Obesity

Healthy dieting and long term weight loss most often requires you to change your eating habits and can result in significant changes to your lifestyle.
Before you begin a serious weight loss program you may need to prepare yourself mentally for the changes that you will have to make. This is an important first step for most people.

To help you prepare yourself, write down the reasons why you want to lose weight and how serious you are about losing weight. Confirm in your writing how committed you are to following your weight loss program. Also write down where you have to make major changes in your life, including what you eat, where you eat, and how you eat.
Look at your eating habits and decide if there are any that you can break. Remember, breaking a bad habit and replacing it with a healthy habit, will work towards a healthy new life style.

It’s important to review the amount of exercise you do now, and how much you are prepared to do in the future. Exercise should eventually become a part of your daily routines: Plan to walk to a store if it is close by, or to visit a friend. Wherever possible walk whenever you can. If the weather is cold, walking will burn off even MORE calories.

If your children are at school, walk to meet them and encourage them to enjoy the walk home. Walk your dog, he will love it, and you will benefit as well. Examine your usual daily activities carefully, and try to work in some exercise with something you enjoy doing.

Look at the size and style of the clothing you wear now and compare it to what you want to wear when you have reached your weight loss goal. Write it all down.

Preparing yourself mentally before starting your weight loss program, as well as visualizing the positive results, will help to keep you motivated.

Set a realistic set of weight loss goals and factor in a self reward system for when you reach certain goals.

Plan a healthy diet that you know you can live with. A great deal has been written about crash diets that in almost all cases only work for the short term if at all, and most people will give up after one-two weeks.

It’s also important to keep a book to record your weekly weight loss. Weigh yourself prior to starting your diet, and then weigh yourself the same time and day once weekly.

Your family will also benefit from a healthy diet and lifestyle. Childhood obesity has become a major problem worldwide. More children are now being diagnosed with Type 11 Diabetes, as well there is the problem of heart disease at a much earlier age. If you are worried about your child being over weight, talk to your Doctor. Tests will confirm or eliminate any medical condition that may cause the problem. Any changes you make that encourage healthier eating, will benefit your children.

Remember that the aim of your weight loss program should be a change in your lifestyle and long term eating habits. Your diet changes must be reasonable or you will not be happy, and your diet will become hard to maintain. Your new eating and exercise program should be designed to help you lose pounds and keep them off, as well as to keep blood pressure and cholesterol low. It should not be a difficult, tasteless, crash diet approach to weight loss, but a long term change towards healthy eating for you and your family.

Any extreme reduction in food intake should be discussed with a Doctor or trained nutritionist.

About The Author
Margarete Abel is a Health Educationalist formerly with the Health Education Unit, Perth, Western Australia.
Websites include: http://www.ozebizz.com
http://www.goldongold.com

Tags: healthy dieting, weight loss, childhoood obesity, diet

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Losing weight doesn’t have to be boring when you focus on bright, colourful meals. What does this mean? Simply by making sure your plate reflects a range of colours, you’ll naturally create more balanced and healthful menus. Not everyone has the rime or the patience to count calories, but assessing the colours on your plate is something anyone can do - and it only takes an instant!

Why Colour Is Important

Many fatty and caloric foods, such as dairy products and startchy carbs, are beige or brown. When there are too many of these drab colours on your plate, weight gain is almost certain.

That’s because these beige foods often are high in calories and can leave you feeling hungry later. A cup of beige or brown beans can be over 200 calories….but a cup of red or green vegetables is under a hundred! Add fresh greens, deep purple-reds and bright yellow-orange to a meal, and water the nutrient content go up, while calories go down! Plus, you’ll get more enjoyment from eating when there’s a variety of colours and flavours on your plate.

Although these ideas may sound whimsical, they’re grounded in scientific fact. Dr David Heber, renowned nutritional expert from UCLA’s Centre for Human Nutrition established the role of colour in his book, “What Color is Your Diet?” So, next time you visit the refrigerator, think colourfully. And remember to mix, not match!

Kim Beardsmore M.B.A. (H.R.M.), B.Sc. (Biochemistry) is an independent Herbalife distributor, weight loss coach and creator of the online weight loss & fitness magazine Weight Loss Health. For a free weight loss consultation, newsletter and resources to help you lose weight and keep it off forever, visit http://weight-loss-health.com.au Online Herbalife store at http://weightlosshealth.herbalcoach.com Herbalife home business opportunity http://free2liv.com

Tags: weight, loss, lose, weightloss, diet, obese, obesity, overweight, BMI, carbohydrate, diabetes, carbs, calorie

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Contrary to common belief, your weight is not really the indicator of a weight problem - the actual percentage of body fat is the true indicator. You need to know what percent of you is actually FAT. How are you going to monitor your weight loss if you do not know what percent of your body is fat, before you begin your program?

Let me give you an example on measuring body fat, this is important in understanding weight loss, or should I say FAT LOSS. This is actually what we are trying to lose, right? FAT!

Lets say someone weighs 200 pounds and when we measure their body fat we find out there body fat is 40%

This means that 40% of the members body is made of fat (80 lbs). The other 120 lbs is muscle, bones, organs, water, etc. (everything but fat).

Now any true weight loss program should include some form of strength training customized to their personal abilities (Another reason you need someone who truly understands the whole body and how it works). Because if you can gain some of that muscle mass that we lose with age, our bodies will burn more calories and therefore burn more FAT!

Now it’s a few weeks into the program and this person steps on the scale and they now weigh 198 lbs. They are a little disappointed because they thought they were doing better. Their clothes fit better, they have more energy, and they are feeling better.

But they are still depressed because they only lost a lousy 2 pounds! Right? Are we sure???

We now check their body fat and it is now 36% not 40%. Let’s do a little math.

200 lbs at 40% body fat means that 40% of them is fat, which equals 80 lbs of FAT, and 120 lbs are muscles and everything else (called the lean body mass).

198 lbs at 36% body fat means that 36% of them is fat which equals 71 lbs of FAT, and 125 lbs of lean body mass.

This person actually lost 9 pounds of FAT (the stuff we are trying to lose) and gained 5 pounds of lean body mass (mostly muscle mass, which is a good thing because this will allow their body to burn more calories!)

You need to measure and focus on PERCENT OF BODY FAT, AND NOT WEIGHT!

But don’t worry, when your body fat goes down, as your body fat decreases so will the numbers on the scale!

About The Author

Dr. Jeffrey Banas is a Chiropractic Sports Physician, practicing in Mesa; AZ. Dr. Banas personally lost 60 pounds in 2003 and now uses his experience to help others struggling with their weight problems. Dr. Banas can be reached at his office at 480-633-6837, or by visiting his web site at www.personal-weight-loss-help.com.

Tags: fat, obesity, weight loss, diets, dieting, exercise, calories, obesity, nutrition, exercise

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