Patterns of Weight Gain
When you decide to lower your body weight, you should first consider how you gained weight. There are many paths to becoming overweight. Many people are unaware of how they got to be so large. Knowing more about the way you gained weight will help you understand how you might lose weight. You need to be realistic.
Overweight and obesity result from an energy imbalance over a long period of time caused for each individual due to a combination of several factors like individual behaviors,culture, metabolism, environmental factors, genetics and socioeconomic status . This involves eating too many calories and not getting enough physical activity.
Aging, which is generally accompanied by a slower metabolism , can cause weight gain unless accompanied by a reduction in food intake or adequate exercise.Weight gain can be a significant symptom of several endocrine diseases such as Cushing's syndrome, polycystic ovary syndrome or hypothyroidism. It may also be caused by heart or lung disorders as well. A progressive weight gain occurs with pregnancy; whereas, a periodic weight gain may occur with menstruation. A rapid weight gain may indicate dangerous fluid retention.
Many people gain weight in spurts, as a consequence of binge-eating or periodic indulgences.
Weight gain may be associated also with hormonal changes, as in pregnancy , or whenever life-style changes,poor eating habits (high-carbohydrate, high-calorie diet),emotional factors such as guilt, depression and anxiety ,smoking cessation ,alcohol consumption, use of drugs such as corticosteroids, cyproheptadine, lithium, tranquilizers, phenothiazines, and tricyclic antidepressants medications that increase fluid retention and cause edema (or the abnormal pooling of fluids in the tissues), injury, or illness reduce physical activity. Without a balanced reduction in food intake or change in food selection, reduced physical activity produces weight gain. Bursts of weight gain represent maladaptive responses to a variety of stressors.
Five basic factors of weight gain:
- Lifestyle - gradual gain from food in excess with exercise deficit.
- Metabolic - changes in metabolism, reduced physical activity, increased activity of fat storage mechanisms
- Aging - slow progressive weight gain into sixth or seventh decade associated with decreased lean-body mass.
- Food-Addiction Complex - compulsive eating is associated with symptoms and ill-health.
- Emotional Eating - between lifestyle tendencies and the food-allergy complex lies a twilight zone of excessive emotional eating with important implications
These weight-gain factors are not mutually exclusive and tend to merge together as the years go by. Often a lifestyle pattern of weight gain will be associated with emotional eating, which brings on food allergy-addiction, followed by increasing metabolic disturbances, aggravated by the effects of aging. The mid-thirties to early forties are the pivotal years when adaptation to dysfunctional habits runs out and health problems begin to multiply. If you have not changed your ways by the early fifties, you may be heading for bigger trouble.
Our bodies need calories for daily functions such as breathing, digestion, and daily activities. Weight gain occurs when calories consumed exceed this need. Physical activity plays a key role in energy balance because it uses up calories consumed.
Physical activity is any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that results in an expenditure of energy with a range of activities such as :
- Occupational work: carpentry, construction work, waiting tables, farming;
- Household chores: washing floors or windows, gardening or yard work;
- Leisure time activities: walking, skating, biking, swimming, playing Frisbee, dancing Structured sports or exercise Softball, tennis, football, aerobics.
Regular physical activity is good for overall health. Physical activity decreases the risk for colon cancer, diabetes, and high blood pressure. It also helps to control weight, contributes to healthy bones, muscles, and joints; reduces falls among the elderly; and helps to relieve the pain of arthritis. Physical activity does not have to be strenuous to be beneficial. Moderate physical activity, such as 30 minutes of brisk walking five or more times a week, also has health benefits.
Despite all the benefits of being physically active, most Americans are sedentary. Technology has created many time and labor saving products. Some examples include cars, elevators, computers, dishwashers, and televisions. Cars are used to run short distance errands instead of people walking or riding a bicycle. As a result, these recent lifestyle changes have reduced the overall amount of energy expended in our daily lives. According to the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, in 2000 more than 26% of adults reported no leisure time physical activity.
Genes can directly cause obesity in disorders such as Bardet-Biedl syndrome and Prader-Willi syndrome.
Lifestyle Weight Gain:
Obesity is almost fashionable in some European countries and is common enough in the USA to be considered a standard feature of the lifestyle. The tendency in affluent countries is to overeat and drink, accepting both weight problems and disease as a consequence. Affluence, self-indulgence, sedentary occupations, and little physical exercise all combine to produce overweight people with heightened risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancer. Extra food may be ingested slowly and gradually. High-fat and high-sugar meals, alcoholic beverages, desserts, and snacks are often to blame. Weight is gained progressively often with brief interludes of weight loss on weight-reduction diets, followed by a resumption of steady gain.
In America, a changing environment has broadened food options and eating habits. Grocery stores stock their shelves with a greater selection of products. Pre-packaged foods, fast food restaurants, and soft drinks are also more accessible. While such foods are fast and convenient they also tend to be high in fat, sugar, and calories. Choosing many foods from these areas may contribute to an excessive calorie intake. Some foods are marketed as healthy, low fat, or fat-free, but may contain more calories than the fat containing food they are designed to replace. It is important to read food labels for nutritional information and to eat in moderation.
Portion size has also increased. People may be eating more during a meal or snack because of larger portion sizes. This results in increased calorie consumption. If the body does not burn off the extra calories consumed from larger portions, fast food, or soft drinks, weight gain can occur.
Some children get fat right away. They may be genetically predisposed, but the main reason for childhood obesity is eating too much food. The overabundance of food and the tendency to eat high sugar-fat foods is a lifestyle problem. The majority of overweight children we see are also symptomatic and compulsive eaters. They manifest food allergy-addiction patterns. An overweight child usually becomes an overweight adult. Others make it through childhood with normal growth patterns, but gain as adolescents or young adults. An overweight patient in their 20's to early 30's will often claim they feel perfectly OK, but eat too much and exercise too little.
The four lifestyle eating patterns are:
- Traditional
- New Eclectic
- Disorganized
- Dysfunctional
All four lifestyles produce weight problems for different reasons. If you have a traditional eating pattern, food is important and meals are well-organized. You follow traditional cooking patterns, have three-square meals a day, and tend to socialize and reward with drinks, snacks and desserts. Your problem is that there is always too much food and often too little exercise. If you are interested in "gourmet" food preparation you may be paying the price of gustatory pleasure by compromising your health.
You are motivated by pleasure, convenience, social expectations, family traditions, and you may have a strong identification with the food you eat. You often talk about food, restaurants, and eating pleasures. You may drink too much. The prospect of diet revision is daunting because of the convenience of and sometimes substantial investment in your food preferences and habits. You may have even more resistance when you realize that we are talking about enduring changes in your eating behavior, not just a short-term weight-loss diet.
If you fall into the eclectic eating lifestyle, you tend to overindulge in food outside your own home and tend to eat snack or dessert foods when you are home. You may seldom cook proper meals at home. Instead you bring home prepared foods, or order from fast-food delivery services. Your home is stocked with snack foods. If you are single and working you may not have food preparation skills and dislike cooking at home. Your appetite regulation becomes disorganized. Addictive eating patterns increase. You experience strong cravings for high caloric foods. Excessive weight gain is a common consequence.
The weight management tasks for disorganized eaters are obviously different from their better organized neighbors. If you belong to the eclectic eaters group - organized or disorganized, your first task is to begin eating meals at home. You need to follow the medium to slow track of the Alpha Nutrition Program with a good support system. You have a lot to learn, but once you "get it" your life will vastly improve.
Dysfunctional eating patterns, especially compulsive eating, lead to the most serious obesity. The only way out is through an addiction-recovery process. the Alpha Nutrition Program works at the technical, biological level.
You have to slowly re-educate yourself about food selection and eating. Weight loss is definitely secondary to the restoration of your health. In order to maintain control of your eating behaviors you must abstain from eating trigger foods - these usually are made from wheat, milk, sugar, and eggs.
Metabolic
If metabolism slows down and caloric intake stays the same, you gain weight. Many chronic illnesses are associated with reduced appetite, increased metabolism and weight loss. Injuries which require little tissue repair but reduce physical activity for weeks or months will often cause major weight gain. Hormonal effects on metabolism and weight are seen in a variety of normal circumstances such as pregnancy, and several diseases involving hormonal changes. Low thyroid hormone levels are associated with weight gain and most patients who go to their physicians complaining of weight gain and fatigue will have their blood thyroid hormone (thyroxin or T4) level checked. Some physicians have been tempted to treat their patients with thyroid even when the blood results fall into a normal range. Many overweight patients have been "treated" with thyroid extracts with the hope of inducing weight loss. This treatment is disappointing unless enough of the hormone is taken to cause a hyperthyroid state, complete with anxiety, insomnia, fast heart rate, and other undesirable symptoms. This approach, of course, is not desirable.
Researchers have found that middle-aged men with a collection of conditions known as metabolic syndrome have an increased risk for both cardiovascular disease and death.
Findings from the third NHANES Survey (February 2002) estimate that as many as 47 million Americans may exhibit a cluster of medical conditions (a “metabolic syndrome”) characterized by insulin resistance and the presence of obesity marked by a pot belly, abdominal fat, elevated blood sugar and triglycerides levels, abnormal blood lipids, high blood cholesterol and high blood pressure.
According to the study authors, metabolic syndrome is likely caused by some combination of obesity, a sedentary lifestyle, diet and genetic factors.
Certain characteristics of metabolic syndrome, including high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol, are known to be risk factors for heart disease.
The most common symptoms associated with weight gain are:
- Fatigue
- Headache
- Generalized aching and stiffness
- Abdominal pain and boating
- Water retention (edema)
- Feel depressed
The term addictive food allergy was suggested to describe the connection between compulsive eating and illness. Among our patients, there is a consensus that eating-control is difficult to achieve, even when wrong food choices involve serious illness. The consensus is also that some foods trigger compulsive eating, uncontrollable by ordinary acts of consciousness.
Links :
Body Tracker
Want to lose body fat? We have everything you need to calculate and record your body fat percentage, measurements, and more! Monitor your
progress to lose fat and gain muscle. Great for individuals, trainers, or gyms!
Furniture plaza
Furniture plaza - a quality furniture store
Health Catalog Online Nutritional Supplements
Health Catalog offers a full line of nutritional supplements including vitamins, minerals, herbs, antioxidants, and weight loss and detox supplements, along with in-depth information both about them, and the health symptoms they remedy.
Health Shopping — Online Nutritional Supplements
Health Shopping offers a full line of nutritional supplements including vitamins, minerals, and herbs, as well as weight loss and detox supplements, along with in-depth information both about them, and the health symptoms they remedy.
As Seen on TV
The Best As Seen On TV Products; Overstock Prices.
Personal Training
Discover how to become super fit and lose the fat faster than ever! You will find out the secrets to get and stay super lean and look great.
Loghi e Suonerie per tutte le marche di cellulari..
Suonerie Polifoniche per Nokia e altri Cellulari da inviare via SMS, in piu loghi, sfondi e giochi
Zeitschriften Abo mit Prämie
Informazioni Utili sugli MMS, FAQ e Directory sulla telefonia
SMS, Games, Gewinne und jede Menge Fun
Potassium Iodide Radiation Pills
Your trusted source for Potassium Iodide KI pills recommended and approved by the FDA for post radiation exposure.
Suonerie Polifoniche per cellulari
Nokia, Siemens, Samsung,
Motorola, Panasonic, LG, Philips.. di nuova generazione
Cheap Toys and kaybee toy store
We provide a wide variety of cheap baby toys, cheap kid games, puzzles,cheap kid toys, acton figures etc!!
The Claim Solicitors
The Claim Solicitors - Personal injury solicitors specialising in whiplash compensation claims, head injuries and accidents at work.
Eastpak Rucksackversand
Eastpak, Jansport, Dakine, 4YOU, Deuter Rucksack-Versand Online-Shop Eastpack Da Kine
Hip Hop Jewelry
Image Hosting
Picture Hosting
Free traffic hits
Webmasters, get up to 5,000 free hits and traffic with our popunder exchange.
Online Shopping Deals
Online shopping deals, bargain, clearance, overstock, discount sale.
Adult toy store
Wedding favors presentation & ideas
Coupons, Online coupons, coupon codes, discounts, bargains
Free online coupons, discounts, coupon codes, bargains, shopping deals and travel specials from over top 500 online stores.
Online-coupons-free-coupons
Save hundreds of Dollars using coupons, online coupon codes, free coupons and bargain shopping deals when you shop online.
Health insurance CA
Search CA HIPAA and COBRA information and request free health insurance quotes from California Health Insurance 360.
Health insurance TX
Learn about HIPAA, COBRA, the Texas risk pool and other Texas health insurance options.
IL health insurance
Cheap Illinois health insurance plans and free IL quotes.
|
