For many people, maintaining a healthy weight is a real struggle,
and obesity is quickly becoming the number one health problem in
the country. Everyone knows about the many serious health problems
that have been associated with being overweight, including diabetes,
joint problems, stroke, heart disease and high cholesterol among
others.
It is possible to ward off many of these serious medical problems
simply by maintaining a healthy weight, and the best way to maintain
that healthy weight is to get plenty of exercise and to eat right.
The foundation of good health
Exercise and eating right are absolutely vital parts of any
plan to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight. Without making
significant and permanent changes to your lifestyle, you will
be doomed to follow one fad diet after another, losing lots of
weight only to gain it back and then some.
This type of yoyo dieting has been found to be even more dangerous
than being overweight, and it can lead to a number of serious health
problems of its own. The best diet plan is one that you will be
able to follow for the rest of your life. If you are not able to
keep to your diet plan over the long term, you will not be able
to succeed.
When it comes to maintaining a healthy weight, it is often better
to make a series of small changes, rather than try to make a radical
change in your life. For instance, instead of going from being
a couch potato to running 10 miles a day, try instead to start
by taking a walk three times a week. A simple walk around your
neighborhood can do wonders for your health and fitness, and regular
exercise can speed up your metabolism, making it easier to maintain
a healthy weight over the long run.
The importance of exercise
In addition, regular exercise will help you build muscle
while losing fat, and this extra muscle tissue will also help
you lose additional weight. In addition, you will feel better,
and this will help your overall fitness level as well as your
weight. An exercise program does not need to be overly strenuous
in order to be effective. As we have said, the simple process
of taking a walk several times a week can work wonders for anyone.
Eating a well balanced diet is the other part of the process of
maintaining a healthy weight. A healthy and well balanced diet
is an essential part of keeping a healthy weight, and eating the
wrong foods can quickly wreck the most well intentioned diet.
It is important, however, to follow a healthy diet that you can
stick with the rest of your life. It is important therefore to
choose those foods that you already like, as this will help you
to stick with your diet over the long term. It is also important
to give yourself the occasional treat, as this splurging will help
you to avoid the cravings that can destroy your diet and keep you
from maintaining a healthy weight.
Frequently Asked Questions
If you’re on a diet, or considering going on one, you’re
in luck. We’ve put together ten of the most frequently asked
questions about diets and weight loss and compiled them here.
Enjoy!
1. How much should I weigh?
Your doctor can answer that question most accurately. More
important than how much you weigh is your body/mass index,
which measures your height against your weight.
2. What's the best diet for losing weight?
Any diet that provides all the nutrition that you need
for health, and in addition, provides fewer calories than
your body burns regularly.
3. How can I keep off the weight that I lose?
If you lose weight gradually and re-educate both yourself
and your body about food, you'll have a good start. The
secret to keeping weight off is to balance your energy needs with your
food intake. Eat enough calories to supply your body's
energy needs, but not so many that your body stores the excess as fat.
4. What's the story with obesity and diabetes?
Obesity increases the risks of a number of chronic health
conditions, and diabetes is one of them. People who are
more than ten percent overweight increase their risk of developing
type 2 diabetes substantially.
5. How do I decrease my intake of sugar?
Obviously, you can decrease your intake of sugar by cutting
out sweets and refined snacks, but you should also watch
out for 'hidden' sugars. Check ingredients. High fructose corn syrup
and sucrose are both simple sugars that add lots of calories
and little nutrition.
6. How often should I weigh myself?
Most diet experts recommend that you weigh yourself no
more than once a week. Some go so far as to tell you to
throw out the scale entirely! A more accurate measure of your loss
is your clothing size. If your clothing is feeling looser,
you're doing great.
7. Do I really have to exercise?
You don't HAVE to, but it will be a lot harder to lose
weight if you don't. A half hour of moderate exercise daily
is the minimum activity level for healthy weight loss. You can get
it walking, running, cleaning your house - anything active
burns calories.
8. What's a calorie?
A calorie is a measure of energy. Foods are rated with
calories based on the amount of energy they provide to
the body when consumed.
9. Can I lose weight without changing my diet?
Weight loss results when you burn more calories than you
consume. If you only need to lose a small amount of weight
and your diet is generally healthy, you can lose weight by increasing
your activity level to burn more calories. If your diet
is poor, or if you're more than a few pounds overweight, you really need
to learn a new, more healthy way or eating, or you'll put
the weight back on when you go back to 'normal' eating.
10. Should I eat fish on my diet?
Unless it's expressly forbidden by your diet, absolutely.
Fish is high protein, low saturated fat, and high in omega
3 fatty acids. Some doctors recommend eating as much as 10 servings
of fish per week.
Are You Getting All Of The Nutritional Supplements
You Need?
Chances are that if you're following
any
restrictive diet plan, you may be missing some important
vitamins or minerals. Any diet that heavily emphasizes one
food group while completely restricting others is, by nature,
lacking in some essential nutrients.
The popular conception
of dieting
is that when we feed our bodies less calories than it needs,
it will
begin to take nutrition from the fat that it has stored.
While that's true, there's a basic fallacy in thinking that
your body can derive all the fuel it needs that way. Part
of the problem with that assumption is that there are many
nutrients that your body can't store. It simply uses what
it needs and excretes the rest. Those nutrients must be consumed
daily in one way or another, and if your diet doesn't allow
for that, your body will show the effects.
If you're on a diet that severely restricts your intake of any
particular food or food group, you may benefit from adding a nutritional
supplement to your daily regimen. In fact, many doctors recommend
that dieters take, at the very least, a complete, high-quality
multivitamin to make up for any deficiencies caused by the restrictions.
Other supplementation might be recommended depending on the diet
you're following.
Below are some specific suggestions
based on particular diets. The
suggestions should not be taken as medical advice, nor is
there any dosage recommendation. Instead, take it as a suggestion
to discuss your diet with a nutritionist or dietician and
ask for their advice on
appropriateness or dosage.
On any Diet:
A full-spectrum multivitamin should
be part of your daily routine no
matter what you're eating or not eating. It will help even
out the ups
and downs of your diet, and supply some valuable nutrients
that are
difficult to get.
Sunshine. It may not come in pill
form, but sunshine is one of the more
important 'nutritional supplements'. It assists the body
in making
vitamin D, which is not derived from any food source. While
doctors say
that as little as 20 minutes of full sun a day can supply
your daily
requirement of vitamin D, they also caution that it's dependent
on climate. If you live north of Philadelphia, you should
take a vitamin D
supplement to be sure that you get enough.
On a Low-Carb/High Protein Diet:
Antioxidant vitamins that are found
in vegetables are a must. Scientists are learning more and more
how important it is
that our diets contain a full spectrum of vitamins, proteins,
minerals and acids. If your diet cuts out most grains and
vegetables, you should be replacing the nutrients you miss out
on with supplementary
vitamin A, C, B (all the B's), E and K. You should also
supplement your intake of folic acid, and if you're not getting
a significant
amount of your protein from fish products, you'll need
omega 3 fatty acids found in fish oil, shellfish and flaxseed oil.
Keep in mind that the best diet is
one that gives you a balance of
nutrients, and that supplements should be exactly that -
a supplement to your daily intake of nutrition.
Health
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