JEDDAH, 26 October 2005 —Excess weight and obesity have become universal esthetic and health issues. Both men and women have become much heavier today than even before. Most households have at least one member who is overweight or even afflicted by obesity. In the recent years, weight gain and obesity have escalated in both men and women, so did the profits of the weight loss food industry and plastic surgery. It has become the trend to be on a self-restricting diet, eat pre-prepared diet food, and consume nutritional bars, milk shakes, or diet drinks and colas. Diet drinks and foods seem to be simple choices, but can we live on them for ever in order to reduce or control weight? Do we realize that they contain dangerous chemicals to make them low-calorie or calorie-free? Do we fully understand the implications of that on health?
Many of us go on diets for different reasons. The goal is usually to weigh less and shed kilograms on the scale in order to lose the flab around the waist to look good, or to resume eating without guilt once again. There is much more to a weight loss diet than just shedding excess fat and looking beautiful. A healthy nutritious food regimen should not only result in weight loss, but also provide nutrients, health, energy, and mental, physical, and emotional balance, generally robbed by excess weight, obesity, fad diets, unhealthy eating habits, and lifestyle imbalances. In addition to good health, adequate weight loss should make you energetic and disease-free as well as aware of your body and health in order to encourage you to control weight, maintain health balance, and enhance vitality and immunity. A diet should also be easily adaptable to your lifestyle and nourishing to both body and mind, leading to mental, physical, and emotional balance. By the way, emotions, too, do get negatively influenced by a suboptimal nutrition, stress, and sleep loss.
The first thing to remember when you start a diet is be realistic. The fact of losing three or more kilograms of fat a week is absolutely unconceivable and even dangerous. Of the lost weight, fat is only around one kilogram and the rest is water drained from the body, which becomes deprived of essential fluids. Then, if most of this weight loss is water, it becomes easily regained. As you decide to diet, you should plan to include some kind of regular activity (walking, jogging, running, weight exercises) in order to shape up and build muscle bulk to replace the fat. Exercising and muscle-building help raise the metabolic rate (it is important to remember not to rely on physical training to subsequently indulge in overeating). Activity is meant to maintain lost weight and replace fat with fat-burning muscles. In addition to that, physical training activates the appetite-suppressing hormone leptin, while a sedentary lifestyle encourages nibbling and overeating. Regular activity and especially morning exercises jumpstart a slow metabolism, which is usually faster in slimmer and more active individuals. Additionally, those who yoyo-or-crash-diet develop a much slower metabolic rate; drastic weight loss shocks the body, resulting in a decrease in the calorie-burning process.
Severe diets send the body messages similar to those sent by starvation; the body automatically lowers its metabolic rate (up to 45 percent for survival reasons). Moreover, sudden fat loss can release toxins in the bloodstream as toxins are usually stored in body fat. Such unhealthy procedures and food deprivation also slow down the body’s metabolic mechanism, which make weight control and loss more strenuous, demanding less calories and more activity to slim down on the next diet attempt.
The type and portion of food and its preparation are major factors in losing weight. Complex carbohydrates such as whole grains, legumes (beans and lentils), vegetables, fruit, and fiber are healthy slow-releasing energy, which provide sustainable energy, relieve nagging hunger by giving feeling of fullness, and control blood sugar imbalances. On the other hand, refined carbohydrates and sugars increase blood sugar fluctuations and sugar cravings.
Because fat is denser in calories per gram than carbohydrates, it is important to reduce its consumption while dieting. We should think twice about the type of fat we eat. To encourage weight loss, we should restrict eating saturated animal fats, fatty meat and dairy products, fat-and-sugar-rich desserts and fatty fast foods, and fries. On the other hand, the body and the metabolism require healthy fats, but in small amounts. These essential fats are important for many body functions as well as boosting to the metabolism. They are found in polyunsaturated fatty acids in nuts (walnuts), seeds (flaxseeds), their oils, fish, and their oils. Nuts and seeds, in moderation, are rich in omega 3-and-6 oils. They do not only provide good oils but also fibers and important nutrients. By cutting down on fried and fatty foods and fat-rich gravy and desserts and replacing them with healthy fats, we should be able to reduce a considerable amount of unnecessary and unhealthy calories.
An effective and filling weight-reducing diet is the one that includes high-fiber foods, too. Such foods decrease cravings and unruly appetites. Fibers in fruit, vegetables, legumes (beans, lentils), and whole grains (oats, barley) are filling and control spiking blood sugar levels. Because they absorb water, these healthy fibers bulk up in the digestive tract, taming appetite and relieving constipation. Furthermore, soluble fibers inhibit the absorption of cholesterol. Konjac, the Japanese plant, is very effective for weight reduction. It is a bulk-producing fiber that also balances blood sugar levels for diabetics and encourages weight loss.
Many people believe that only the category of food (carbohydrates) eaten contributes to weight gain. In fact, it is also the quantity of food in comparison to the expended energy. Moreover, certain nutrients (vitamins, minerals, fatty acids) enhance the body’s ability to burn fat. They trigger the breakdown of glucose to release energy. To carry blood glucose to cells, the body requires vitamins B3 and B6 plus chromium and zinc. Vitamins B1, B2, B3, B5 and C, iron and co-enzyme Q10 are important vehicles for the breakdown of glucose as well. These vitamins and minerals are essential to the enhancement of a weight loss program and a diabetic diet. For example, chromium picolinate supplement, in combination with vitamin B3 improves the metabolic rate. Fatty acids (omega-3) in flaxseeds and other nuts also enhance the calorie-burning process. Whole foods contain these nutrients are found to tame voracious appetites and increase energy levels, both of which help weight control.
The extract of the tamarind fruit, Garcinia cambogia, is a highly effective mild acid that accelerates the burning of fat in the body. It inhibits the enzyme that turns sugar into fat. It also tames the appetite, especially in combination with chromium picolinate. Together they help burn calories and increase energy. The whole fruit is definitely more effective than supplements. Mildly acidic citric fruits (grapefruit, lemon) also enhance the burning of calories.
To achieve a fat-burning threshold with exercise, you need not push your physical activity to the point of exhaustion in one stretch. The good news is that the effects of exercise are cumulative. You can break your activity hour into two or three sessions during the day, and yet achieve similar results. You can go walking, running, or cycling for 15 to 20 minutes in the morning, swim at noon for the same amount of time, and brisk walk or do other exercises in the evening for another 15 to 20 minutes. The benefits of regular activity show by taming appetite; improving circulation; enhancing energy; increasing blood oxygen; raising the metabolic rate; building muscles; making the body leaner; and controlling weight gain. Vigorous exercises raise the metabolism for as long as 15 hours after a workout, but avoid exhaustive physical activities. Remember, a sedentary lifestyle and desk-and-computer-bound jobs sabotage weight reduction efforts and tend to start cycles of bingeing on fatty snacks and unhealthy food.
My advice to you, if you have the tendency to be overweight, is to follow the above suggestions meticulously and persistently. No magic pill exists to melt down fat without side-effects. Many find surgery the perfect solution to eliminating excess fat; such procedures also come with risks to health. Most weight-reduction medications in the market are harmful to health and metabolism. Remember, a severe diet that makes you lose a big amount of weight can also be harmful to your health. It is important to combine a low-calorie balanced nutritious diet (not less than 1200 calories per day) with fat-burning and muscle building exercises. A healthy diet should control blood sugar swings, but the key to a healthy weight reduction is physical activity that should boost the metabolic rate along with energy. Such a comprehensive program should provide weight loss, physical and mental health, vitality, and wellness. Joining a club can sometimes be motivating to dieters by offering support and encouragement to pursue a healthy program.
Once weight loss is achieved, I recommend that you maintain stable weight. You should not allow yourself to gain more than two or three kilograms; gaining too much weight can mean starting afresh, thus resuming yoyo-dieting. This kind of dieting lowers the metabolic rate and damages health, making weight loss more difficult and more discouraging in the future. Remember, weight loss needs a lot of awareness and patience, just as the old saying goes, “Slow but sure.”
P.S.
After Eid I shall, InshaAllah, explore with you some of the most nutritious foods to sustain good health and energy.
Eid Mubarak!