weight diets
Sources: fat burner
Losing weight and getting fit preoccupied Americans in 2009:
- Nearly one out of two American women, including high school girls, were on a diet.
- Over 40 billion was spent on branded diet plans.
- Children as young as 9 to 11 years old were sometimes or very often dieting.
Yet an epidemic of obesity continues to affect more people than ever before:
- Less than a third of adults enjoyed normal weight.
- Children were two to three times more likely to be overweight today than they were 30 years ago.
Can we begin to reverse these worrisome trends in 2010?
We can if we update our old views with new ways to look at fitness in the coming year.
Old View: It's hopeless! Efforts to lose weight are inevitably doomed to fail. Even if a person manages to lose weight, he or she will eventually regain the weight and add back even more.
New View: You can do it! Strategies for making healthier choices involving diet, physical conditioning and improved self-care are available to you and can be learned. Championing this view is Kelly Brownell, Ph. D., who heads the LEARN Program for Weight Management at Yale University. And thanks to widespread access to the Internet, peer counseling in online communities is expanding. Internet support may include food and exercise diaries, weekly counseling, online weight-loss lessons and motivational phone calls.
Old View: Thin is in! Most individuals, especially women, seek to lose weight because they have internalized the media's ultrathin ideal.
New View: Healthy is in! Health is replacing vanity as the primary reason for pursuing fitness and weight loss. In 2009, researchers reported that four healthy habits could reduce or eliminate 80 percent of major medical problems: eating a healthy diet, not smoking, exercising regularly and maintaining a normal body weight. This insight, combined with rising medical costs, is triggering a focus on fitness.
Old View: If you are fat, you are a bad person. Obesity is a personal problem caused by a lack of willpower.
New View: Obesity is a disease that is treatable. The cost of providing medical care per person has skyrocketed from $356 in 1970 to $8,160 in 2009. Moreover, in 2009, the cost of treating obesity-related medical problems reached $147 billion. Given these costs, obesity has become a public health concern requiring a multifaceted community-based approach. In response, community leaders in Albert Lea, Minnesota, implemented a comprehensive lifestyle program to improve the health and longevity of the city's residents. To increase employee productivity and reduce health insurance costs and absenteeism, corporate wellness programs are proliferating.
Old View: Low-fat diets are required to lose weight. Eating fat makes a person fat. To lose weight, a dieter needs to stick with low- or no-fat foods.
New View: Total calories actually determine weight. The total calories consumed by a person, whether from carbs, fats or proteins, determines weight. Since the goal is a balanced diet, the Mediterranean diet, which includes healthy fats, is recommended by the Mayo Clinic and the American Heart Association as a nutritionally sound and healthy eating plan. Nuts, which until recently were on dieters' “do not eat” lists, are making a comeback because of their health benefits, especially almonds, walnuts, cashews, pecans and macadamia nuts. Momentum is growing for mandating information on the caloric content of fast foods and food products.
Photo courtesy of everystockphoto.com
Old View: Medical intervention is needed. Weight-loss drugs or bariatric surgery can solve the problem of surplus pounds for many people, and advances in medicine can address obesity-related problems such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke and cancer.
New View: A healthy lifestyle is the best way. Prevention, rather than treatment of obesity-related medical problems, will move to the forefront because of the rising cost of medical insurance and healthcare. While the number of bariatric surgeries will continue to skyrocket, family physicians will increasingly write exercise prescriptions in lieu of drug prescriptions.
Old View: Ignore overweight children. Children who are overweight will outgrow their chubbiness, so kids' surplus pounds can be ignored.
New View: Help overweight children now! Dr. Robert Murray, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on School Health, is alarmed that nearly half of kids and teens are overweight or obese and, as a consequence, children's life expectancies are lower than their parents'. Treating childhood obesity is a serious medical problem that if ignored will place the child at risk for heart disease, diabetes and other serious medical conditions.
Old View: Don't ask, don't tell. Asking employees to modify their unhealthful behavior is an invasion of privacy and violates employees' right to choose their own lifestyle.
New View: Offer help, incentives and access to experts. In 2008, medical insurance premiums reached a record $15,609 for a family of four. Employers are proactively seeking to reduce costs (medical insurance, workers' compensation claims and absenteeism) by restructuring benefit programs. In increasing numbers, employees are being offered incentives to quit smoking or lose weight. They face penalties if they refuse to change habits that drive up the cost of healthcare.
Old View: Hard-core exercise one hour daily. Going to a gym daily for a 60-minute workout on a treadmill and resistance equipment is the best way to exercise.
New View: Diversity, fun and enjoyment. Thanks to popular television programs, dancing for fitness is back, particularly Zumba, a one-hour workout that fuses Latin rhythms with calorie-burning dance movements. Exergaming, such as Wii and Dance Dance Revolution, continues to grow in popularity with young and old alike. Michelle Obama has made the Hula-Hoop popular once again. The use of technologically sophisticated feedback gadgets, from pedometers to heart monitors, will expand. To attract members to the gym during tough economic times, more fitness centers will offer cardio cinema so members can watch a movie while exercising.
Will we continue to get fatter until 2018 when, according to research by Kenneth Thorpe, PhD, of Emory University, 40 percent of us will be obese (and another 33 percent overweight)?
If we are to succeed in reversing the obesity trends and mounting medical care costs, we'll have to find new approaches. And the more readily we learn from the past and update our understanding of the complex nature and causes of obesity, the more quickly we can successfully move into a healthy future.
In the lives of young people at high risk for developing serious mental illness, heading off that first psychotic episode can mean a world of difference. A new study has found that for a year after it was completed,12 weeks of dietary supplementation with Omega-3 fish oil reduced progression to full-blown psychosis in a large group of adolescents and young adults.
The study subjects were young people who did not yet meet the criteria for full-blown mental illness, but whose grip on reality had begun to come loose, prompting them to seek psychiatric care.
At the same time, Omega-3 long-chain fatty acids–found in a range of ocean-going fish and edible sea life–improved many of the symptoms that identified these young patients as likely schizophrenics and bipolar disorder sufferers. Among the 81 young patients under observation for psychosis in an Austrian hospital, those taking fish oil supplements for two weeks showed fewer signs of disorganized or delusional thinking, more motivation, and better overall functioning than those in a comparison group, who got psychotherapy alone.
For as long as a year after their diets were supplemented by 12-weeks of fish oil capsules, patients in the intervention group continued to function better, have fewer symptoms, and were less likely to suffer a psychotic episode than those who did not get the fish oil. Roughly 5% of those on fish oil went on to develop full-blown psychosis during the study period, versus 28% of those who got psychotherapy alone.
Psychiatrists are actively debating how–and how aggressively–to treat patients with so-called "pro-dromal" signs of mental illness, or symptoms that are considered warning signs of full-blown illness to come. Studies, among them some funded by the companies that make antipsychotic medications, have found preliminary evidence that prescribing antipsychotic medication for early symptoms can head off full-blown psychosis. But, for adolescents especially, even brief use of the medications in question poses significant risks of weight gain and metabolic changes–not to mention the stigma associated with identification as a patient with a chronic mental condition.
In a measure of relative effectiveness, the present study found that fish oil supplements–which come with a wide range of unrelated health benefits (among them cardiovascular disease prevention) and no more serious side effects than "fish burps," were as effective at preventing psychotic episodes as antipsychotic medications.
– Melissa Healy
Want to lose weight quickly? It might not be such a good idea to chase after rapid weight loss and fad diets. While there are literally thousands of health magazines and weight loss books promising easy and rapid weight loss, health researchers and dieting experts urge dieters not to follow such advice. “Our desire for quick and painless weight loss has led to many unhealthy diets marketed by the weight loss industry,” says the University of Iowa's Hospitals & Clinics guide (source).
“Quick weight loss, without real change in eating habits and exercise, will not last,” says the University of Iowa. “It is actually more unhealthy to yo-yo, meaning lose, gain, lose, and regain weight, than it is to remain overweight. In addition, each time the body yo-yos, muscle is lost, fat is gained, and the body's metabolism becomes less efficient to burn fat. This makes it even harder to lose weight the next time” (source).
In this health and dieting guide, I'll show you some basic tips for finding a healthy, balanced diet that can help you lose weight in a manner that's not just good for your body but is also easy to maintain.
Wanting to lose weight but afraid of the consequences? Maybe this is because you are thinking that losing weight would consider buying drugs or pills or includes expensive surgeries that might get wrong. Yes! There are lots of ways on how to lose weight but is it a safe weight loss? Do not be fooled with the so many products in the market now that tells you it is a safe way of losing weight. The truth is they are not telling you the side effects. They are only for your money not for your health.
Try to look for weight loss programs that are natural. There are lots today all you have to do is to search for it. The following are very good tips on how for you to be sure to lose weight not only correctly but effectively.
Don't do the fad. All about fad diets. This kind of diet is not natural; in fact it will tell you to cut your vitamins and nutrients in your diet just to lose weight. You might be skinny or thin when time goes by but you also are not healthy. Maintaining the things you need will allow you to have a better lifestyle while losing weight.
Be vigilant: You also need to consider your health. There are some weight loss programs that will help you monitor your needs. Be sure that the program you are using will not harm you like if you have high blood pressure make sure this won't affect you.
Know your new lifestyle: You really need to change your lifestyle in order for you to be successful in your safe weight loss program. Choose the right one for you that you also like. It will be easy for you to adjust to your new lifestyle for this is what you like.
Don't go overboard. You need to stick to your program don't over do. Don't go beyond the limits of your program and follow everything. You need to be extra careful on this, usually people tend to over do because they think it will make the weight loss faster. This is wrong!
Don't forget to exercise. A regular exercise will not only help you burn calories fast but this is also beneficial to your health. The best way to do this is to look for an exercise buddy. You can not deny the fact that exercising alone is boring. With this few tips you will be enjoying not only a nice figure but more likely a healthier life.
Gregory Parker