Basic Approaches To Weight Management

Being over weight is usually being 20 percent or more over the normal weight for his or her age, sex, build, and height. According to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, a person's weight is healthy if it falls within the acceptable range for his or her height and age; if the pattern of fat distribution does not place the person at increased risk for certain diseases; and if the person has no medical problem for which a physician recommends that he or she lose weight.

What is important, is not how much a person weighs, but the percentage of body fat. For women, fat can account for as much as 25 percent of body weight; 17 percent is a healthy percentage for men. Females are designed biologically to carry a higher proportion of fat tissue to ensure that there is plenty of food for pregnancy and nursing, even if food is scarce.

On average, we humans carry around 30 to 40 billion fat cells. All those excess calories we don't use up as immediate energy, are stored as fat. If we lived in ancient times, and had to still hunt and gather food, those stores of fat would be essential for our survival in times of famine.

Some researchers even believe that our seemingly innate love of high-calorie food may be a remnant of a survival tactic from ancient times, when we needed to store food for energy. But today, storing energy as fat isn't necessary for most people. Most people wait maybe 3 to 4 hours between meals and snacks and instead of remaining a survival mechanism, the stored fat is now more likely to have a negative effect on health. As fat accumulates, it crowds the space occupied by the internal organs, and puts a lot of stress on extremities and organs causing or complicating many physical problems.

Being overweight can increase the body's resistance to insulin and can make the body more susceptible to infection, and increases the chances of developing diabetes, gallbladder disease, high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, kidney disease, stroke, and other serious health problems that can result in premature death.

The most common causes of obesity are poor diet and/or eating habits and a lack of exercise. Other factors that can lead to obesity include glandular malfunctions, diabetes, hypoglycemia, emotional tension, boredom and a simple love of food. Obesity has also been linked to food sensitivities and/or allergies. Food your body cannot use or that is a poison to your system is stored in the tissues and causes water retention. Ironically, poor nutrition may be an important factor in obesity. When there is inadequate intake of certain essential nutrients, fat is not easily or adequately burned and can accumulate in the body.

Here are some basic approaches to weight management:

*Reduce caloric intake to 1,200 calories per day.

*Exercise ? Walk, Swim, Dance, Jump, Ride a Bike ? MOVE!

*Do not use diuretic herbs and nutrients to reduce water ? this is a temporary weight loss and throws off your electrolytes which can slow your metabolism.

*The use of lipotropic vitamins, which have the ability to reduce cholesterol and fat, works only is the diet is low fat and low glycemic.

*Eliminate all white flour, white sugar, white salt and white rice from your diet. All these ingredients breakdown very quickly in the system, and overloads the body with carbohydrates that the body cannot use at once, so it is converted to fat and stored.

*Replaced processed ingredients with ingredients that not only take longer for the system to break down, but provide better levels of nutrients also

*Whole wheat flour offers the body lecithin, antioxidants, fiber and vitamins that normal processing eliminates. FlourBlend is a blend of whole flours, vitamins, minerals, herbs and fibers designed to lower cholesterol and gives half the carbohydrates of normal processed white flour, with more protein and fiber.

*Stay away from artificial sweeteners, these will only make you hungry and does cause some damage to the liver or pancreas. Try our Natural SugarBlend, which offers better taste and performance in cooking, because it is natural and slow absorbing, keeps the blood sugar steady, increases the uptake of calcium and aids in colon health.

*Using Sea Salt, and mineral salt can be a better alternative to regular table salt. You use less and crave salt less if you use these e alternatives, you also receive the benefits of trace minerals in trace amounts, and these trace minerals can help in preventing some stroke and cardiac problems.

*Brown rice offers a great many benefits to the system, and paired with beans, nuts, seeds and whole grains, provides a complete protein for the body to use. Brown rice also is a rich antioxidant, one of the best the world has to offer. It also provides lecithin and an abundance of wonderful fiber that aids the small intestine, the colon and the large intestine.

Permanent weight loss requires a lifetime commitment to a healthier lifestyle in general.

D.S. Epperson is the top formulator for Home Blend Gourmet / South Pacific Health, a leader in the functional food industry in the U.S. With 20 years of experience in Nutritional Biochemistry, she has written reference books on botanicals and manufacturing of medicines from botanicals, and published articles on health, fitness and foods. She has formulated over 240 formulas and inventions for health, the environment and agricultural uses, and continues to research and study microbial advantages in nutraceuticals and functional foods. For more information or to view the articles that she has written: http://www.sugarblend.com

---

Fitness Wars: Revenge of the Girth

As of the writing of this article, May 16, 2005,... Read More

Obesity as an Issue Today and the Half Ton Man

Following recent reports of a South Dakota man weighing half... Read More

Dieting Obstacle When Life Gets in the Way

Dieting Dilemma No 1: When Life Gets in the WayThat... Read More

When a Parent has WLS: What to Tell Our Chubby Children

We know that children are becoming obese at an alarming... Read More

How To Improve Your Health In 14 Days: Small Changes For Maximum Health & Weight Loss

Many Americans include health improvement in their New Year's Resolutions.... Read More

Weight Gaining

I learned about gaining weight when I heard the question... Read More

High Carbs/Low Fat Diets and Cardio Vascular Disease

For the past 20 years, the American public has been... Read More

Drinking Water for Weight Loss

An article published in http://www.inch-aweigh.com mentioned, "If you are eating... Read More

How Does Phentermine Work? Learn Pros & Cons Of Phentermine For Weight Loss

Phentermine, like many other prescription drugs, works with chemicals called... Read More

Mysteries of Syndrome X Revealed

"I've put on 40 pounds in one year!" "It doesn't... Read More

Five Tips for Easy Weight Loss!

Weight loss is a hot topic among people today, especially... Read More

Dieting Tips

Some of my dieting tips are not conventional. You can... Read More

Close Kept Secrets to Weight Loss Lesson #9

WAHOO!!! for YOU!! You are the most AWESOME person alive!!... Read More

Two Words That Guarantee Success (or failure) When Planning To Lose Weight

Did you know that being successful with losing weight starts... Read More

Relieve Stress at Your Workplace: It Might Just Help You Manage Your Weight!

No doubt about it, when we feel stressed we want... Read More

Lose Weight on Hips and Thighs: A Quest for Slimmer Hips and Thighs!

Losing weight on hips and thighs has always been a... Read More

Why Diets Are A Waste Of Time & Money - What You Can Do Instead

A 'diet' is always seen as a temporary measure. An... Read More

Healthy Recipes for Low Carb Success

Using healthy low carb recipes are an important part of... Read More

Obesity and Morbid Obesity ? Is Gastric Bypass Surgery Right For You

The very first thing you want to do before you... Read More

The Fail-Safe Weight Loss Formula

Yes Virginia, the fail-safe weight loss formula exists.It's so simple,... Read More

Natural Weight Loss: Add to Your Diet and Add Years to Your Life

As I was saying in my past articles, others have... Read More

When is a Diet not a Diet? When Its a Lifestyle!

Dieting and weight loss is almost certainly the most lucrative... Read More

Top 10 Diet Tips From Diet Winners

Use these tips to turbo charge your weight loss program.Take... Read More

Farewell To The Atkins Low Carb Diet

Atkins Nutritionals recently announced that they are filing for Chapter... Read More

Low Carb vs. High

Low carb diets can be classified as food plans that... Read More

5 Tips For Weight Loss

Are you ready to lose some weight? Perhaps you're surfing... Read More

Mediterranean Diet - Lose Weight Quickly, Easily & Safely

If you are looking for a way to lose fifty... Read More

The Calorie Formula -understand Them and Lose Them

We have all heard of those new diets, Atkins, low... Read More

Eat Out and Lose Weight -- 25 Easy & Healthy Tips for Dining Out

Diners have become more health-conscious the last few years, and... Read More

Its All In The Numbers

Offer a woman the choice between a dress she likes... Read More

The College Student?s Guide for EASY WEIGHT LOSS!

Weight loss is a hot topic among college students today,... Read More

The Diet Demons

As the dieting phenomenon grows, with a new "diet guru"... Read More

Secrets of Gastric Bypass Surgery: Lose Weight Without Surgery

There's more to gastric bypass than surgery and rapid massive... Read More