Obesity Facts

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There are now more over-nourished people than under-nourished people around the world. Here's the recipe for obesity on such a global scale: Take technology - cars, washing machines, elevators - that reduces physical exertion. Include increased calorie consumption, courtesy of growing prosperity. Add television and video games. Stir in the intensive marketing of candy and fast food, and you have the makings of an epidemic. In countries where the food supply has been unstable, people are getting fat despite far less abundance than in the United States. The implication? Newly industrialized nations in Asia, Africa and Latin America may develop even higher rates of obesity-related problems than in the Western Europe or the U.S.

The leading source of calories in the U.S. is sugared beverages, which accounts for about 8 percent of all calories consumed. The No. 2 source is cake and sweet rolls, followed by hamburgers and cheeseburgers, then pizza. No. 5 is potato chips and corn chips. Those food items account for over 20 percent of all the calories consumed in this country.
The other side of the equation, physical exertion, presents following data: No. 1 activity in the U.S. for burning calories is driving a car. The next form of activity for total caloric expenditure is office work. No. 3 is watching TV or movies, then taking care of children. No. 5 is an activity performed while sitting quietly. And No. 6 is eating!

Obesity is an epidemic that has been in the making for decades, and there is no single cause. For many people, possible causes include decreased levels of physical activity, coupled with energy-dense foods that are easily available, inexpensive, heavily advertised - and taste good. Obese individuals face a number of cardiovascular complications including high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, thrombosis and more. Most recently, studies have indicated that women who are obese later in life are at an increased risk for developing Alzheimer's disease. All told, obesity is said to lead to 350,000 deaths each year and is now the first-leading preventable cause of death. Smoking - a long time record holder - dropped to the second position.

Many of us inherited genes that make us exceptionally efficient in our intake and use of calories. Our bodies are good at converting food into fat and then hanging on it. This trait may have helped our ancestors survive when calories were few. But when calorie supply isn't a problem, and genes that favor gaining weight have outlived their usefulness, evolution betrays us. We store fat for the famine that never comes.

Fat cells: the average person has 40 billion of them. They multiply, they're almost impossible to kill and they're sending messages to your body that can ruin your health. Obesity researchers are up against a phenomenally complex and robust system, devised by evolution precisely for the purpose of hoarding fat against the certainty of future famine. The system evolved millions of years before the first food court made its appearance on earth. That is, why it is so much easier for most people to gain weight than to lose it. For most of evolution, getting enough to eat was the problem. Our ancestors' physiology was preoccupied with fighting starvation, not overeating.

When calorie intake exceeds expenditures, fat cells swell, to as much as six times their minimum size, and begin multiply, from 40 billions in an average adult up to 100 billion. Consequently, you become morbidly obese. Losing weight causes fat cells to shrink in size and become less metabolically active, but their number goes down only slowly, if at all.

Fat cells behave differently in different parts of the body - and, therefore, an individual's fat distribution has implications for his or her health. Fat carried in the hips and thighs - the "pear" body shape - is considered comparatively benign, because it is less metabolically active than the kind that accumulates around the organs in the abdomen. Visceral fat has the highest association with diabetes, high-blood pressure and high triglycerides. Fortunately, visceral fat is also the first to disappear when you exercise.

The biggest misconception of the weight loss process is identifying the term "losing weight" with the term "losing fat". When you go on a rigorous diet, you can quickly lose weight by dehydrating your body. On the other hand, to lose just one pound of your fat deposits you need to burn 3500 calories. You must briskly walk for about 10 hours or run for about 5 hours to expend that amount of energy.

The worst possible dieting concept is starvation. If you eat less often, your body "thinks" there's not enough food out there and slows down your metabolism. Use your imagination to convince the system otherwise. Here's an idea: (and you can devise many more): Prepare physically, or in your mind, a decent dinner with a desert. Then divide it into four or five portions consumed every several hours. You'll be eating just one meal all day long. Your metabolic rate will stay high and your hunger will be under control. Add some physical activity (and not necessarily a qualified exercise) and your fat will start to disappear.

Conclusion? Any weight loss or obesity researcher, no matter how esoteric his specialty, while asked about the best way to lose weight, will tell you this: Eat less and exercise more. The resources below can give you better answers and more comforting ideas:

Burn the Fat: Well balanced, comprehensive. Shows in a very competent and clear way, how you can practically manipulate all functions of your body (food intake, metabolism, physical activity, etc.) to meet your weight loss goals.

Fat Loss for Idiots: An idiotic title and a great book. It provides tons of versatile and scientifically valid information. A lot of it is free. They do not recognize any of the most advertised diets. Instead, they offer a convincing "in between" approach.

Fit over Forty: Personal but honest and knowledgeable. It shows how obesity, lack of confidence and constant struggle can be reversed; provides excellent inspiration for those, who are not so young any longer. Baby-boomers invited.

Shocking Proof: We usually forget that our body is a temporary dump and an enormous ZOO. Disgusting plaque and horrible little “critters” living in our guts are very much capable of creating our overweight problems. This approach is not pretty but very much scientific.

Turbulence Training: Although so called, this fat burning routine will introduce little turbulence into your existence, because it was designed to comply with all kind of lifestyles. Exercise haters may be surprised.

Fit Mummy: Ladies who cannot lose the remaining baby fat and are too busy to effectively control their weight will love this book. Holly Rigsby is a busy mom herself. She is also a friendly and warm professional, well prepared to help you.

Self-hypnosis: This site’s web master used self-hypnosis to successfully quit smoking. Call him prejudiced but he will still believe that hypnotic auto-suggestion can help you to shed all those excessive pounds and keep them away for the rest of your life.

Eat-Stop-Eat: You eat normally then you fast then you eat normally then you fast again… Most diets expect us to fast all the time and that’s why we fail. You endure fasting easily, when you know that normal eating will come back soon. Of course, there’s more to this concept. Read the book!

Combat the fat: Have you seen a fat soldier? May be a fat general… Military ways must be as good as possible; otherwise they would lose wars. The author was a long time soldier and he is a weight control expert as well. Attention!

Speed Fat Loss: We usually reject programs promising a quick weight loss but this one makes sense. At least this is not just a diet; and the author is both sincere and convincing.

Losing by Believing: They say: the key to losing weight is - believing you can and thinking yourself thin. You only must believe frankly and think deeply. Well, there are a lot of famous (and thin) people out there, who attribute their successes to strong beliefs.

Your body and your fat

People who hope to lose weight rarely speculate about the forces that govern the shapes of their bodies. Why don’t people who want to be thinner start by asking themselves why they are not thin right now? They take it for granted that they are no longer thin because they have eaten too much and that becoming thin again is just a matter of eating less. They view their bodies as passive depositories, like piggy banks. Calories are deposited in the bank when food is consumed. Calories are withdrawn from the bank as energy is expended. The excess of their deposits over their withdrawals equals their fat accounts. To reduce the balance of their fat accounts, they must deposit less, or spend more, or both.

This doesn’t seem like a very thoughtful analysis. Your body is not a passive fat depository. A great deal of evidence supports the conclusion that your body actively maintains its levels of fat. If your body were just a passive fat depository, then if you stayed on a diet you would get thinner and thinner until you died of starvation, and if you never dieted, you would get fatter and fatter until you became grossly obese. Neither of these things happens.

Not to you, not even to little babies who are allowed to eat as much as they want to and never get on a scale. Your body is not relying on you to determine how much fat it should be storing, any more than it is relying on you to determine how much muscle it should be maintaining, or how many blood cells it should be circulating, or how many hormones it should be secreting, or how much it should be growing and when it should stop.

Rather, your body has a “lipostat” that is set at a specific level of body fat, just as it has a thermostat that is set at 98.6 degrees. Your body actively responds to any sustained variation in caloric intake to maintain the levels of fat that it wants to maintain. For example, your body reduces its metabolism in response to a sustained reduction in caloric intake, and it increases its metabolism in response to a sustained increase in caloric intake. Metabolism accounts for 70% of an individual’s daily caloric expenditure. Your long-term appetite also increases in response to a loss of body fat and decreases in response to an increase in body fat.

Body Fat and Setpoint Concept

    The "setpoint" concept suggests that your body fat tends to be where it is now. If you have weighed 200 pounds for some time, your body likes being 200. If this theory is true, your weight reduction efforts will initially be sabotaged by you body's tendency to maintain the status quo.
   We have read accounts of many respected researchers who contradict each other on this particular topic. Some support the "setpoint" concept, some debunk it and some are not sure what to think.
    We can only say that experiences with our own bodies and bodies of our clients rather confirm the "setpoint". There really seems to be a period of stubborn opposition to fat loss, after a diet or lifestyle modification has been initiated. That difficult time eventually passes away, but can be very frustrating for those who expect to lose their fatty deposits in a matter of weeks.
    Always remember: weight loss is not exactly the same as fat loss. When you go on a diet and start to be physically active, your body loses many pounds of water, before it loses just one ounce of fat. Your scale makes you happy but it misleads you.
    Fortunately, after your body finally adjusts to your new lifestyle, fatty deposits start to melt down. Be patient and determined and that moment will come. We believe that most dieters become too quickly frustrated and discouraged, after their bodies stop removing dispensable water. Suddenly, their scales don't show an impressive weight loss and they think that their efforts failed.

Lose Weight Classic Healthy Diet Overweight Children
Counting Calories French Paradox Fitness Classic Articles