Little Goes A Long Way

Obesity increases the likelihood of various diseases, particularly heart disease, type 2 diabetes, breathing difficulties during sleep, certain types of cancer, and osteoarthritis.[2] Obesity is most commonly caused by a combination of excessive dietary calories, lack of physical activity, and genetic susceptibility, although a few cases are caused solely by genes, endocrine disorders, medications or psychiatric illness. Evidence to support the view that some obese people eat little yet gain weight due to a slow metabolism is limited; on average obese people have a greater energy expenditure than their thin counterparts due to the energy required to maintain an increased body mass.

It’s is not easy for anyperson to lose weight quickly let alone an obese person, but a recent study proves that even those who lose little weight by portion control (essentially eat less) and exercising regularly better their cardiovascular health.

“Losing 20 or so pounds might seem daunting to some people, but we showed that even a more modest weight loss can yield heart and vascular benefits,” says study co-author Lisa de las Fuentes. “You don’t necessarily need to lose 50 pounds to improve your heart function,” added Fuentes, cardiologist at Washington University School of Medicine-St. Louis.

The researchers studied 60 moderately obese people, aged between 22 and 64 years. The subjects were instructed to eat low-calorie diets and to exercise for about three and a half hours per week, principally walking. On  an average, they lost weight for about six months, reaching a maximum loss of nine percent body weight or 22 pounds.

Maximum cardiovascular benefit lagged behind weight loss, with the greatest improvement coming six to 12 months after the study began.

Here are some facts about Obesity and how it affects our life:

• Nearly two-thirds of men and one half of women are obese or overweight
• Obesity is 2nd largest cause of cancer after smoking
• Obese people on average live 9 years less

Additional Reading: F as in Fat 2009 – Trust for America’s Health

Losing Weight is Real Easy…

Yup, I said it – losing weight is really the easy part. Keeping it off? Now that’s a completely different kettle of ‘high omega-3’ fish! (What’s a kettle of fish anyway..?) So I started this year (again) with a goal to really LOSE weight and keep it off. Truth is, the last time I successful ‘dieted’ was many moons ago at age 25 for my wedding day. Alas, over the years, I’ve developed and discovered too many bad eating habits of really really good food (ice cream, fried chicken, chocolate, wine). So what’s going to be different this time and will I really succeed? Well only time will tell but here are 3 steps I’ve decided to follow:

1. Track what I eat: I’m using this free online program and so far it’s working out really great. I find myself actually looking forward to planning my meals and enjoying them and eating healthier and eating less: http://caloriecount.about.com/
2. Track what I do: Using the same free program it’s real easy. Put in your activities and calculate how many calories you burn. The goal of course is to burn more than you eat.
3. Mix it up: Keep my body guessing by varying the types/length of activities, types/amount of food intake. So some days I meet my goals, some days I exceed (slightly) and some days I stay below. I found that doing the same things and eating the same foods was a) incredibly BORING and b)not really producing results after the first few weeks. So for me, mixing it up increases my chances of sticking to the program and HOPEFULLY will result in losing and keeping the weight off this time around.

We’ll see. I’ll post an update in a few months to let y’all know how I’m doing. For now, here’s to a long happy and healthy life!

Simple Guide to Easy Weight Loss

Losing weight can be a daunting task if you are not sure how to go about it. It is important to develop a realistic weight loss plan which is geared for you. There is lot to gain by making minor changes to your daily diet intake and other nutrients, most people will see results in weeks without having to deprive themselves of food. The plan laid here is not only simple but a smart one.

Smart weight loss plans generally outline which foods are healthy and which ones should be avoided. It is essential to know just what kinds of foods are really hurting you. Here are some examples of the tips that smart weight loss plans have to offer:

• Carbohydrates, as well as sugars, provide a certain amount of energy you have. However, restricting the amount of carbohydrates and sugars you consume will cause the body to resort to stored fat in order to supply energy. Limiting your refined carbohydrates intake will go long way to help from gaining additional fat.
• Eat smaller meals but more often.You will find that by increasing on your meal frequency will give you more energy, boost your metabolic rate, and simply accelerate your fat burning beyond anything you’ve every experienced before. Read the footnote on Insulin for more details
• Drink plenty of water: You’ve heard this one a million times. Drinking eight to ten glasses of water per day, not only keeps the body hydrated, but it also flushes out all of the toxins and waste that is stored in the body.
• If you approach the diet with a mentality that it will work and you stay on track you will get results. Its only when people begin trying to rationalize cheating or that the diet wasn’t working anyway that they will fail completely. Start Your Diet Today! if you haven’t started one yet.
• Exercise – This could be as simple as 10-15 minute walk in the hallway after every meal to a 30 minute cardio every other day.

These steps are what I call Easy and Smart weight loss plans, they are extremely effective when they are followed consistently. They are also some of the easiest diet plans to stick to, as they do not make you feel sick, tired, or hungry.

Track your Calorie Consumption

The amount of calories that you consume on a daily basis will determine whether you gain or lose weight and this is one of the most important aspects of any weight loss program that you decide to go on.

Studies have been taken where overweight people believed they were eating no more food than other people they associated with who were considerably slimmer than them.

The overweight people were under the false impression that the reason why they were heavier and gaining weight was due to their body’s metabolism.

When keeping a record of their food consumption over a specified period of time it was shown that they were actually consuming more calories and it had nothing to do with their metabolism but rather their choice of food and the quantities they were eating.

You only need to reduce your calorie intake by 100 calories per day to make a substantial effect on your weight over the period of the year.

This is a very manageable goal for almost everybody and it is not too difficult to cut back by that amount, however many of the weight loss programs are recommending considerably more reduction in calories making it very difficult to maintain and as a result of this many people are failing to achieve what they start out to do.

Now when you combine the fact that you only need to reduce calories by that much, with additional supplementation of vitamins and minerals that can help your overall health, you can see how you can stay nutritionally balanced throughout the whole weight loss process and not feel as though you are starving yourself.

For many people just knowing that the hurdle is not so great, and that there are suitable supplements to assist them, is enough to ensure that they can start and maintain a good weight loss program.

Cross Training – New Way to Lose Weight and Achieve Fitness

You may be in great shape, for the sort of exercise you do routinely. But if that’s all you do, day after day, you may be setting yourself up for injury or mental burnout and that is not a good way to get fit. What can help prevent injury and burnout? Cross training.

The numbers on your scale do not indicate whether you are fit or fat. Far more significant than your total body weight is the composition of your body tissue. If a man’s fatty tissue is bigger than 14% up to 15% of his body mass, or if a woman’s is more than 20% to 22%, he or she is overweight, or more precisely, over fat.

A small amount of fat is needed for padding the internal organs and as insulation under the skin. Excess fat leads to such diseases as diabetes, gout, high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, and gallbladder problems. There are very few, very fat persons. The reason is that the fittest, not the fattest survive.

The problem now is focused on how to resolve the problem. The problem with most people who want to lose weight is that they have the propensity to concentrate more on getting those numbers lower than what they are seeing now. What happens next is that they strive harder to achieve a lower weight, according to the “ever reliable” result of the weighing scale.

It would be more important to think of the human body as a heat-exchange engine that works on the basic principles of energy physics. The caloric balance equals the total calorie intake minus the total calorie expenditure.

Some of the calories people ingest are used for basal metabolism. As people get old, their bodies require fewer calories for this basic upkeep. Some calories are excreted as waste products. Some go into “work metabolism,” the energy expenditure required for any physical activity.

Hence, if people take in more calories than are used by these functions, there is a definite caloric excess. By the laws of physics, energy is transformed rather than destroyed. In this case, each excess of 3,500 calories is changed into a pound of fat. If people want to reverse this process, they have to burn up 3,500 calories to lose a single pound.

Winning the War Against Fat

When you think of fighting fat with exercise, you probably think of hours of hard, sweaty exertion. If this is the case, then, you will not get any farther. This is because people who are so much into losing more by exerting more effort tend to get bored easily.

Why? Because experts contend that when people exert more effort than what they are capable of doing creates a tendency to develop weariness and ennui. Hence, they give up, stop doing their routine exercises, and end up sulking in the corner with a bag of chips that seems to have all the bad calories in this world.

Now, you might ask, “What should be done instead?” The answer: cross training.

After some intensive studies and experimentations, health experts were able to come up with the concept of incorporating cross training in order to overcome or break the monotony or dullness in an exercise program.

Cross training refers to the integration of diverse movements or activities into a person’s conventional exercise routine. The main purpose of incorporating cross training into an exercise program is to avoid overdoing excess muscle damages and to put a stop to an imminent boredom.

Three of the most commonly used activities whenever a person decides to engage into cross training are swimming, running, and cycling.

In cross training, distance is one way to extend your activity as your condition improves. For this reason, you need to traverse a measured distance.

If possible, swim the course and measure the distance. If you will be using a running track, such courses usually are a quarter-mile per lap for a complete circuit.

Cross training offers a variety of benefits for fitness and fatloss. It builds up the strength and endurance of the heart, lungs, and blood vessels. It has also some tranquilizing effect on the nerves, and it burns up calories as much as it makes your “losing weight” more bearable.

Cross training has three basic components:

1. Endurance exercises to condition the heart, lungs, and blood vessels and to induce relaxation. These begin with a careful planned walking and jogging regimen, depending on fitness level.
2. Exercises to strengthen the muscles, particularly those important to good posture. These include some activities that are selected to encourage some people who are already burnt out with a particular routine.
3. Exercises to improve joint mobility and prevent or relieve aches and pains. These consist of a series of static stretching positions that are safe and effective for most of the people who wish to try to lose some fat.

Indeed, cross training is a great way to modify the concept of exercising and losing fat without having to endure monotonous activities. In fact, the idea of exercising is to like what you are doing, hence, if you engage into cross training, you will be aware of it that you have already achieve your desired weight.

Boiled down, cross training is, certainly, one way of having fun. Don’t you agree?

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