Tips To Overcoming Obesity

Posted on: October 20, 2010 by admin

Tips To Overcoming Obesity

Just being overweight is increasing your risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol. Around 1,000 people die every week from obesity-related diseases in the UK. Most people don’t seam to realize that losing five percent of their body weight, about half a stone, can improve your health dramatically. Today our focus is to encourage those fighting obesity with some testimonies of what others have done fighting the same battle. First of all I would like to say that if you are personally struggling with weight-gain there is hope and making the first steps is harder as we will see below but the effort is all worth it. Weight loss does not have to be a dream but it can become a reality.  Here is some snippets from an account of a small group session discussing what they did in achieving weight-loss that lasts. Kate’s back was very, very, very bad she got out of breath so easily and was borderline going to be diabetic because of her weight. For her it felt like she was locked in somebody else’s body causing her to feel very miserable she discovered a key to weight loss which was making small changes to her daily diet and lifestyle. Kate started incorporating at lease 30 minutes of physical activity into her day and shares that it did not have to be running a marathon or swimming the channel, her success was recognizing that it’s just little things like walking a little bit more taking the stairs instead of the lift. Her friend Joy comments saying “I swims most mornings before work and on the weekends like to do a short run” on the other hand Tracy says she is not a natural sporty person and really has to work at it! Tracy has to really psych herself up to go and do it, spending all day arguing with herself “shall i go” “No don’t” ” Shall we go to the pub?” ‘No” but in the end makes the extra effort to go to the gym. Liz shares that for her she loves to dance so she uses her dancing to be her main way of exercise. Now “macho” Malcolm buts in saying his focus is to “Eat”, “Sleep” and “Train”, “stick to that and you’ll be alright” If you had seen him 1 year ago you would not believe what he has achieved. When I asked why he fought so hard to lose weight he shared that it was for his family, his health got so bad at work because of the demands and deadlines that he put on over 130lbs in 10yrs just to provide a better lifestyle for his wife and kids but they were all fit and healthy and his doctor told him his risk of a heart attack was so high that he could well be dead in some time in the next 5yrs because of the strain on his organs. This shocked Malcolm that caused him to sit down and take an account of his life and habits. Malcolm went to a counselor how encouraged him to include his family in his weight loss plans and says this encouragement was all he needed and he stuck to the plan even though it was hard admittedly to say the least say Malcolm I now have my life back my energy is so much higher, I have a new job and I am making more money but most importantly I am here for my family. Every night we now share a family meal together and share our days, the dining room is favorite place and family time is more important that stuffing my face! Fitness instructor Alison comments that the reality of overweight people exercising is that it is possible. It is possible for everybody but the secret is in you picking the right level and type of exercise to best suit you and your ability so whether that be walking every day or attending an exercise class or joining a gym, there is something to suit every overweight person out there. Liz shared with us on how she lost weight from eating smaller portions of rice and pasta her experience in making the smaller portion decision showed a diet is not all about the food we eat but the size of the portions reducing the meat portions and increasing the vegetables was a big part of changing her eating habits. In the past it was fast food on the run with no time to stop. Looking back now and living a healthy lifestyle she is so grateful to have stuck it out because now Liz is at her target weight and did not pay out all-sorts of money on a diet program. This was key for Liz as her income was just enough to survive, but not all the group could breakthrough without the guidelines of a diet plan. The big thing in common was that everyone in the group found it important to meet with others and everyone of them is devoted to helping encourage others fighting obesity.