Weight Loss with Sohu12

ght (c) 2009 Neal Spruce

One factor determines your weight …calories

Controlling your weight comes down to one thing - managing calories. Your body is a complex machine that requires fuel to run your metabolism and perform all movement. Calories from the food and beverages you consume provide this fuel. If you burn all the fuel you take in, your weight will remain stable. If you end up with excess fuel that isn’t burned, it will be stored as body fat and your weight will increase. Similarly, if you burn more fuel than you take in, you’ll lose weight - it’s that simple. By managing the calories you take in and the calories you burn, you can successfully control your weight.

So why have the majority of adults become overweight or obese in recent decades? Each has taken in more fuel than the body burns mostly as a result of lifestyle changes. Manual labor is now performed by machines and computers. Very few calories are burned during our daily routine because work, transportation, recreation and entertainment are mostly sedentary. People eat out more frequently and enticing food is offered everywhere in large quantities, day or night. Because people have a natural tendency to preserve energy and eat even when we’re not hungry, modern lifestyle easily leads to unburned fuel and unwanted weight gain.

Beware of the creeping waistline

Experts predict nine out of ten people will be overweight or obese at some point in their lifetime. However, most people don’t realize they’re becoming overweight because it happens fairly slowly. The average yearly weight gain among adults is one to three pounds. This means most people are off by only 20 to 30 calories a day. Small changes such as skipping those last few bites or taking 200-300 extra steps per day will keep you trim and away from weight loss diets. But keep in mind as you get older, you’re likely to burn fewer calories because your daily routine changes. This means you need to start thinking about your caloric intake and your level of physical activity. And to keep your weight in check, you’ll need to get on the scale or measure your waistline more than once a year.

Boost your calorie IQ

One of the most effective weight control tools is tracking what you eat. An old fashioned pen and paper work just fine but online trackers also offer support and feedback. After a week or so, you’ll be amazed at how much you learn and your calorie IQ will get a huge boost. Those who consistently track what they eat lose more weight and are more successful at keeping the weight off. Doing so will help you decide where to cut back - skip a regular 20 ounce soda and save 250 calories, switch from whole milk to skim milk and save 50 calories a cup, go for regular coffee instead of a regular blended drink and save 300 calories. If you can’t face cutting all of your favorites out of your diet, eating smaller portions is an acceptable compromise. The small steps are often the ones which have the biggest effect, since they’re easier to stick with. Check your surroundings

Scientific studies reveal that your surroundings influence the amount we eat. The bigger the portions, the more you’ll eat. It’s hard to stay away from favorite foods when they’re right in front of you. If you’re in a social setting, at a buffet or drinking alcohol, you’ll probably eat more. If you watch TV while you eat, you’ll overeat. So control your environment by limiting portion sizes, keeping tempting foods out of sight (and out of mind) and game planning before social events. For instance, you may decide to eat or exercise before the party. In any case, be conscious of your environment otherwise you’ll take in more calories without even noticing it.

Step up your activity level

Every calorie you consume or have stored on your body can be burned through activity. If weight control is the goal, step up your activity level. Start by determining how active you are by using a pedometer to measure the steps you take. Gradually increase your daily steps any way you can - short walks, more chores, pacing while watching TV or talking on the phone and of course, climbing stairs at every opportunity. If you prefer the gym, that’s fine too as long as you’re burning more calories by working harder or adding to your regular workouts. Keep in mind that the more active you are, the more fuel your body burns. This means you can speed up your weight loss efforts or choose to eat more.

Monitor your progress and adjust

Monitor your progress at least once a week by weighing in or taking your circumference measurements. For accuracy purposes, it’s best to check your weight at the same time of day with the same clothing. Also, consider weighing in mid week because weight fluctuations tend to occur after a weekend of dining out or indulging. Because weight can fluctuate on any given day, judge your progress over time. If your results aren’t moving in the right direction after any two to three week period, you’ll need to adjust. Reduce the calories you take in or increase movement until you make progress.

Set goals and get support

Set a short term and long term goal and write them down. In doing so, you make a commitment to yourself which helps propel you into immediate action. Healthy weight loss for most people is half a pound to two pounds per week but the more weight you have to lose, the faster you can lose it. One pound of body fat contains approximately 3,500 calories. The data below shows you how many calories you’ll have to cut out of your diet or burn off through exercise to reach your weight loss goals.

Weekly weight loss goal ½ lb 1 lb 1.5 lb 2 lb

Average daily calorie deficit 250 500 750 1000
(# to reduce or burn above maintenance)

Finally, get support from a friend, family member or from our online community. The key to weight control is managing calories, and by staying persistent and consistent you’ll eventually reach your goal.

References –
Vasan RS, Pencina MJ, Cobain M, Freiberg MS, D’Agostino RB. Estimated risks for developing obesity in the Framingham Heart Study. Ann Intern Med. 2005 Oct 4;143(7):473-80.

Williamson DF, Kahn HS, Byers T. The 10-year incidence of obesity and major weight gain in black and white U.S. women aged 35-55. Am J Clin Nutr. 1991;53:1515S-1518S.

Zhang Q, Wang Y. Trends in the Association between Obesity and Socioeconomic Status in U.S. Adults:1971-2000. Obes Res. 2004;12:1622-32.

Hollis JF, Gullion CM, Stevens VJ, Brantley PJ, Appel LJ, Ard JD, Champagne CM, Dalcin A, Erlinger TP, Funk K, Laferriere D, Lin PH, Loria CM, Samuel-Hodge C, Vollmer WM, Svetkey LP, Weight Loss Maintenance Trial Research Group. Weight loss during the intensive intervention phase of the weight-loss maintenance trial. Am J Prev Med. 2008 Aug;35(2):118-26.

Kruger J, Blanck HM, Gillespie C. Dietary and physical activity behaviors among adults successful at weight loss maintenance. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2006;3:17.

Wansink B, Painter JE, North J. Bottomless bowls: why visual cues of portion size may influence intake. Obes Res. 2005 Jan;13(1):93-100.

Wansink B. Environmental factors that increase the food intake and consumption volume of unknowing consumers. Annu Rev Nutr. 2004;24:455-79. Review.

Every day we are bombarded with overweight and obesity statistics and no country misses out. As a result many of us obsess on the subject and it’s no wonder. To some people a pound or two becomes a huge disaster and the reason is people are so critical of themselves. On the other hand there are those who simply take the other road when faced with weight gain, they simply resign themselves to being overweight.

The above perspectives, both of them, are not very productive to controlling your ballooning weight. You need to develop important solid weight control strategies if you are going to rid yourself of those extra pounds. Are you one of those parents who dog their children with advice about reaching their goals? I can just hear you now, “just do a little each day and before you know it you will have achieved you goal”. Great advice but how about you take a little of it, a page out of your own book if you will, when you are planning your own weight control program.

It may be the case that you only have a few pounds to loose, be realistic about it all. Don’t fret. Scrap that extra little butter, add as much fruit and veges as possible. In a week or two those pounds will have slowly disappeared and you shape will show it.

If by chance you have had the unfortunate event of gaining some 20 to 4o pounds, you will most certainly need to be much more aggressive in you weight control program. As I said before, don’t fret. In this case you will need to plan to loose your excess weight over a period of months instead of weeks and if you use a sensible approach to this goal, you’re far more likely to be able to keep the weight off in the years to come.

If your goal is to loose say 40 pounds plan to do it over a period of six months. Think just how many years it took you to gain those pounds so six months is not a long period in comparison, not long at all to get that fabulous figure. If spread over the six months, that’s about 7 pounds a month. Pardon the pun but that’s a piece of cake.

Please, take a close look at your eating habits, where is it that you go wrong so often? Is it your passion for fast greasy foods such as fries and hamburgers? Do you over eat when stressed for instance? When you know what you are doing wrong then tackle the worst one first. The deletion of fast food calories from your diet will easily result in the loss of a few pounds each month. Cookies are a no brainer, forget them. Go for the leaner meats, veges and fruits and low calorie alternatives for faster results. Drinking juices instead of soda drinks is such a boon to any weight loss program.

The keys in any weight control regime are certainly consistency, moderation and a positive attitude. Weight yourself once a week only and make sure you log the results. Keep track of what you consume, if at the end of the month your observations show a loss of 7 pounds you have certainly succeeded. Didn’t make your goal, then look at your recorded menus and it may be as simple as cutting the portion sizes for the next month, remember don’t fret.

This is the hard bit for so many people, Daily Exercise. It is essentials to reaching your objective. It’s a simple fact; exercise burns calories so choose activities that burn big calorie numbers if you can cope.

Your weight control is in no other hands but yours. Follow a sensible approach that suites you and you will soon be looking good.

In the United States one fourth of the overall population of teenagers and children are found to be obese. Obesity, when not treated properly and as early as possible, can be carried on to teen years, and eventually, to adult years.If you are concerned for your children’s future, you know that obesity is a serious matter to be considered now. More than controlling what they eat or what they do, you need to consider a weight control program for children to treat the matter before it gets worse.

Obesity can lead to some chronic diseases, such as heart failure and diabetes. So, instead of giving in to your children’s craving of sugar-loaded and fattening foods or unhealthy habits of being inactive most of the day, start looking for a good weight control program for children. This is imperative if you don’t want to see your children suffering from chronic diseases and be plagued with expensive hospital treatments.

While trying to get your obese child to eat the right healthy foods, just think of it as a life and death matter, which is a definite possibility if not given the right treatment. There are many approaches available for you to successfully lure your children to get treated, to eat healthily, and live normally, just like other healthy children.

When choosing a diet or weight control program for children, you need to be very careful. If you are thinking you can apply an adult kind of diet, it isn’t going to treat the obesity problem of your child. This is because children basically need different kinds of nutrition as you do.

Weight control programs for adults are different from weight control programs for children.Weight control programs with which children are subjected to focuses on lowering weight gain while they are growing. It emphasizes the need of resorting to healthy eating habits as well as active lifestyle rather than just being in front of the television or computer sets all the time.

When it comes to encouraging your obese child into undergoing a specific weight control program, it is important that you show your support and love for them. Make sure you are clear about why you are very much concerned over their weight,health and future well-being.

Also, it is important that you guide them all throughout their childhood to teen years and even from teen to adult years. It is also a big plus that will go a long way in treating childhood obesity problems if you,the parent or guardian can be a good role model to them. From your eating habits to phycial activities and all around healthy living ways.

One diabetic is very sensitive to diabetes-weight control link. It’s true that everybody should care about weight control. But, this topic is extremely more important to diabetics.

Actually, there is a ‘confusion’ regarding weight control. In fact, diabetics face weight loss and gain problems. And they are asking why and how is this possible. This is true for both type 1 and 2 diabetics.

So, if you have type1 diabetes, at the beginning, when you first are diagnosed with diabetes, you may face a sudden weight loss. After beginning to take insulin as treatment of choice in your case, you begin to gain weight. And you are wondering why.

At first, your body tries to eliminate the excessive sugar through urine together with the calories it may need. That is why you face a sudden weight loss.

But after taking insulin, you start to face weight gain problems, because insulin delights to store fats in your body. On the other hand, due to ‘craving syndrome’, you begin to have snacks to avoid hypoglycemia. But this leads to weight gain too.

Meanwhile, type 2 diabetics most of the time are facing weight gain problems. And this is due to a bad diabetes management. Maybe at the beginning they may suddenly lose weight due to the same factors as for type 1 diabetics. There are many contradictory theories on this theme.

The most important thing is that type 2 diabetics, are suffering from obesity. And this is their first great enemy to be eliminated. But this is not the only one. Together with other ‘bad’ lifestyle habits, it contributes to worsen diabetes symptoms.

Now, as a diabetic you should keep your diabetes under control considering even diabetes-weight control link. This not only helps you to keep blood sugar levels at normal range, but keeps you away from many other disorders you may face, such as heart disease, stroke or even death.

Also, all the treatments you are taking to manage diabetes can face ‘zero’ resistance, and can work better to lower your blood sugar levels.

Any weight management program whether you are aware of it or not, will need to trigger the basic hormones that greatly affect our metabolism. This data can be found in scattered bits and pieces and sometimes the relationships are not explained too clearly. I will try to offer a brief but clear explanation of the hormones involved in weight loss as well as weight gain.

One of the primary hormones that affect weight management is insulin. Insulin is a blood sugar regulator. High carbohydrate intake leads to higher blood sugar levels. This leads to an increase of insulin output by the body. Insulin production is the body’s natural response to excessively high sugar levels in the blood. If that sugar is not getting converted into energy fast enough to maintain safe levels in the blood, insulin will resort to an alternate to that conversion to energy. This results in the conversion of that blood sugar into fat that will be stored by the body.

The term lipogenic refers to that quality of being fat producing. In addition to insulin being lipogenic, it also bears another quality that means bad news to weight loss programs. Insulin is also antilipolytic. This simply means that it naturally works to fight against the breakdown of fat. As you now see, a diet that stimulates high insulin output will certainly be encouraging natural body responses that are counter productive to your goal of losing weight.

When the body is stressed due to a variety of reasons, insulin production also increases in order to stimulate the production of cortisol, our stress hormone. The body then responds to high cortisol by lowering the levels of the hormone dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA). This hormone is very influential in the production of muscle. Producing more muscle than fat is our ultimate goal.

Chronic stress stimulates fat cells into storing fat. Fat cells located in the abdominal wall, characteristically possess more cortisol receptors on their cell membranes. So in turn, stress will encourage these cells to retain more fat.

Leptin is produced by adipose tissue and leptin binds to nucleus cells of the hypothalamus, a region of the brain known as the “satiety center.” Binding of leptin to this nucleus tells the brain that the body has had enough to eat thus providing the sensation of satiety. In a small number of humans, homozygous mutations for the leptin gene are present that stimulate a constant demand for food. This typically leads to severe obesity. Unfortunately this condition often compounds itself. As the body produces greater and greater quantities of leptin to fulfill the requirements of the process it can also cause higher tolerances and reduced efficiency. Although complete manipulation of this hormone has yet to be accomplished, there have been some short term benefits experienced by the administration of recombinant human leptin by way of injection.

The hormone serotonin, a neurotransmitter in the brain made from the amino acids found in proteins. Like leptin, it also sends messages that body is satisfied and that we have eaten sufficient to meet our body’s needs. Low serotonin levels cause depression, obesity, lethargy, and a greater desire for refined carbohydrates. Low levels of serotonin leads to overeating because the brain believes the body is starving. A diet that restricts protein-rich calories can be one reason for low serotonin levels. Some people that produce very high levels of cortisol also tend to experience lower serotonin levels.

Another glandular condition known as hypothyroidism may affect as high as 30 percent of the population. Low thyroid reduces our fat burning rate and causes fatigue, inhibiting energy levels. Your thyroid is small gland at the base of your neck that controls energy flow. A shortage of thyroid hormones makes you sluggish at every level. Slowed digestion causes constipation, sluggish metabolism leads to weight gain and elevated cholesterol levels. The brain also needs thyroid hormones to stimulate the production of hormones like serotonin that we talked about earlier. Hypothyroidism can lead to depression and lethargy and weight gain.

Often forgotten in the discussion of weight loss and hormones, testosterone and estrogens may be forgotten. These are typically male, female hormones. The production of these hormones tends to fall off with age. The male hormone, testosterone stimulates high energy and associated fat burning benefits. On the other hand the female hormone estrogens actually encourage the storage of fat. A decrease in estrogens levels therefore would seem beneficial in your weight loss program. Unfortunately a number of conditions call for the addition of estrogens to ease women through the menopause process. Although beneficial in that affect, it will be counter-productive to weight loss or weight control efforts.

As you can see, a number of hormones play a part in weight control. Some of these hormones interact with each other. Some hormones can be manipulated with drugs or by careful meal planning. Others hormones such as leptin are subject to manipulation. The ultimate solution is a careful selection of food groups and meal planning.