Biggest Loser - Weight loss blog

According to the latest research, teenage obesity is increasing at an unmatched pace worldwide. The rate at which obesity is rising has jolted the medical fraternity into action. Now that around 15% of the children below the age of 15 are obese, doctors have taken this as a wake up call that requires speedy and timely action.

Causes of teenage obesity
Various factors cause obesity; however, the main factors that contribute to obesity are overeating, lack of physical activity and excessive TV viewing. If you eat and drink more than your body needs, the excess fat is stored in your body. Lack of physical activity only adds to the problem. Most television studies have shown that children, who have televisions in their bedrooms, have a tendency to eat more. This leads to lack of physical activity and worsens the problem.

How to avoid/treat teenage obesity
The best method of treating or preventing obesity is to reverse the causes of obesity. Teenagers should eat a healthy diet and avoid eating junk foods, which is easily available these days. They should exercise regularly and stay active throughout the day. Teens should get involved in more activities that would help them maintain their fitness levels as well as burn the stored fat on a regular basis. Most importantly, they should avoid watching TV for longer durations and snacking in between meals.

How can teenage obesity be treated?
Most children inculcate unhealthy lifestyle habits from their parents. This is why parents have an important role to play in the lives of their children. They should guide their children towards healthy lifestyle choices. Several studies have revealed that a balanced diet ranks low on the glycemic index. This means that it is helpful in reducing teenage obesity. Parents should guide their children towards healthy diets and regular exercise for adequate weight loss. Moreover, it’s obligatory for parents to explain to their children, the risks and problems associated with obesity and the benefits of losing weight. If this is not possible, parents can seek medical treatment where the doctor is most likely to prescribe Xenical. This treatment can help children live a healthy and happy life.

Visceral fat is the abdominal fat surrounding the most vital internal organs of your body. It is sometimes mistaken as “beer belly”.

Visceral fat is more dangerous than subcutaneous fat as it can lead to some life threatening health issues like heart strokes, other heart diseases, diabetes etc. As visceral fat is deep embedded within body, so it can only be detected with help of imaging techniques like MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) to see how much of visceral fat is present.

Men are more likely to accumulate visceral fat whereas women have a tendency to store fat subcutaneously. Lowering the levels of visceral fat in your body can substantially decrease the chances of diabetes and related health problems.

In order to get rid of harmful visceral fats, specific diet pattern (reducing saturated fats can reduce visceral fats) and regular exercise regimen is a must. Waist slimming exercises with fat burner foods would be good choice to pave way to longer, slimmer and healthier life! Also, Orlistat is one of the very few medications which actually work to result in significant loss of visceral fats from your body. So if you are one of the motivated patients, Orlistat is safe and effective treatment for you.

If you love junk food, you are the ideal candidate for obesity. Studies continue to prove that those who have no control over the amount of junk food they consume are prone to obesity.

Junk food and obesity
Junk food and obesity are partners in crime. Typically, junk food is the kind of food that has high amount of calories, salt, fat and sugar. It’s termed junk, because it does not have any nutritional value. The reason why it’s popular is that it’s tasty and can become very addictive. People can be as addicted to junk food as they can to cigarettes or alcohol.

The junk food addiction
When you eat food with high fat content and sugar, it works on your brain like a painkiller. The more you eat, the more you want it. The fact that it offers an ‘empty calorie’ effect is another reason behind its addiction. The immediate effect of eating junk food is one of fullness and satisfaction, but after some time you begin to feel hungry again and want another helping of junk food. As a result, you are taking in more calories than your body can actually metabolize, which leads to the accumulation of fat deposits in your body.

The subtle effect
Unlike other addictions, junk food has a subtle effect on your body. As soon as you eat junk food, you don’t feel your arteries clogging up. Or you don’t get up the next day with excessive fat deposits in the body. As you continue eating junk food, your internal organs become fat and weak. This is the reason why you feel tired, depressed and sick all the time. But, you don’t realize this fact until it’s too late and you have become obese.

So, it’s important that you avoid junk food like the plague and if you actually can’t do without it, make sure that you restrict its intake.

Excessive weight gain is a common condition these days. The reasons are many; one of the reasons for weight gain is overeating; and if you are looking for a solution for your weighty issues, tracking food habits will help immeasurably.

Why do some people overeat?
You and I both have overeaten at some point of time or the other in our lives. As a one off case, overeating doesn’t lead to weight gain. But, if you routinely overeat than weight gain will come knocking at your doors. So, the question is, why do people overeat? Here are a few triggers that are responsible for overeating.

• Boredom: Some people eat because they have nothing better to do. Eating seems to give them a purpose in life. It’s also a way of helping pass the time.
• Depression and stress: People eat to feel good. If you are depressed, you are looking for ways to feel good and positive. Eating emerges as one of the ways to feel satisfied with your lot in life. A person suffering from stress is also looking at reducing stress through eating.
• Eating disorders: A person might be suffering from an eating disorder, which means you have no control over the kind of food you eat and also your food intake.

If you are overeating, there is a good chance that you are doing it because of the triggers mentioned above.

Tracking food habits – Help weight loss
If you want to lose weight, you need start tracking your food habits. Keep a track of what you eat; what is good and what is bad. Keeping track of what you eat will help you come up with a healthy eating plan and also make sure that you stick to it. More importantly, knowing what you eat and when you eat, will also help you set weight loss goals. The best way to keep track of your eating habits is to maintain a journal. Don’t forget to write in the details of the meal. This will help you understand your food habits better as well as help you in your endeavour to lose weight.

Weight loss is a simple process of burning more calories than you consume. You must have heard it many times – to lose weight, you need to exercise regularly and monitor your diet so that you burn more calories than you eat. There are possibilities that despite of working out rigorously over last few months, you are still not able to lose extra pounds. Do not despair, there are some facts about exercise and weight loss which you may need to know.

Exercise is not all about weight loss but a part of the whole story. Exercise helps with weight loss only when done consistently but in specific volume. A lot of people fail to achieve any meaningful even after months of trying due to slow metabolism. In that case, you need to work out on improving metabolic rate to achieve weight loss. Few exercises simply don’t help with increasing metabolic rate because you just don’t get to burn enough calories with them and weight loss is all about burning more calories.

Apart from metabolism, genes and age can also be reasons if you are not able to lose weight with conventional exercise programs.

Exercise is as important for weight maintenance as it is for losing weight.

Before you start with any weight loss and exercise program, be sure to consult with your doctor. A doctor would be able to recommend exercise regimen that would be best for you.

If you have excess weight or are obese, you need to get started on a weight loss plan right away. There is also a good chance that you might be suffering from associated health risks like heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure or high levels of cholesterol. This is why you need to lose weight and that too without wasting any time.

Reduce calorie intake for weight loss
Start counting your calories to achieve effective weight loss. Consult a health expert to know just how many calories are suitable for your overweight body. Also, learn about ways and means to cut down on your caloric intake and how this reduction is going to impact your health. When it comes to cutting down on calories, you need to maintain a perfect balance between a high caloric count and low caloric count. Some people might consider cutting down as many calories as they can, but this can have a detrimental affect on their body.

Smart nutrition plan for successful weight loss
So what is smart nutrition all about? Well, even if you are overweight or suffer from obesity, you still need to eat. There are some enthusiastic dieticians who might ask you to eat minimally and control your hunger pangs. But a smart nutrition plan is all about cutting down on non-essentials and providing your body with essential nutrients that are going to improve its overall functioning. An example of this can be healthy snacking. Obese people can snack as much or as less as the next person. But while someone else is eating those greasy fries, a smart nutritional plan will mean that the obese person will snack on fruits rather than fatty fries.

Both, a reduced calorie diet and a smart nutritional plan are not all about cutting down on the amount of food that you eat. It’s more about eating right and making sure that you stay away from all kinds of unhealthy food.

‘Dieting’ does not necessarily mean eating less to lose weight; although, this word is primarily associated with weight loss. But the word ‘diet’ also describes the food that you normally consume on a day to day basis. The aim is to improve your day to day diet by incorporating gradual but permanent changes so that you lose weight while still remaining healthy; restricting calorie intake may not always give you the desired results.

Low calorie and fad diets could have serious health implications — insufficient vitamin and nutritional intake, lethargy, reduced metabolism, hormonal effects and even dehydration. Dieters are commonly known to experience intense feelings of hunger and deprivation; this then leads to ‘binge’ eating over time.

Here are a few tips on how you can cut calories sensibly without ‘dieting’ or feeling deprived.

• Research shows that recording exercise and food intake is one of the best predictors of successful weight loss
• Understand your eating patterns as well as eating triggers
• Learn how to make sensible nutritional changes
• Read food labels as this is the key to healthy portion sizes
• Measure portion sizes
• Hold the fat; fats from olive oil and canola are healthy. Similarly, nuts are nutritious and healthy to eat but in moderation
• Limit the amount of oil used by using non-stick pans
• Skimp on butters, dressings and creams, using just enough for taste
• Blot out the fat from greasy foods
• Spice up foods, flavour with red peppers or chilli peppers; this helps boost metabolism

It is believed that making changes to your diet, that is, replacing high-fat and high-calorie foods with fruits and vegetables that are high in volume, fibre and nutrients, can in fact make you feel full faster. Similarly, whole foods are low in calories but loaded with good health

Alcohol is a favourite pastime for most people; but alcohol contains 7 calories per gram, as well as lowers self-control when a person eats after drinking in excess. So it makes good sense to limit your alcohol intake or drink in moderation after a meal.

Water is the elixir of life! Drinking water throughout the day helps curb your appetite, burns calories and gives body at least 10 minutes more energy for exercise. Lowered water levels in your body can slow down your metabolism.

For a healthy lifestyle, follow a diet that is easy to stick with, try incorporating some or all of these easy strategies to reduce calories without giving up the pleasures of eating.