So, I've become increasingly frightened. I'm frightened that the human being is soon to follow in the steps of the dodo bird and unfortunately there's no technology that we've seen yet that's going to save us. You may remember our friend, the Dodo bird. Our flightless friend lived for many thousands of years uninterrupted. Weighed about 50 pounds, stood on little yellow legs and had tiny wings that couldn't get his weight off the ground. When the Portuguese landed in Mauritius, just off the coast of Madagascar and discovered this dodo bird. They actually thought that someone was playing a prank because it was just an unusual find and when Holland colonized Mauritius in 1644, the fate of the dodo bird was sealed. The reason being that their environment changed very quickly and the change was the introduction of the human; cats, dogs, we all chased this dodo bird and ate it and ate its young and its eggs. Within just 50 years, the dodo bird ceased to exist after existing for thousands and thousands of years without an issue. Now, you know Charles Darwin put this forward as the theory of evolution or as survival of the fittest saying that species would either adapt to their environment and the changes in that environment or they would cease to exist and humans are no different. Now, you may think I'm talking about global warming as the change in our environment. While that is an alarming change in our environment, there's actually a change that's going to kill us first. It's another change that we have created as human beings and that is obesity and the obesity epidemic. This is going to get us far before the global warming trend starts to take effect. Now, why has this happened? Well, it's happened for a number of reasons but the biggest one is that food is now everywhere. If we think back many, many years even 50 years ago, food was not so plentiful. It was not at every opportunity and unfortunately that conflicts with our core inner DNA and our brain chemistry which is that we see food and we eat it. Studies have shown that each of us makes 226 subconscious food decisions every day. So that would be like me asking you every four minutes that you are awake, are you hungry, are you hungry, are you hungry, are you hungry? I can tell you that by noon any will power that you might have had is gone. Now, food manufacturers and restaurant purveyors have realized that they can add sugar, salt and fat to food to make virtually anything taste incredible. They have food engineers, food scientists locked in laboratories across this country whose sole job is to do nothing more than make the food taste amazing, look amazing, smell amazing, it's everywhere. At the same time, they have ginormously [SP] up sized proportions. You can see some examples of how sizes have increased, portion sizes have increased trying to appeal to our sense of economics that more must be a better value, the value meal. I won't get started on school lunches, but I can tell you that the healthiest thing on this tray is probably the fork to eat and that's lunch. Dinner's no different. Back in the 1950's family dinner was a time for a scintillating conversation where healthful food were a slow enough pace that really aided digestion. Fast forward to dinner today and we take our bites in between tweets and emails and blogs and texts and that's if we're all together at all. Now, the problem here is an inherent conflict between our DNA and our environment. You see, we still essentially have the same DNA, the same brain chemistry, the same body makeup as our ancestors yet over the past 50 years our environment has changed dramatically. We have changed it on our own and the two conflict. Our DNA has just not had the opportunity to catch up to this new environment and I would submit today that it's not going to. You see, our ancestors would largely eat anything that was in front of them and this was by design. Their DNA, their brain chemistry told them that they did not know when the next meal was coming and so it might come tomorrow, it might come a week from now so they would eat virtually anything that was put in front of them. Well, we still do the same thing. Unfortunately, that doesn't work now because food is plentiful, it's everywhere, it's delicious, and it's very inexpensive; totally different than it used to be. Compounding this is the fact that we've inherited this very sedentary environment over the past 50 years. We no longer work the farms. We no longer work outside. We're locked in cubicles over the past 50 years and have developed a very sedentary lifestyle. Sitting is the new smoking. Our bodies were not designed to sit all day or all night. So, what happens? So, in the 1950s and 60s we became a nation of dieters with the mindset that I would go on a diet, I would lose the weight and then I would go off the diet. I like this one with the tapeworms. That's a really catchy one. We now spend about $16 billion a year trying to lose weight in this country, the diet industry holding up the next diet as the great promise when in fact diets just simply don't work. Unfortunately, 95% of people that try to lose weight regain that weight within 12 months. It's that simple and that's because the diet mindset is just incorrect. So, we have three choices. We can follow the way of the dodo bird which is the path that we're heading thanks to diabetes and depression and all these other diseases or we can change the environment where we can learn how to adapt. Now I will submit that it is too late to try to change the environment. By the time we change food advertising laws, implement soda taxes, chain school lunches, get the portion sizes straight, install work treadmills at our desks, the genie's out of the bottle. We don't have the time. We simply have to learn how to adapt to this new obesogenic environment. Now, the organization that I work with has the opportunity to help Americans down this path trying to improve their health and reduce their weight for a sustained period of time. We've worked with about 2,000 Americans now and we've gone back to dissect the difference between those that have been successful and those that have failed and I can share with you seven key lessons that we have learned as to what makes the difference or what seems to make the difference between those two groups. For starters, the individuals that are successful believe that it can be done. Now that may sound pretty simple, but it also sounded simple that no one could possibly run a four minute mile until Roger Bannister believed that it could be done. Low and behold, it was possible. Now this may sound obvious, but keep in mind that the average American goes on three diets per year from the time they are 30 years old. So, they get to 40 years old which is the average of these 2,000 people, they have failed dozens of times. So, it's not hard to see why they actually think this can't be done and this time's going to be the same. The people that succeed also were able to find a compelling reason. So, there was a steadfast reason of why they wanted to improve their health and reduce their weight. That reason could range from their doctor threatening to put them on the [Statin] [SP] for the rest of their life or just wanting to be around for their granddaughter's wedding or it could be perhaps rekindling a lost relationship or starting a new one or maybe achieving a person ambition, but having a specific driving reason was important in persisting through this very difficult journey. The next thing that we found was that these individuals that were successful didn't necessarily follow a particular plan or a particular path. Instead they just found some place to start. They started to do something. They found that it was easier to just step on a treadmill for five minutes a day than it was to give up perhaps an old habit having bagels for breakfast everyday as five minutes turned into six. The next day it turned into seven and so on and so forth and what we've found was that the good habits begin to squeeze out or crowd out the bad habits. The next thing these individuals demonstrated was that they took on baby step incremental changes as opposed to going cold turkey. In an obesogenic environment when the food is everywhere as I illustrated, it's extremely hard to go cold turkey. So, here's an example. Working with one of these individuals, we found that if we could just convince them to leave one French fry in their McDonald's French fry basket each time and then the next day leave two French fries, the next day three and so on and so forth, weaning them off those French fries within the weeks when the individual never thought that could be done. Well, it's much easier than asking them with a momentous of just not ordering the French fries in the first place. So, taking those baby steps, incremental changes seems to work. Another very unusual finding was the ability to practice self forgiveness. So, virtually 100% of these 2,000 individuals fell off the wagon at some point in time during their process and what seemed to distinguish those that were successful from those that were not was the ability to practice self forgiveness and I'll give you an illustration of that. This is a weight chart. It looks almost like a stock chart. In fact, weight charts like stock charts move in channels. So, just like a stock might go down you have lower lows and lower highs and it only takes one Chinese meal with water retention to gain maybe three pounds1 over night.1 What we found was that the people that made it through the process didn't let that one1 data point disrupt their whole process and they didn't say forget it and throw in the1 towel. Now this is actually someone that failed, that didn't make it and found that a couple1 of bad days, a couple of bad weeks set them back to regain the weight versus those that1 for example look at more of a ten day moving average and didn't let those fluctuations1 get in the way, but again that involves self forgiveness not expecting to hold themselves1 to a perfect standard. It's impossible in an obesogenic environment. The good news is1 we don't have to be perfect. We got to be pretty good most of the time, but you don't1 have to be absolutely perfect.1 The individuals that were successful also learned how to plan ahead. So, when I prompt1 you, are you hungry, are you hungry, are you hungry, 226 times per day, most of those times1 this individual that was successful wasn't hungry because they had planned ahead. That1 meant shopping. That meant pre-chopping vegetables on Sunday evening for the week or preparing1 packets of food or carrying snacks with them never traveling through O'Hare airport hungry.1 That is a recipe for failure. So, the ability to plan ahead distinguished people that made1 it versus those that didn't.1 The last key lesson, the individuals that were successful combined two very interesting1 modes. We call them devices and advices. On devices they leverage new technology and advices1 they leverage an old mode of communication. I'll tell you what I mean. In terms of new1 technology this wrist band tracks everything that I do. I'm sure you've seen many of these1 devices before. Within five years these devices will be implanted and you will track your1 steps, your calories. This data will be wirelessly uploaded to your doctor perhaps your employer,1 your insurance company. It's quite remarkable what's coming down the path.1 Individuals that were successful realized that you can't manage what you don't measure1 and so they used these devices to help track their progress, but these devices only provide1 data, a stream of numbers. The question then is, what do you do with those numbers? So,1 the individuals that were successful didn't only use the devices, they used advices and1 we found that they interacted with humans on two levels.1 The first was for accountability. It's extremely hard for individuals who are trying to reduce1 their weight to hold themselves accountable, but if they relied on a friend, or a coach,1 or a parent, or some other support network perhaps online they could actually get through1 those tough times; this being one example.1 The second aside from accountability was simply empathy, the ability for someone to reassure1 you that this can be done, a Roger Bannister effect that there was hope, that there was1 possibility in making it through those very challenging days through this journey. So,1 I'll leave you with the thought that I am still frightened, but I'm also hopeful that1 although we are the ones that created this obesogenic environment we're the also the1 only things that can potentially turn that around by helping each other through this1 process and avoiding following the path of the dodo bird. Thank you very much.