s much, much easier to make decisions that set you up for success. For instance, I used to LOVE diet soda. But once I understood what it does to our bodies, it became much, MUCH easier to choose a healthier beverage.

Thank you for sharing your epiphany Matthew and giving us a better understanding of what it means to understand.