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A blending of the best of the web concerning weight loss tips and how to lose weight. There is a great deal we can do to lose weight that does not involve taking risky pills and medicines.
This series also includes great lifestyle changes for enhancing fitness, increasing your resistance to disease, and healthy changes to your mental and spiritual well-being. Health begins in the mind, with positive thoughts and a positive attitude. Learn to be creative, to pray, to give thanks, to be grateful, to forgive, and create your own reality.
Obesity, defined as a body mass index (BMI) of over 30, is a physical state that simply means you have excessive body fat. Probably you have experienced the frustrations of dieting many times before if you have problems with your weight, especially since childhood. Nearly a hundred million Americans pursue a weight loss diet in any given year and as many as 95% of them regain the extra weight they had lost in the last five years.
Even worse than that, a third of dieters will gain back more weight than they lost, in danger of bouncing from one fad diet to another, and worse, bouncing up and down in weight, which is hard on your body. The traditional approach to weight problems, focusing on fad weight loss diets or weight loss drugs, have left some people with just as much weight and the additional burden of ill health.
Today, an estimated 65% of all American adults are either obese or overweight. Our culture obsesses about remaining lean and beautiful even as we grow older and fatter, but this isn’t about appearances. Obesity causes many serious and chronic health conditions such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, osteoarthritis, and gallbladder disease. Obesity contributes to perhaps 400,000 deaths every year. The amount is probably higher.
Also, the public health costs for obesity are tremendous. Based upon the findings of researchers at Harvard University, obesity is a factor in 19% of all cases of heart disease with annual health costs estimated at $30 billion dollars; it’s also a factor in nearly 60% of diabetes cases, with health costs of $9 billion per year.
Weight Loss Diet Plans
No doubt you have fallen for one or more of the weight loss diet schemes over the years, promising quick and painless weight loss. Many of these quick weight loss diet programs undermine your health, cause physical discomfort, flatulence, and ultimately lead to disappointment when you start regaining weight shortly after losing it. Fad or quick weight loss diet programs generally over-stress one type of food. This goes against the fundamental principle of good nutrition – to remain healthy one must consume a balanced diet, which includes a variety of foods.
Safe, healthy, and permanent weight reduction is what’s truly lost among the thousands of popular diet programs that exist all over the net.
Some of the weight loss diet schemes reign supreme briefly, only to fade out. While some wane from popularity due to being unproductive or unsafe, some simply lose the public’s interest. People love fads and shortcuts. There are no shortcuts in life.
But that doesn’t mean the diets are bad or don’t work. Examples of diets that have worked for many people include the South Beach Diet, Atkins diet, the Grapefruit diet, Cabbage Soup diet, the Rotation diet, Beverly Hills diet, Breatharian, Ornish Plan – the list goes on and on. The reason is because most of these diets are based on sound scientific principles, even if they’re not perfect or the whole answer.
Often, more important than which particular diet you’re on is how disciplined you are to sticking with it, eating sensibly, and exercising along with your dieting. Without regular exercise, to be honest, most diets will have limited results. When used together, exercise and diet can produce truly incredible results.
Many diets often advocate specific techniques of greatly reducing certain foods from your diet like overly-refined or processed carbohydrates (rather than eating whole grain foods), or restricting calories with the basic idea that the body has to turn to itself to get the energy it needs, essentially converting matter (your fat) into energy (lean muscle mass: ie, exercise). This burning of your body’s fat and calories is called catabolism, which typically starts with the breakdown of stored body fat. A faster metabolism increases catabolism.