Obesity…The Common Link to Most Chronic Disease
Diet and lack of adequate activity are the two main contributing factors to the obesity epidemic, so if we can start making some very simple lifestyle changes, we not only can change our physical shape, but we can also increase our body’s capability to fight illness and disease.
The fight against obesity is one that is particularly interesting to me since it’s a business I’ve been in since 1991 and probably the main reason that most people want to start exercising and dieting. Through these years, many fad diets, pills and dietary shakes, have come and gone, but a commonsense lifestyle approach to weight-loss prevails and comes out on top every time. If we get a good clear image in our mind of the root causes of obesity, (and implement a counter approach) we can get into the shape we want, without spending our money to lose weight. It’s ironic how much money we as Americans spend on consuming more food than we should and are one of the only countries in the world that will turn around and pay (diet pills, shakes etc.) to lose the fat our body stored from the extra food consumed. Marketing tactics often get us to blow money in both directions. The Standard American Diet (S.A.D.) combined with inactivity has served up a combo platter that has bad outcomes.
There are a few things I have categorized below that are prime culprits in causing the obesity epidemic…
First: If we look at what has changed in our diets and lifestyles in general, we can find the reason this is an ongoing battle for us or for the ones around us that we care about.
Example: A boy or girl is very active throughout high school through various activities, sports etc. and is consuming enough calories to sustain this activity and body weight and growth, but then after school when he or she takes an office job and continues to eat about the same amount of food, these extra unburned calories turn to fat. If a person gets inactive and their caloric burn rate is 500 calories less per day then before, this adds up! 500 calories x 30 days =15,000 calories and there are only 3,500 calories in a pound of fat, this can really add up in a year’s time!
Second: Inactivity causes our muscles to lose their tone and muscles losing their tone is like turning the heat down on a stove- it slows the muscles capability to burn calories! A loss in metabolism has more to do with a loss in muscle tone than it has to do with getting older. Exercise all parts of the body so that both upper and lower body muscles as well as core muscles can do their fair share in boosting your metabolism.
Third: Our diets are so loaded with calorie dense foods that have little or no fiber in them and this makes so that we cannot feel that we overate until its too late. Small amounts of food that have a lot of calories in only a few bites (aka calorie dense foods) can be great for when we don’t have time to eat, but only in small amounts. Deserts and sweet drinks can easily add an extra 300–500 extra calories on top of a meal that was already adequate.
Releasing fat: In order to release stored fat to be used as burnable energy, we need to keep our intake of sugary and starchy foods to a minimum. Sugar has been THE BAD culprit for a lot of the obesity epidemic and if I would have a choice of the two worst words in lending to the problem and making people feel good about eating foods that were not good for them, it would be the food label “Fat Free.”
Insulin produced as a result of sugar in the blood will lock up the release mechanisms on your fat cells. When lowering your sugar, starches and carbs for one to two days it can be beneficial for weight loss to have a cheat meal -this is for the purpose of refueling your muscle cells. If you don’t refuel in time, your body will think it is starving so it breaks down muscle for energy to slow your metabolism down and accommodate the new low-calorie schedule. If you go low on the calorie intake, don’t do it for longer than 2 days before you have a cheat day. However, on your cheat day, keep sugary food and drink to a minimum or you’ll erase your weight loss efforts.
Take away: You do not have to spend money to lose weight! The best way is to make some simple lifestyle changes, take in fewer calories, burn some extra calories through adding in exercise, drink half your body weight in ounces of water, and every few days (after your low-calorie days) have a good cheat meal to replenish the energy in your muscle cells.
Let’s keep our body from toting more weight than it was designed to carry, it will feel better, look better and help us fight chronic diseases!
