Obesity is, and always will be, one of the greatest problems of our time. Take a look at this mind-blowing number produced by a survey: half of the adults of the good old USA are suffering from obesity. Unfortunately, the problem doesn’t end with the adults. Childhood obesity? The numbers skyrocket daily, especially in the USA. So, what is obesity, exactly? A dictionary definition: Obesity is an imbalance body fat ratio, i-e a person is obese when his or her weight exceeds 20% of the normal weight. If you’re diagnosed with obesity, it’s time to start taking action. Treat it immediately. Even if you’re only a few pounds high (or maybe a few more than a few pounds high), take initiative! Choose a weight loss program! But, first of all, we need to go over how to prevent obesity. What causes weight problems?

What Causes Weight Gain or Obesity?

Weight gain is caused by you consuming more calories than you can burn. It happens to the best of us. If you eat too much and exercise too little, you’ll find yourself putting on pounds whether you like it or not. There’s other factors too, of course. Here are a few of them:

Age

Unfortunately, how old you are can affect your weight indirectly. As you slowly move forward through life, your body starts to work slower and slower. This includes your metabolism and your calorie requirements. So, not only does your body want to eat less, it’s using it slower! Once you pass the age of 40, you should probably reduce your diet. This will help counteract weight gain.

Genetics

Yes. You can blame your mom and dad for your obesity. Both weight problems and thinness are partially genetic issues. Feel free to glare at the family tree, but don’t despair. Even if you’re genetically obese, you can eat healthy and fight the problem.

Gender

For all you women reading this: yes, it’s harder for you than most men. Obesity is unfair. Because of women’s slow rest metabolism rate, women are more likely to be overweight than men. Men also require more calories, making it harder for them to eat food they won’t burn off. On top of this, women can also gain some pounds after menopause.

Physical Activity

Everyone knows that exercise helps fight obesity! But why, exactly? Well, mainly it accelerates your metabolism and burns off those calories. Don’t avoid physical activities. Maintain a healthy weight and work out!

Medication or Illness

Medical conditions also play their part. Do you have diabetes, depression, or hypothyroidism? All of these can lead to an increased body weight. You could even gain weight because of drugs you’re taking. Antidepressant medication and steroids can cause obesity - be careful.

Psychological Factors

Anger. Sadness. Depression. These negative emotions cause physical responses. Your psychological state often determines your physical state. For example, binge eating? That comes from emotional disorders. Instead of overeating the next time you feel down, let your emotions out in another form. Perhaps exercise?

Why Start a Weight Loss Program?

Don’t back off from starting your own weight loss program. It’s very important to lose weight and keep it off. You’ll feel better, look great, and be healthy when you’ve finally lost those pounds. If you try losing weight without your own program, you’re going to run into roadblocks. Many people have tried and failed to lose weight on their own, and come up with the perfect solution: start a weight loss program! A weight loss program is basically a well designed plan that will help you lose weight with a well-balanced diet and some exercising techniques. There’s no way that the importance of your own weight loss program can be stressed enough. Why?

Attaining An Improved Health

The biggest, overall benefit of your own weight loss program is your health. You’ll be much less at risk. When you’re overweight, you’re in serious danger. You can develop diabetes, a stroke, heart attack, or back pain. Not to mention gallbladder diseases, sleep disorders, pregnancy complications, fatty liver, and some cancers, which are linked to obesity! The list goes on and on! It’s important to start your weight loss program today so that you can enjoy the benefits tomorrow.

An Increased Weight Loss Rate

More than one survey have come out with great results. Just participating in a weight loss program or maybe going through weight loss surgery (probably a last resort) will increase your rate of weight loss. If you’re trying to lose weight on your own, well, you’re a lot less likely to succeed in your attempts at weight loss.

An Easy-to-Follow Structure

If you have a proven weight loss plan, it’s automatically easier to lose weight. You don’t have to waste time coming up with your own. You don’t have to worry that it’s not going to work. And you don’t have to make as many choices, either. A well-designed weight loss program will give you a list of calorie controlled food choices. It’s all done for you!

Support

Social support is very important. It’s way too easy to just give up on your weight loss goals if you don’t have people cheering you on. A weight loss program keeps you motivated and often has the option of support via email, phone, or chat. It’s great to have somebody who will celebrate when you do and help you get through the tough moments. Your support team members will be your own personal cheerleaders. They’ll keep you optimistic as you push your way forward!

Healthy Weight Loss Takes Time!

Weight loss is not instantaneous! Weight loss programs will cut down the time you take signifigantly, but it’s not exactly a quick process. If you look around, you’ll see tons of ads claiming instant or quick weight loss. Unfortunately, these weight loss programs - if they’re actually as fast as they say they are - rarely produce results that last. In fact, once you’ve finished with that weight loss program, you’re more likely to gain more weight than you had before. Persistent effort and patience is what will bring real, solid, lasting results. A healthy, successful weight loss program will keep you at the rate of 1-2 pounds lost per week. This means that thirty pounds will take a half year’s struggle. Don’t be discouraged! These are going to be thirty pounds that won’t come back! On the other hand, if you try to lose weight instantaneously, it hurts your health. Obesity causes common diseases like gallstones, dehydration, electrolyte imbalances, and malnutrition. If you attempt a rapid weight loss program, you’re likely to experience severe headaches, irritability, fatigue, constipation, menstrual irregularities, muscle loss, hair loss, and dizziness. Sound bad? That’s because it is. Before starting a weight loss program, convince yourself that quick weight loss isn’t safe.

How do I Know if I’m Obese or Just Overweight?

Many people use the words ‘overweight’ and ‘obese’ interchangeably. However, they’re two completely separate things! True, both can apply to someone who weighs more than the normal individual, but the similarities end there. Body mass index, commonly called BMI, can determine whether you’re obese or just overweight.You can also use body fat percentage.

What is BMI and How is it Calculated?

BMI is a measure of your body composition. It’s calculated by dividing your weight by the square of your height. For example, if your height is 2 centimeters and your weight is 70kg, you will divide 70 by the square of 2, which means your BMI is 17.5. If your BMI is between 25 to 29, you’re overweight. On the other hand, if your BMI is more than 30, you’re obese. As simple as that. Body fat percentage, on the other hand, is slightly more complicated.

What is Body Mass Percentage and How is Calculated?

Body fat percentage is the amount of fat in your body as compared to your organs, muscles, bones, water, tendons, and other things that build up your body. Men and women have different percentages of fat, since they’re different in structures. A normal woman should have a body fat percentage of around 10 to 12 %, while men should have a body fat percentage of 2 to 3%. However, it’s okay for men and women to have 25 to 31% and 18 to 25% body fat percentages. Body fat percentages of more than 32% for women and more than 26% for men are considered obese. As you can see, women can have a much higher percentage than men. There’s different ways to calculate body fat percentage. DEXA scanning is probably one of the best and most accurate ways. The DEXA scan will take an X-ray of your whole body to generate a body fat percentage in numbers. This takes as little time as ten minutes! Unfortunately, DEXA scanning is very expensive. Other methods of measuring the body fat percentage include water displacement, bod pod, and the measurement method.

Risks and Threats Associated with Obesity

If you’re obese or overweight, and you have a lot of fat around your belly, you could develop a number of dangerous, and sometimes life-threatening, diseases. These include hypertension, gallbladder stones, diabetes, stroke, and sleep disorders. Where the fat is placed in your body matters. If you have built up fat around your stomach, you could suffer from coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. In short, the size of your waist can have a strong effect on your health.

Hurdles in Sticking to a Weight Loss Program

When you start a weight loss program, you’re probably going to encounter many obstacles. Most people fail to lose weight due to these three common reasons:

Excuses

Don’t fall prey to excuses. They’re so easy to make, but they’re very damaging to your confidence and your ability to lose weight. I can’t lose weight, I can’t resist my favorite foods, I feel like I’m being caged. Don’t let yourself think these. Keep the excuses at bay.

Past Experiences

Past experience can also discourage you from continuing (or finishing) your weight loss plan. If you’ve had a few bad experiences with a weight loss program in the past, or you had made a lot of unsuccessful attempts, you might be unable to start a weight loss program again. Your failure will - literally - weigh you down. You might not have made it because of unrealistic goals, or maybe because you selected the wrong weight loss program. It’s okay. Tell yourself that you will be successful this time, because you are not after rapid weight loss, and that your goals are quite realistic.

Fear of Failure

The fear of failure is one of the most common things that stop you from starting a weight loss program. This may also be because of bad experiences. For example, you might have finished a rapid weight loss program and then regained the weight. However, if you choose a sensible weight loss program, you can avoid this.

Is it Right to Start a Weight Loss Program?

Starting a weight loss program is a smart idea if you want to lose weight in a healthy and safe manner. Just know this: there are no shortcuts to losing weight. The only harmless and effective tool to lose weight healthily is patience. Moreover, if you want to see long lasting results, you need to choose a weight loss program that doesn’t promise to make you slim in a few days!

Hair Fall  is the oldest and most common problem than men and women face after entering 30s. A lot of researches have been done about this thing. Primary motive of all of these hall fall researches is to stop hair fall. Every research want to advertise a product as a solution to hair fall. That product may be a medicine, an oil, a shampoo or a diet supplement. Sometimes when i think about it, i find that the actual motive of these researches is not to stop hair fall, its main objective is to promote a product.

Hair Loss Advertisement

Whenever you watch a hair loss advertisement of a hair oil, shampoo or conditioner, you will definitely hear a statement regarding a research that shows this... a research that shows that...... Isnt it rubbish. These researches are funded by the company which is launching a product. They ask the researchers to take the research to a result that shows that their product works or its better than others. You already have a conclusion in your hand and you have to just prove it. Here you cant prove anything else because either the research lab is owned by product itself or its funded by product making company.

Truth of Hair Fall Treatment

Hence the truth is that we are living in an era of advertisement where advertisers know how to play with the mind of viewers. Viewers hear whats on TV, viewer watches whats on TV, and then viewer buy whats on TV. The better the advertisement the better the sale. Hair fall treatment is one of the most desired treatment now a days. A Research statement makes the product more promising. The viewer or the end-user thinks that the research must be true and these doctors must be telling truth. They dont know that in most of these ads the doctor is just a model with good hairs who is getting paid by the advertiser.

Does these Hair Fall Treatment Products Work ?

I am not against these hair fall treatment products. But most of them dont work. Some times they work but thats too due to the psychological effect. Real problem that leads to hair fall is stress, and sometimes the falling hair itself becomes stress. If the hair is falling due to dandruff then the shampoo or oil might help but if the stress is the main reason behind hair fall then it may not. No hair oil or shampoo can remove stress.  

Erika Nicole Kendall writes about wellness, weight loss, healthy eating and body image issues at A Black Girls Guide to Weight Loss.

When it comes to sniffing out whether something is a fad, I always ask myself three questions: Does it require purchasing a very specific, very exclusive product? Does it use far-out claims of quick fixes in order to encourage you to try it out? And perhaps most importantly for my demographic: Does it promise something that eerily resembles weight loss?

If I am able to answer “yes” to any of those questions, then I proceed with extreme caution.

Finding reasonable and creative ways to enjoy the things you love rather them giving them up cold turkey is the healthiest way to approach weight loss and food in general.

Unfortunately, going gluten-free – a natural, healthy and sensible way to actually live, not diet – has been sullied by those looking to make quick cash off of people looking for an “acceptable” method to lose weight.

An eating lifestyle devoid of gluten, although it can be expensive in certain parts of the United States, can also encourage people to explore the many ways in which food can be manipulated for different flavor combinations and textures. Though every culture has a fried – or baked – doughy-type "evil" concoction, most will also have a healthier counterpart featuring maybe lean cuts of meat or fresh produce, and flavorful spices. Soups, stews, salads and skillet dishes can naturally – even accidentally - be gluten-free. Nothing wrong with that.

The American diet is heavily reliant upon grains in order to ensure that people are fed, to the point where many of us believe something’s wrong with exploring other options. The challenge lies in trying to discourage people who hide within the gluten-free community because it doubles as a currently acceptable way to forgo carbohydrates. Finding reasonable and creative ways to enjoy the things you love, rather them giving them up cold turkey for the sake of superficiality, is the healthiest way to approach not only weight loss, but also food in general.

If youve resolved to lose weight this year, congratulations. Its a healthy goal. But how you go about it will have a lot to do with whether you succeed.

Dr. Aaron Michelfelder of Loyola University Health System is well acquainted with weight-loss strategies that work andthose that dont. Hes identified 5 in particular that he sees time and again but with poor results.

Gym memberships soar in January because thats when many people decide to adopt a healthier lifestyle. Working out is good for your health and can help to maintain your weight. But exercise alone is not very effective in shedding unwanted pounds.

Michelfelder says most consumers have no idea how few calories are burned during exercise. Walking on a treadmill for a half hour, for example, will only burn about 200 calories. To lose weight, you will need to eat fewer calories each day. Its that simple.

Making an abrupt change in diet is not only not a good idea, Michelfelder says it is not even necessary. A better strategy? Try cutting a few hundred calories a day.

First, figure out where your break-even point is calorie-wise. For the average person it might be 2,200 to 2,500 calories a day. To lose a pound a week, consume about 500 fewer calories a day.

Reduce snacking and avoid high-calorie beverages. When going to a restaurant, eat an apple before dinner to dull your appetite, then skip the bread before the main dish arrives. Eat smaller portions and ask for a to-go container.

Michelfelder, a professor in the Department of Family Medicine of Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine, says supplements burn more muscle than fat. When you stop taking them, he warns you will gain back more fat than muscle, making you worse off than before you started taking them.

Reality shows like The Biggest Loser may inspire the overweight and obese, but create the impression that slimming down can be done quickly. In most cases, it cant – at least, not if you want to keep it off.

Michelfelder says a more realistic -- and healthy -- strategy is to try to lose 1 to 2 pounds per week. Remember, cutting back 500 calories a day, such as a bagel with cream cheese, will help you drop a pound a week.

Cant do 500 calories? Eliminate 250 calories a day and youll lose 2 pounds per month.

“This will provide the slow-and-steady type of weight loss that will be long-lasting,” Michelfelder said.

Its easy to become discouraged because losing weight is a process that takes place over an extended period of time. Most of us are accustomed to instant gratification. Weight loss doesnt work that way.

Michelfelder says you shouldnt stress if you dont drop down to a trim, normal weight, defined as a body mass index of between 18.5 and 24.9. If you are overweight or obese, he says losing 10% of your body weight will improve your appearance and have significant health benefits, such as lower blood pressure and a reduced risk of diabetes. Even losing as little as 5 pounds will be good for your joints.

As for structured programs, like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig, Michelfelder says they can be effective – but more effective if you attend in person instead of participating online.

“For the New Year, most of us should add some weight loss to our resolutions,” Michelfelder said. “Obesity is now so common in the United States that it causes more disease and years of life lost than smoking.”

By Mark Huffman

Source: http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/5-weight-loss-strategies-to-avoid-in-2015-011915.html

Boston Children’s Hospital’s Dr. David Ludwig, director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center, and his colleague Dr. Mark L. Friedman, of the Nutrition Science Initiative in San Diego, are attempting to debunk a common advice of losing weight. Ludwig and Friedman say those who wish to lose weight and keep it off should stop counting calories. Their weight loss “secret” does not rule out diet and exercise, but focuses instead on cutting out refined carbohydrates.

Ludwig says that if exercise and counting calories were the sole contributors of long-term weight loss results “my colleagues and I would be out of job.” He adds “we have to forget the low-fat paradigm” that would exclude foods such as avocado, nuts, and olive oil which are “among the healthiest foods we could possibly eat.”

While dieting and exercising is a great way to kick-start a weight loss plan, the true secret according to Ludwig and Friedman, is to cut out refined carbohydrates, which are so prevalent in American diets. Refined carbohydrates trigger the brain to soak up calories in fat cells, forfeiting energy that could be expended, and result in a metabolism-slowing hunger response. “Metabolism wins,” says Ludwig, who advises those seeking healthier diets to take a closer look at what they eat, rather than just how much they eat.

An easy way to avoid refined carbohydrates is to eat foods raw, in their natural state. The culprit of deterring weight loss, refined carbohydrates, is found in a variety of foods that are all too common in everyday diets. The list of foods with refined carbohydrates goes on: white rice, made “with” whole grain breads, boxed cereals, pasta, etc. The colloquial term for these foods that induce weight gain or compromise diets is “empty calories,” which does not mean they are any easier to avoid. Too much of these empty calories can reduce energy levels and can cause nutrient deficiencies.

On the other hand, unprocessed carbohydrates actually are not found to influence weight gain in most cases, and are part of a healthy diet. Unprocessed carbohydrates can be found in whole grains, beans, vegetables, and fruits, and provide the body with converted energy, along with important vitamins, fiber, minerals and other significant bodily needs.

“Simply looking at calories is misguided at best,” says Ludwig. Many commonly-consumed foods are not considered to be part of a successful weight loss program. This includes such staple foods as potatoes, of which an average of 126 pounds is individually consumed annually in the United States. Potatoes, while classified as a vegetable to the displeasure of many dieticians, are actually found to promote weight gain. Fruit juice is another good example of a product typically considered a healthy choice, but is loaded with added sugar drawing comparisons to soda by some dietitians.

Ludwig and Friedman’s weight loss tips are not so secret after all, as carbohydrates have long been targeted enemies in weight loss programs, and the combination of a healthy diet and exercise have been advocated as friends. The real secret is to distinguish between good and bad carbohydrates on the next grocery trip.

By Jesse Eells-Adams

The Food And Drug Administration has approved a new weight loss device that is implanted into the body, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The device, called the Maestro Rechargeable System, is for obese adults that “have a BMI between 35 and 45, who have at least one other obesity-related illness“.

The Maestro System is the first weight loss device to be approved since 2007. Enteromedics, the company that manufactures the device, has developed a technology it calls VBLOC, or “vagal blocking therapy.” The Maestro System delivers VBLOC Therapy through electrodes “that are placed in contact with the trunks of the vagus nerves just above the junction between the esophagus and the stomach.”

That sounds like a lot. Let me break down for you some of the science talk:

Basically, the device is implanted just above the stomach area in order to interfere with your body’s ability to send messages to the brain when it’s hungry. The result is that people tend to feel less hungry and eat less. The hope is that this will lead to sustained weight loss.

According to Enteromedics, over 600 patients have already been implanted with the Maestro System. With regards to safety, the device can be inactivated or completely removed at the patient’s desire.

The cost of the device has not been set, but it’s estimated that the price will be set for “somewhere between $20,000 and $30,000.”

By Rachel Paoletta

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/2053193/new-weight-loss-device/