Obesity Health Risk and Prevention
February 17, 2009 by Terry
Filed under Diet, Nutrition and Health
Must I spend my life on a diet?
You have probably asked yourself that exact question a million times. The answer to that is NO..,but you need to understand a few things so you can make some adjustments and live a healthy lifestyle in a healthy body. Like all of us, you are concerned with the havoc that being overweight can exact on your body. According to the CDC (Center for Disease Control), obesity increases the risk of many diseases and health conditions. They include
Hypertension (High blood pressure)
Coronary Heart Disease
Stroke
Sleep apnea and respiratory problems
Gallbladder disease
Osteoarthritis ( a degeneration of cartilage and its underlying bone)
Cancer ( endometrial, breast, and colon)
Dyslipidemia ( high total cholesterol or high levels of triglycerides)
Type 2 Diabetes
The last…Type 2 Diabetes is a biggie. It is probably the most insidious disease there is with a multitude of complications and this is directly related to what we eat and what we weigh. Think about this… in the 1900’s the average person consumed about 10 pounds of sugar a year and about 1% of the population had diabetes. Today the average person consumes about 150 pounds of sugar a year and it estimated that 1/3rd of the population will have Type 2 diabetes.
Now granted, not all of that sugar comes from the sugar bowl. Most of it comes from the processed foods we eat, such as candy, soda and junk food. The biggest chunk (28%) comes from a variety of prepared foods like ketchup, canned vegetables and fruits and peanut butter.
Healthy Weight is not a diet, it’s a lifestyle.
Let’s face it… we all know if we keep doing the same thing we are going to get the same results. We diet, loose some weight, lower our metabolism, go back to eating the way we did that put the weight on in the first place, put the lost weight back on and then wonder why. So let’s look at the why…
A pound is 3500 calories. In order to gain a pound we have to eat 3500 calories more that we burn. The reverse is also true. In order to lose a pound we have to eat 3500 calories less that we burn. Please note that I use the term burn. Our metabolism plays an important part in our weight control.
As we age we lose muscle. It is a natural part of aging and only physical exercise can prevent losing muscle. For every pound of muscle we lose we burn 50 calories less a day. For every pound we gain through exercise we burn 50 calories more a day even if we do not exercise that day. Stay with me here…. If you turn 5 pounds of fat into 5 pounds of muscle you will burn 250 more calories a day….Period.
So how do we gain muscle? Exercise is the obvious way, but I can hear you saying….”I am exercising, but not losing weight”. And this brings us to back to what we eat. Muscle is built on the consumption of protein not carbs or fat. In order to get the maximum benefits from your exercise, you need to give your body the proper fuel.
Look at it this way… your body is an exquisite machine. Let’s liken it to a car for a moment. You put fuel in your car, the proper octane for its engine. You also have fuel for your lawn mower. If you put lawn mower fuel in your car it would not run well if at all.
So to get the optimum from your exercise give your body the proper fuel…in other words about 80-100 grams of protein a day if you are serious about building muscle. If you lower your carbs to about 100 grams a day and increase your protein to 80-100 grams a day your metabolism will take notice, your body will burn more calories, and you won’t feel the urge to go back to eating the way you did.
Then—and here’s the good news—you won’t have to spend your life on a diet.
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