Weight Loss - How Do I Achieve it?

By Pradeep Mahajan

Weight loss is a critical issue in today's society with obesity on the rise and people finally realizing what being overweight is doing to their bodies, their health and eventually their lifestyles.

Weight loss is good for many conditions. It is of real benefit in diabetes, high blood pressure, shortness of breath, joint problems and raised cholesterol.

It is and will always remain a major problem for individuals, especially women. Weight loss will happen when you shift your diet towards the wholesome and maintain an active lifestyle. it is possible with exercise and healthy meals alone, but including good-quality protein and building lean muscle mass will help you lose more quickly, helping you to keep the weight off and stay healthy. It is hard, there's no doubt about it, but that's because you have to put the time and effort into it.

Weight loss is considered the cornerstone of treatment in people with Type II diabetes because it allows the body to better use insulin and thus lowers blood sugar. It is a struggle for most, but achievable by all. reduction in weight is virtually guaranteed if one sticks to the regulations of the diet.

Weight Loss basics: eat more calories than you use & you'll put on weight; use more than you eat and you'll lose it. Reducing weight is now a goal which can be reached really easily if we stick to a training regime, diet plan. But for some, surgery may be the only hope. Surgical techniques have evolved over the past few decades, and most are effective, in the sense that they do typically lead to substantial weight loss.

Slow rate of weight loss means you are making changes in the body that are going to last. Cutting calories is the path to weight loss that many people choose. That is right, spinach, dark lettuces and broccoli are great for weight loss. Long term weight loss means living a new life, but that does not mean the life has to be one you are not comfortable living.

In the case of women who are overweight, the gain in muscle mass boosts their metabolism so that combined with aerobic exercise and a reduced calorie diet, weight loss is made easier and they look more fit and toned as they lose weight (and body fat). However, all experts do agree that the best way to maintain weight loss is to follow a healthy lifestyle. Which ever approach you prefer, the key to long-term success is a slow steady weight loss. It is proven that it is important to prepare yourself mentally for your weight loss journey and the lifestyle changes you are about to undergo.

Let's face it, we all know that to achieve a healthy weight loss we need to burn more calories than what we take in. A healthy breakfast is one of the key elements of a healthy diet and consequential weight loss. Much of the early weight loss on a very low calorie diet represents loss of muscle tissue rather than loss of fat. The strategy for weight loss in obese patients is first to change behavior; then, it is to decrease the expectation of rapid change.

For individuals who are morbidly obese, surgery to bypass portions of the stomach and small intestine may at times be the only effective means of producing sustained and significant weight loss. These medications would be specifically tailored to interfere with the energy cycles to facilitate weight loss. The primary factor in achieving and maintaining weight loss is a lifelong commitment to regular exercise and sensible eating habits. You will find that all levels of your life are improved with weight loss which brings you so much personal satisfaction.

If eating habits are not completely and permanently changed, the weight loss provided by a diet is not going to last long. If you suffer from, or think you may suffer from, a medical condition you should consult your doctor before starting a weight loss and/or exercise regime.

Drinking water is one of the most rapid weight loss tips that dieticians suggest to people and leads to 100+ calories extra burned a day. Every twenty soft drinks you skip from your normal intake equates to about one pound of weight loss. Fasting: While fasting plays a major part in some diets, it is generally not recommended for safe weight loss.

Diet

Dietitians are nutritionists who work directly with clients or patients regarding their nutritional needs. Dieting reduces your caloric intake but exercising helps you burn more calories. DIET Weight loss is vital if obesity is present. Dieting is easier than you ever imagined. On a vegetarian diet, weight loss is not supposed to be a problem. A well balanced reduced calorie diet containing moderate fat is recommended. The inclusion of different kinds of fruits into weight-loss diets is a healthy way of dealing with starvation, as well as providing the body those nutrients and vitamins it needs to function properly.

Exercise While You Diet: Weight loss is all about reducing your caloric intake while you increase the calories you burn. First of all decide how much weight you want to lose, and set yourself a realistic target, ideally with the help of your dietitian or doctor. A diet that works for some people does not work for others. A healthy breakfast is one of the key elements of a healthy diet and consequential weight loss. Most fad diets, if followed closely, will result in weight loss-as a result of caloric restriction.

Moreover, dieters who fail to adopt better exercise and eating habits will regain the lost weight-and possibly more. As it begins, large amounts of water will be shed, leading the dieter to think that significant weight reduction is taking place. Consult your doctor, for any health problem and before using any supplements, making dietary changes, or before making any changes in prescribed medications.

One of my main beefs with most diets is that the focus is on outward appearance and numbers (on a scale and calorie counting) instead of total well-being. While doctors put most moderately obese patients on balanced, low-calorie diets(1,200-1,500 calories a day), occasionally they recommend a very low calorie liquid protein diet (400-700 calories), with supplementation of vitamins and minerals, for as long as three months. Much of the early weight loss on a very low calorie diet represents loss of muscle tissue rather than loss of fat.

As many as 85% of dieters who do not exercise on a regular basis regain their lost weight within two years. Repeatedly losing and regaining weight (yo-yo dieting) encourages the body to store fat and may increase a patient's risk of developing heart disease. Eating three balanced, moderate-portion meals a day-with the main meal at mid-day-is a more effective way to prevent obesity than fasting or crash diets, which convince the body that there is an ongoing famine. Modern medicine has found ways to extend our lifespan through dietary restriction.

For the sake of your health, always consult your doctor before making any significant dietary, nutritional or lifestyle changes. The American Heart Association (AHA) generally recommends a diet with less than 30% fat. However, the 2000 AHA Dietary Guidelines also state that there may be some benefits for patients who are insulin resistant to follow a diet that reduces saturated fat while increasing the intake of unsaturated fat rather than carbohydrates, as long as an ideal body weight is attained and maintained. Again, education is needed to improve the nutritional content of the diet.

The patient's lifestyle, food preferences, preparation abilities, snack habits, cravings, etc, should all be considered when developing a dietary plan. It is important that the nutrition counselor tailor the diet to the individual as opposed to adopting a "one-size-fits-all" approach. After weight loss, lower-fat diets may be best. For most people, being overweight is a result of an insufficient amount of exercise, an inadequate lifestyle regime and a poorly balanced diet.

Weight loss is virtually guaranteed if one sticks to the regulations of the diet. If you suffer or think you may suffer from any medical condition you should consult your doctor before starting any exercise or diet regime. Most high-fiber foods are also high in water and low in calories, making them must-have diet foods. Soluble fiber can help to lower cholesterol; insoluble contains indigestible fibers that add bulk to our diets.

Some experts believe dieters have better control if they eat several mini-meals throughout the day. Exercise and a balanced diet are the key factors in fat loss and weight reduction. Drinking water is one of the most rapid weight loss tips that dieticians suggest to people and leads to 100+ calories extra burned a day. The ultimate tip to eventual success: regular exercise and a balanced diet. Add one cheat day to your diet to rid yourself of cravings.

Eat a healthy diet filled with lots of vegetables, fruits, and whole grain products. Fasting: While fasting plays a major part in some diets, it is generally not recommended for safe weight loss.

Surgery

But for many in this situation, weight loss surgery is the only hope. One of the earliest forms was gastric bypass surgery. There are many forms of surgery these days and all have pros and cons. There are still substantial risks, however, as with any major surgery. For those who believe surgery is the best option, consulting with an experienced physician is essential. For individuals who are morbidly obese, surgery to bypass portions of the stomach and small intestine may at times be the only effective means of producing sustained and significant weight loss.

Such obesity surgery, however, can be risky, and it is performed only on patients for whom other strategies have failed and whose obesity seriously threatens health. If hiatus hernia symptoms are chronic and do not respond to diet and medication, surgery may become necessary. If the hernia is in danger of becoming restricted or strangulated, surgery becomes the likely treatment. Today, most surgeons elect to perform laparoscopic surgery, because it is minimally invasive and recovery time is reduced.

Burn

If you imagine yourself losing weight and burning up calories during normal daily activity, you will lose weight and body fat. It has a cellular effect on the body, causing fat cells to release their stored fat to be burned as energy. The food you eat during the day should be burned off through activity. Exercise While You Diet: Weight loss is all about reducing your caloric intake while you increase the calories you burn. Dieting reduces your caloric intake but exercising helps you burn more calories.

Let's face it, we all know that to achieve a healthy weight loss we need to burn more calories than what we take in. Exercise increases the metabolic rate by creating muscle, which burns more calories than fat. When regular exercise is combined with consistent, healthful meals, calories continue to burn at an accelerated rate for several hours. Calories burned depending on your activity level.

Not only does fat provide a sense of fullness, eating enough of a healthy fat called omega-3 fatty acids may cause your metabolism to burn fat more efficiently. If your weight remains constant, you are probably taking in the same amount of calories you burn each day. If you're slowly gaining weight over time, it is likely that your caloric intake is greater than the number of calories you burn through your daily activities.

The number of calories we burn each day is dependent upon our basal metabolic rate (BMR), the number of calories we burn per hour simply by being alive and maintaining body functions and our level of physical activity.

Our weight also plays a role in determining how many calories we burn at rest -- more calories are required to maintain your body in its present state, the greater your body weight. Someone whose job involves heavy physical labor will naturally burn more calories in a day than someone who sits at a desk most of the day (a sedentary job). For people who do not have jobs that require intense physical activity, exercise or increased physical activity can increase the number of calories burned.

To lose one pound, you must burn approximately 3500 calories over and above what you already burn doing daily activities. Use a calorie calculator to figure out how many calories you burn while sitting, standing, exercising, lifting weights, etc. If you're eating fewer calories than you're burning, you'll lose weight.

As it is well known when the body does not get enough calories it starts to burn the fat that was deposited in the fat tissue. Exercise will help you burn excess calories and fat, and will also help to tone and build muscle. Retaining muscle is the key to optimal fat burning metabolism.

By : Pradeep Mahajan

Disclaimer: Consult your doctor before starting any diet / weight loss program. Information in this article is for educational purpose only.

Pradeep Mahajan -- Author is a free-lance writer. He is an engineer-MBA and management consultant by profession & practice. Visit http://www.health-fitness-wellness.com for more useful & interesting information on health, fitness & wellness.
This article is available for reprint on your website and / or in your newsletter, provided it is not changed and you include the author's web-site address.

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The Connection Between Weightloss And Thyroid

by Jackie Serta
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Your thyroid dictates much of your metabolism, any malfunction or disease afflicting this area may cause you to have problems in metabolism leading to a drastic problem with your weight - you may either gain weight, lose weight, or may find that losing weight is harder than usual.

Those that plan diets do not take into consideration how their thyroids and metabolism may affect their weight loss program. Most experts and even the media pitch in and recommend that the best way to lose weight is cut calories.

Those with a condition called hyperthyroidism suffer from an overactive thyroid leading to one having his or her metabolism skyrocket. If this is the case, then you will probably lose weight fast. This is a nice proposition for some who wish to lose weight. However, this is actually hazardous to the health.

Aside from the medical difficulties such a disease brings, one will also notice weight problems as a result. These people have trouble keeping on weight and may notice weakness and bulging of the eyes. This disease may need special treatment from doctors.

Hypothyroidism on the other hand works in the other direction - slowing metabolism until the body gains weight at an incredible rate. Like hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism causes a general weakness in the body. It too may need special treatment and may cause serious health problems if left unattended.

While cutting calories in itself can be very hard for most people - imagine, the people involved in life and death struggles at the supermarket regarding whether to buy that extra box of sweets, some have exactly the opposite problem.

Instead of eating too much calories - which is a problem in itself, they eat too little calories instead.

Problem? What Problem The problem with some is that they believe that since the experts say that they have to cut calories, cutting calories to an inordinate amount will reap greater results. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. While cutting calories helps diets, consuming too little calories pushed the body into a hoard mode, the body's metabolism slow to adapt to the lesser amount of available energy.

If your body enters this mode, your body will work at such slow metabolism that losing weight becomes impossible. The technique here should be to reduce calories without the body slowing its metabolism. Only then can losing weight become easier.

Another problem that can arise from decreased metabolism is that when your metabolism slows due to a drastic reduction in metabolism, and then you suddenly eat a good, hearty, calorie-filled meal, you are bound to gain more weight owing to the increased surplus of energy.

This is why an imbalanced meal is highly discouraged among those that seek to lose weight. The sudden loss and increase of calories will cause an imbalance in one's energy consumption directly affecting fat deposit.

Here is a simple computation to help you get to the right amount of calories you will need per day so that you get your nutrients in the right balance.

First of all, multiply your weight in kilograms by 30. If you only know your weight in pounds, divide it by 2.2 to get to its English equivalent. We divide this number by 30 because that is the number of calories you need to maintain your weight per pound of weight.

For example if your weight in pounds is 150, divide it by 2.2. That will give you a figure of 68.18. This is your weight in kilograms. Multiply this by 30 and you will arrive at the amount of calories you will need per day to maintain 150 lbs.

You may consult a nutritionist to help you come lose weight. In the end it all comes down to math. If you consume more that your body needs, it stores it as fat. Now is probably a good time to start studying the back of those grocery cartons.

Try to keep your diet at a 40% protein, 25% fat, and 35% carbohydrate meals at 300 calories per meal. Spread out these meals in a day for optimum results.

While it may be simple computation to get at numbers, do not forget the earlier mentioned fact that the body adapts to its condition. Expose it to extreme ones and you may find yourself getting results you never wanted. Consult a nutritionist for more advice.



Read about obesity statistics and what is obesity at the Obesity Facts website.


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A Calorie is not a Calorie When Trying To Loose Weight

Although conventional wisdom argues that a calorie is a calorie, regardless of where it comes from, whether that be from a salmon fillet or an ice cream cone. But you don’t have to be a nutritionist to realize that there’s a huge difference between the nutrition of salmon verses that of ice cream. Legions of chronic dieters understand the differences, based on their personal experiences. For example, they claim that they gain a large amount of weight after eating one slice of pizza that is rich in carbohydrates, but do not after eating a large chicken breast and steamed broccoli meal that contains even more calories.

There is now a legitimate scientific explanation for why some calories are different from others. Doctors Eugene J. Fine, MD, and Richard D. Feinman, PhD, of the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn have explained that the widely held calorie-is-a-calorie belief is based on the law of thermodynamics, which is a key concept in physics. The first law in thermodynamics is about the amount of energy that goes into a system being equal to the amount of energy being released. To lose weight along this line of thinking, you need to either eat fewer calories or burn off more of them.

However, researchers have pointed out that the second law of thermodynamics can be associated with living creatures. The second law of thermodynamics claims that an inherent variation and inefficiency in all biological and biochemical processes. This can also be understood by saying that people burn energy less efficiently than cars and light bulbs do, while some people burn energy less efficiently than other people do.

There are many reasons that a calorie is not always a calorie. If you have a higher resting metabolic rate, you will do a much better job of burning all sorts of calories, as compared to someone who has a lower metabolic rate. If you secrete a lot of insulin due to being pre-diabetic or overweight, then you’ll be much more likely to make fat than muscle. Also, if you eat foods that have transitive fats, you’re a lot more likely to gain weight around your waist. It is recommended that people eat the highest quality of calories as possible. This includes nutrient-dense foods such as fish, chicken, fresh vegetables, minerals, quality protein, and healthful fats. These foods provide us with the most vitamins that are necessary for a healthy and balanced diet.

The alternative, which is not recommended, is a lot of sweets, soft drinks, breads, pastas, bagels, and muffins. These foods provide mostly empty calories in the form of sugars and starches. These foods also trigger the production of excess insulin, which will cause you to store these calories mostly around your waste, which is an occurrence that is definitely unwanted by the majority of people.

Due to the above facts, we can finally conclude that a single calorie from a salmon fillet is not the equivalent to a single calorie from an ice cream cone, as the calorie from the salmon fillet is packed with many more vitamins and nutrients that the ice cream cone is lacking.

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What is Eating disorder and what are it's main causes

By peter hutch


What is Eating disorder?

Eating disorders involve extreme disturbances in eating behaviors—following rigid diets, gorging on food in secret, throwing up after meals, obsessively counting calories. But eating disorders are more complicated than just unhealthy dietary habits. At their core, eating disorders involve distorted, self-critical attitudes about weight, food, and body image. It’s these negative thoughts and feelings that fuel the damaging behaviors.

People with eating disorders use food to deal with uncomfortable or painful emotions. Restricting food is used to feel in control. Overeating temporarily soothes sadness, anger, or loneliness. Purging is used to combat feelings of helplessness and self-loathing. Over time, people with eating disorders lose the ability to see themselves objectively and obsessions over food and weight come to dominate everything else in life.

Main causes of eating disorder are:

Family problems. Some individuals with eating disorders come from disordered families. The families of anorexic patients are often characterized by extremely controlling parents and poor boundaries between the parents and the child.

Social problems. Most people who develop eating disorders report having painfully low self-esteem before the onset of their eating problems. Many patients describe going through a painful experience such as being teased about their appearance, being shunned, or going through a difficult break-up of a romantic relationship.

Major illness or injury can also result in an individual feeling extremely vulnerable or out of control. Anorexia and bulimia can be attempts to control or distract themselves from such trauma.

Self Esteem- The one trait that is obviously apparent in all sufferers of an Eating Disorder is their low self-esteem. Often they feel as though they are not good enough, that they never do anything right, that they are scrutinized by others for their appearance, and that their lives would get better if they could just lose weight. Sufferers can feel like they do not deserve to be happy, that they do not deserve good things to happen to them, and that they don't deserve to have anything but what is felt as a miserable existence.

Gender- It is widely understood that eating disorders usually affect women, although eating disorders in males are on the rise. Because women are affected more often, being female must be considered a risk factor that cannot be controlled.

Dieting- Dieting is one behavior that deserves special attention due to its profound effect on the development of eating disorders
Genetics- Research is always looking for ways in which genetics may make eating disorders more likely. What science is learning is intriguing.
Biological factors- Temperament seems to be, at least in part, genetically determined. Some personality types (obsessive-compulsive and sensitive-avoidant, for example) are more vulnerable to eating disorders than others. New research suggests that genetic factors predispose some people to anxiety, perfectionism, and obsessive-compulsive thoughts and behaviors. These people seem to have more than their share of eating disorders.

Psychological factors- People with eating disorders often are legitimately angry, but because they seek approval and fear criticism, they do not dare express that anger directly. They do not know how to express it in healthy ways. They turn it against themselves by starving or stuffing.

Cultural pressures- Westernized countries characterized by competitive striving for success, and in pockets of affluence in developing countries, women often experience unrealistic cultural demands for thinness. They respond by linking self-exteem to weight.

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