Weight Loss, Are There Any Strings Attached?

As a part of a weight loss program, many people attempt to work out, mostly by guessing, if they eat a lot of sweets, or drink a bit too much alcohol, or not eating sufficient amounts of fruit and vegetables or what may need to eat or may not. The reality is that many have no idea about diet and/or nutritional needs, eating behavior, fitness and physical exercise that are contributing to weight loss and the state of their health before they embark on a weight loss program.

When it comes to applying ourselves, in order to lose weight, a lot of us think that all it takes is simply to consume less calories and the excess weight will begin to fall off our bodies. Some times people find it difficult to tell the difference between reality and the stuff that dreams are made of and then reality hits home. It is true that one must first work out what to eat, the amount of food needs to eat and when to eat it.

However, soon is realized that weight loss it has more “strings” attached to it than simply following a diet. Weight loss or lack of it is more than just dieting. It is a combination of issues that demand your attention and include: fitness and exercise, your present state of health and emotional issues.
Let’s have a look on each issue or string, regarding weight loss.

String Number One
Diet
The first part of the goal is to work on the energy balance; a healthy ratio of calories eaten (diet) to calories burned (basic metabolic process). Instead of been in pains to lose 10 kilos in 10 days (recipe for disaster) the aim should be, in the beginning, to slow or stop weight gain. This will allow for some dietary and eating habit adjustments.

Tips to help you get started:

Begin eating healthier, regular, smaller meals. Choose alternatives to fried foods and junk foods such as healthier grilled, stir-fried foods and salads. Skip the bad fat grams and high sodium or sugar loaded content snacks, and instead choose some fruit, a cup of herbal tea or coffee. When you are thirsty don’t always look for the soda drink to quince your thirst. They are loaded with sugar and also chemicals. Water is a lot better alternative and a lot less expensive.

String Number Two
Emotional Eating Behavior
Eating in response to emotion, rather than real physical hunger is another issue why people gain weight or have great difficulty in loosing it. A reason why many of us tend to overeat, is that we learned a way to make us feel better by eating FOOD. Food and comfort are connected from our very early childhood. When sad, as a little child, mum gave us something sweet to eat and told us that will make us feel better. It worked every time for MUM.

First of all what you want to do is to distinguish when you are physically hungry and when you are just emotionally eating. To do this keep a journal and each time you eat something, make a note of the time and what was going on at the time. Are you eating in response to emotion, instead of actual physical need? Could you identify that emotion? Start to ask yourself a few crucial questions about your behavior.

String Number Three
Physical Exercise
Being unfit could lead to all kind of illnesses and health problems; including gaining excess weight that it could lead to very serious ill health. If one’s goal is to lose weight, besides adopting a healthier eating, portion balanced diet, must also eat in response to real physical hunger and not in response to emotion.

The next goal should be the accommodation of some daily physical exercise. There are many physical fitness programs that someone could engage with. The type of program that is adopted must be relevant to the individual needs. For example, in the case of weight loss, one can involve himself in a fitness program that large amounts of calories could be burned. Swimming, Power walking and Weight lifting are excellent types of activities as they not only burn calories but also build up stamina and tone or bulk up muscle.

String Number Four
State of Health
The whole thing about weight loss it’s about health, not weight, but too many people don’t seem to catch on. The message is: stop centering just on the weight loss. You will need to think in general about your health. Image only driven physical exercise and diets are not facilitating the health of an individual or a nation.

Professor Bruce Neal, A senior director at the George Institute for International Health, will argue that there is cogent evidence that weight kills: “being clinically overweight knocks off a year of life expectancy, being obese three”, he will argue. ”And people who are morbidly obese lose about eight years. I personally think his argument is definitely a food for thought!

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