by Daniel Mcginley

Created on: September 20, 2009   Last Updated: September 28, 2009

It's really a simple answer to a simple question, as anyone who has successfully lost a lot of weight can tell you.

I lost 28 pounds in one month on a bet once, dropping from 238 to 208 off a 6 ft. frame, cutting 11.76% of my total body weight, and I didn't do it by just cutting fatty foods and laying around.

I produced a lot of sweat.

I joined Bally's for a free month tryout and hit the bikes, punching-in mountain trails on the programs to burn more fat than a grill full of raw hamburger meat. After that it was lots of light weight reps and the steam room, eating small meals every two hours and even wearing leg weights all day.

The problem is motivation.

I won over 600 dollars from low-life braggards I despised, but what are you gonna do to get America off its rear and into gear? What's going to propel a fat nation into motion when the worst foods imaginable are cheap, fast, and oh so tasty?

Not a supersizing thing.

Back in the ice age and beyond, you had to move, think, and work to get food, but that is obviously no longer the case. Unless you're hurting financially and sometimes even then, the only effort required for obtaining food is buy, order, or push a few buttons, and that doesn't require the rigors of scouting, hunting, or cultivating.

It requires chewing and swallowing, with a sugar-laced soda to wash it down.

And it tastes sooooo good.

"We gained 30 pounds in America, visiting up there one winter," some very thin Brazilian friends told me once. "Fast food is everywhere, sinfully good and cheap. Just drive through and order!"

No need to sweat there.

The other problem is our schedules.

You work hard all day. Do you really feel like working out before or after spending eight or more hours on the employer's clock, then denying yourself of all that tasty, cheap food? Or down time?

No way! You deserve the happiest meal you can find, loaded with salt and greasy meat and cheese and something that poses as bread! The chair and tube are waiting, with reality shows and sports and all kinds of entertainment, and if you have kids and finally get them to sleep, that exercycle is going to gather more dust than a vacuum in the Sahara.

Sure, being more active would cure America of its obesity problem, but what's the fun in being active, when it's fun being actively fat?

Genetics? Just another excuse in most cases. Show me someone who cries genetics, and then show me their diet and exercise.

If anyone out there FOLLOWS my game plan that won the contest, then they're gonna lose the weight, and I'll bet on it.

Money where your hungry mouth is? Any takers?

End of debate.

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