Showing posts with label obesity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label obesity. Show all posts

Monday, June 15, 2009

Fastin Is The Answer To The Question


There has been more than the usual amount of Buzz about weight loss and losing those extra poubnds now that summer is here.


If you are questioning how to lose large amounts of fat... the answer is Fastin. This is a diet pill that is prescription strength, but you don’t need a prescription to get it. It’s one of those supplements that you need to check with your doctor about, before you invest in it, if you have any health problems.


It was originally intended for people suffering from obesity, but it is safe to use in losing any amount of weight. You also have to remember that this is not a "wonder drug", so you have to put in some work for the body you are looking for.


That means you have to get on a diet and workout plan. That’s nothing new, you should diet and exercise while taking diet supplements as part of an overall healthy lifestyle.


There is an online site that I frequent where I can find a large variety of nutritional supplements at extremely discounted prices. Check it out for yourself at Supplements To Go.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Breast Cancer and Weight Issues Linked

I was talking with a friend of mine the other day and she told me that not a lot of the people she knew were aware that being overweight was one of the risk factors that can lead to breast cancer. I told her I knew weight loss is a balanced diet and exercise was good for your health, but really didn’t know the extent of the cancer link.

I don’t feel too bad because I read a global survey by the International Union against Cancer (UICC) that found around 40 per cent of people in North and South America, Australia, New Zealand and West Asia do not know about the link between weight and cancer. In other regions such as Africa and South East Asia, the survey revealed that awareness is even lower, with respectively 41 and 49 per cent of people saying there is no link between weight and cancer.

I later found out that there are estimates that suggest cancer will soon become the leading cause of deaths, and that weight plays an important role in this. I thought the US was mainly concerned about obesity trends, but it seems almost every other country is worried also.

This survey interviewed 40,000 in 39 countries and found that those who are most at risk from some cancers minimize their own risks. What this means that 25% of those who drink and smoke daily think that smoking cigarettes does not increase the risk of cancer. The same is true of people who are already obese or overweight.

What I was not aware of is that the author of the report, Terry Slavin stated that "Thirty to 40 per cent of cancers could be preventable if people led healthier lives, tackling overweight and obesity."

According to the World Health Organization (WHO) an estimated 22 million children under five are overweight today, and the problem is growing.

"Overweight and obesity are part of the causal chain for many cancers," Professor David Hill, the president of the UICC said in a news release to launch the initiative.

This is well established in science but not adequately understood in the community. In fact, current lack of public understanding of the link between body weight and cancer probably parallels our attitudes to smoking and cancer in the late 1950s."

Another report from the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2007 showed that cancer will become the leading cause of death worldwide by 2010, more than heart disease. Cancer is also rising in developing countries, the World Health Organization reported.

This may be because developing countries are copying the eating habits of developed countries. Where they used to eat a lot of plants and fruits, but the shift towards technology and fast foods is increasing the number of cancers. This brings up the issue of how do we teach these countries not to take the examples of developed countries? Surely not by our example so far.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Will The Economy Fatten Us Up?

I subscribe to my health central on the internet and one of the recent articles posed the question: Will Americans put on recession pounds?

There is speculation among health experts that as we spend less on food while the economy is in a downturn we may pick up weight in the process. They point to a number of studies that link unhealthy eating and weight problems to low income. One place to cut expenses is on more costly items like fresh fruit, vegetables, whole grains and fish, and load up on starches, sugars and saturated fats.

Now that is an interesting proposition. This struck a chord within me as I remembered my childhood, and beginning life on my own. I recall as a child, that my parents were on a tight budget and I remember that many of the weekly meals consisted of the staples of meat and potatoes, and an ample supply of fillers, or starches to supplement the vegetables. We weren’t allowed to have a lot of sweets, because that was a luxury item.

I remember when I left home to attend College, Five of us pooled our resources and rented a house close to school. I worked at a grocery store at the time. In the morning when the store rotated the stock, we would have to get rid of the outdated bread and pastry. It would be loaded into a shopping cart and the employees could buy it for a few dollars a basket.

It was my mission to make sure that I was in line first, and to “Be the bread winner” for the house. When times were really tight, that became the groceries for the week, and we were glad to have it. Someone else would pick up the PBJ or lunch meat, and we thought we were rich.

Going out for dinner meant dining at one of the finer restaurants in the city named “Whytie Castilles”. I do not recall the exact spelling of the establishment, but I do remember the prices were within our budgets.

The research at the University of Washington in Seattle has highlighted the link between income and obesity. The obesity rate is 5 times more in the low-income zip codes around the area, and studies in California suggested that a 10 percent rise in poverty translates into about a 6 percent increase in obesity among adults.

In the past 10 years new diabetes cases have increased by around 90 percent and nine of the 10 states with the highest rates of new cases of diabetes were in the South, a region with huge pockets of poverty and glaring income disparities.

We already lead the world in obesity, and if more people fall on tough times, they will tend to eat as cheaply as they can.

Eileen Kennedy of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy commented that when your income is limited, the first area you address is having enough calories in your diet, and cheap sources of calories tend to be high in total fats and sugars.

So I am agreement that it is entirely possible that more we could conclude that poverty translates to obesity, but I also believe that it doesn’t have to be that way. There are other ways to supplement our diets, and remain in good health. We need to keep in mind during the tough times to balance diet, exercise and nutrition in order to maintain our health.

It is possible to eat healthy and still be affordable by remembering how things were back in the 1930s.

Consider affordable but nutrient-rich foods like ground beef, beans, milk, nuts, cheese, carrots, potatoes, canned tomatoes, soups, and rice, As an adjunct to those staples there is a wide range of nutritional supplements available online that can help pick up the slack.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Together Trumps Alone


I was looking through some old photo’s and just remembering when I was a newlywed. It was really neat to have home-cooked meals like mom used to make, being together, going out to restaurants for special occasions. Then I looked at another set of pictures, taken a few years later, after our first child.

Whoa. What happened? Where did the ‘wide body’ come from? I was feeling pretty down on myself, until I looked around at my other married friends. I have since learned that this is a pretty typical situation. I found out there was a study that concluded that if one spouse becomes obese, the likelihood that the other spouse will follow increases by 37 percent.

I read in an article by Dr. Michael Rosen, that many of us gain 15 or more pounds in our early adult years, but people who live with a partner often gain more. Within five years, newly married women gain an average of 24 pounds, and men gain an average of 30 pounds, according to a study presented at the Obesity Society annual scientific meeting.

What happens after you are in a committed relationship is that your schedules, habits and patterns change. More meals, larger helpings, missed gym sessions, snacking together, juggling families and jobs, complacency all add up.

A University of Connecticut researcher Amy Gorin, Ph.D., who focuses on strategies for long-term weight loss, offered some good ideas on battling those bulges:

1. Commit early to a healthful home. Subscribe to healthful-cooking magazines and try the recipes together. Support each other's workout schedules, too.

2. Weigh in regularly. When you step on a scale every day, the instant feedback gives you a chance to assess trends and make changes before habits become deeply ingrained.

3. Downsize dinnerware. Control portion sizes with smaller plates and bowls.

4. Scour the cabinets. "Once a month, go through the pantry and make sure high-fat, high-sugar items aren't sneaking back into your home," advises Dr. Gorin.

5. Team up for positive results. Choose activity over being sedentary. Bike, walk, take a yoga class, go dancing. Anything active works. As a couple, you have an advantage: an automatic exercise partner. Check with your doctor before a major increasing in physical activity.

6. Don't stop your favorite solo exercises. If an aerobics class and early morning run were important before the relationship, keep it up.

7. Beware of the garbage-can effect. Nibbling your way through food prep and cleanup tastes good but can add unwanted pounds.

8. Stay positive and supportive. "Nagging, controlling comments and unwanted policing usually backfire," Dr. Gorin says. "They really undermine someone's motivation." So, compliment and encourage each other's efforts.

So if you find yourself in a similar situation to the one I was in, just remember that it’s never too late to change those bad habits. If you need to lose weight, or help with better nutrition, there is plenty of diet help available online.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Balance Is A Big Part of Weight Management

There are no easy answers when dealing with the health issue of managing your weight. It’s a complex problem, and there are a number of factors to consider. Some of the causes of people being overweight and obese include our behavior, the environment we live in, and genetic factors.

Overweight and obesity result from an energy imbalance. This simply means that we eat too many calories and do not get enough physical activity.

Body weight is the result of genes, metabolism, behavior, environment, culture, and social or economic status.

Our behavior and our surroundings play a big part in causing overweight and obesity. These are the greatest areas for prevention and treatment also.

When it comes to maintaining a healthy weight for a lifetime, I think it’s all about balance. The tug of war is between the number of calories you consume verses with the number of calories your body uses or burns off.

Calories are defined as units of energy supplied by food. It doesn’t matter where they come from, they still count. If I eat carbohydrates, fats, sugars, or proteins, all of them contain calories.

Look at caloric balance like a scale. To remain in balance and maintain your body weight, the calories consumed (from foods) must be balanced by the calories used (in normal body functions, daily activities, and exercise).

If you are maintaining your weight, you are in balance. You are eating about the same number of calories that your body is using. Your weight will remain stable.

If you are gaining weight your caloric balance status is in excess. You are eating more calories than your body is using. You will store these extra calories as fat and you’ll gain weight.

If you are losing weight the caloric balance status is in deficit. You are eating fewer calories than you are using. Your body is pulling from its fat storage cells for energy, so your weight is decreasing.

Genetics and the environment may increase the risk of weight gain, but our choices in what we eat and our activity level also contribute to overweight.

Science shows that genetics plays a role in obesity. Genes can directly cause obesity in disorders such as Bardet-Biedl syndrome and Prader-Willi syndrome.

However genes do not always predict future health. Genes and behavior may both be needed for a person to be overweight. In some cases multiple genes may increase one’s susceptibility for obesity and require outside factors; such as abundant food supply or little physical activity.

People may make decisions based on their environment or community. I may not walk to the store or to work because of a lack of sidewalks or traffic. The Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Prevent and Decrease Overweight and Obesity 2001noted that it is important to create environments at home, in the school, at work, and in our communities that make it easier to engage in physical activity and to eat a healthy diet.

Some illnesses may lead to obesity or weight gain. These may include Cushing's disease, and polycystic ovary syndrome. Drugs such as steroids and some antidepressants may also cause weight gain.

A doctor is the best source to tell you whether illnesses, medications, or psychological factors are contributing to weight gain or making weight loss hard.

If you are looking for nutritional supplements or weight loss or diet pills to assist your efforts click here and you will find what you need.

Friday, October 24, 2008

I Think, Therefore I Eat More?

That is basically what a Canadian research team recently discovered. The results were published in a recent issue of Psychosomatic Medicine.

The research team recruited a group of students and measured their spontaneous food intake after completing three tasks: relaxing in a sitting position, reading and summarizing a text, and completing a series of memory, attention, and vigilance tests on the computer. After 45 minutes at each activity, participants were invited to eat as much as they wanted from a buffet.

They determined that each session of intellectual work required only three more calories than the rest period. Despite the low energy cost of mental work, the students spontaneously consumed 203 more calories after summarizing a text and 253 more calories after the computer tests.

Blood samples taken before, during, and after each session revealed that intellectual work causes much bigger fluctuations in glucose and insulin levels than rest periods. Jean-Philippe Chaput, the study's main author stated "Caloric overcompensation following intellectual work, combined with the fact that we are less physically active when doing intellectual tasks, could contribute to the obesity epidemic currently observed in industrialized countries,” he further concluded that this is a factor that should not be ignored, considering that more and more people hold jobs of an intellectual nature.

As I sit here and think about it the more I am craving a snack. You may not believe this but I just checked my blood sugar and it is up from what it was earlier and I have not eaten recently. I guess that means that it’s possible that all this increased thinking while sitting is helping make us fatter.

So maybe I won’t get rid of the Treadmill to gain space after all!

P.S. If you are wondering how to supplement your weight loss program search Here.