FIGHT OBESITY AND EMERGE A WINNER

DO YOU REALLY WISH TO BE SLIMMER?

2011-04-12T12:01:00.001+05:30

You might want to hit me for the question! Or you might want to shout, “Hey, Silly! Why else would I be here reading this crap?”

Still the question has relevance. What it means is to ask you whether you are willing to provide necessary inputs to achieve these goals. To be more specific you will be committing to certain activities every day if you really wish to follow the advice provided here.

· First of all you will be reading these posts every day. That will help you learn the steps and also keep you motivated.

· You will be committing to maintain a journal to record your progress.

· You will be committing to always remain alert to fight that enemy within called temptation.

· You will be committing to perform certain activities of your every day life in a slightly different manner.

· You will be committing to refrain from certain activities which may appear almost inseparable from your every day life.

Does that look like a tall order? It is not if you have a strong commitment to fight obesity until your ultimate victory. This is a battle that is won by persistent and committed. I have done it and so can you. But weigh your level of commitment at this initial stage.

Write on a paper, “I WISH TO BE SLIMMER AND I COMMIT MYSELF TO BATTLE OBESITY UNTIL I WIN” and hang it on a wall in your bedroom, where you are sure to look at it every morning as you wake up and in the night before you sleep.

Trust me. It will be a big help to boost and maintain your level of commitment and motivation.

With that we are both sure of your sincere wish to fight obesity. Wait for the next post as the action in the battle field of fight with obesity is going to begin very shortly.

MOTIVATE YOURSELF

2011-04-11T12:01:00.002+05:30

Before you begin your battle with obesity you must motivate yourself. Your mind has to be convinced of the need to fight curbing your jolly good fellow instinct to let things be as they are. That is not so difficult. Just think of what you could do before gathering these extra pounds and whether you would still like to enjoy some of these activities. Imagine what it would be like to participate in a cross country walk, if not the race. What it would do to your own self esteem?

How would you like to enjoy a second helping of your favorite ice-cream without having to bother about the flab it would add to your body? How attractive you would become to members of the opposite sex? How much you could enjoy outdoor activities with your children, friends or family? How happy you would be to climb a flight of stairs occasionally without huffing and puffing?

All these and more rewards await you at the finish line. You need to begin the battle and pursue with single minded zeal. Obesity is not a natural condition. Nature made us to be hunters in the wilderness and the most cunning hunters at that. We have used the cunning and intelligence to devise life styles devoid of all physical activity and just like physically unfit animals in our zoos we have also become physically unfit for hunting. To get rid of that obese streak you need do nothing unnatural. You have to just let the Mother Nature take over and you will soon become an example for your obese friends to learn from.

It is not at all difficult. The natural part of your habits has to take over. If you take an animal out of zoo and leave him in a jungle. He would either get hunted by other animals to become a part of the food chain or he would acquire his natural fitness again and become the hunter he was always intended to be by nature.

As a human being you are a part of civilization and if you let the natural instincts take over there is no danger of being hunted and eliminated. But as you acquire the fitness required of a hunter you will begin to enjoy living much more than what you ever could while living with obesity.

WHY MUST YOU FIGHT OBESITY

2011-04-10T12:01:00.001+05:30

Whether obesity is a disease or a result of bad life style matters little. The effects obesity has on the individual self esteem and confidence level alone make it worth while to fight obesity and win the battle. Obesity makes one susceptible to illnesses which their slimmer contemporaries shall seldom have reason to worry about. Some illnesses which obese are more inclined to acquire are listed below.

· Diabetes

· Hypertension

· Arthritis of knees and ankles due to damage to these joints caused by overloading by excessive body weight

· Low attention span

Every expert would agree on the first three items in the list while the fourth one is debatable. The reason for it finding a place here is personal experience of this writer. A lower attention span in case of obese persons perhaps results from excessive load on heart to maintain blood circulation in the additional tissues. This perhaps results in brain not getting sufficient oxygen through fresh blood in times of crisis when an obese person tries any mental activity requiring exertion of mind. You will often find perfectly fine jolly fat fellows wanting a nap after reading for a while. Due to an inability of heart to keep up with the additional demand for oxygen by the brain, an obese person often feels mentally tired sooner than his lighter friends. I say so from my own experience.

Besides the problems listed above an obese person has a lesser fitness for survival. Granted that accumulated fat might make an obese person last longer than his leaner friend if there were a fasting competition but what if in a crisis they had to run and hunt their own food. In that case the leaner would often prove to be a bitter fit for survival.

Obesity gives one a greater propensity to certain illnesses. It makes one less fit for survival. Last but not the least men and women alike often have a marked preference to partner with a leaner and healthier partner whether for a casual fling or for a more stable relationship.

All these reasons should provide enough motivation for anyone to fight obesity. If you are still not convinced then go visit your doctor. You will learn how many years of your life may get knocked off due to obesity if left unchecked.

OBESITY – DISEASE OR LIFE STYLE

2011-04-09T12:01:00.001+05:30

Obesity is a disease or many in the medical profession say so. Obesity is a result of a bad life style or many other naturalists and experts say so. It is an endless debate. Those in the medical profession do have an axe to grind by prescribing costly high fiber supplements and surgeries but others crying themselves hoarse and suggesting changes in life style to get rid of obesity have no direct or indirect benefit whether you take heed or not. Combine this fact with the lack of regulation when it comes to dietary supplements and you will understand what I mean.

Medical profession and medicine manufacturers are thriving by selling you a dream with tall promises of weight reduction and mind it there is no money back guarantee. Consumer protection regulation does not apply to them and they can continue to take you for a ride day after day and year after year. It may surprise you but a large number of dietary and fiber supplements have a value addition of 100 times included in the retail price. Yes, I mean 100 times the cost of production amounting to a profit of 9900% shared between the parts of the supply chain. Marketing has evolved into a war against the consumers for ever selling dreams to make them spend ever increasing amounts of money.

Thus the producers and marketers of these products have no interest in making you get rid of that obese streak. You will consume their product only as long as you can be sold the dream. The day your dream is realized or your wish fulfilled, you will no more be a consumer of their product. So, why would or should they create a product that would really make you slimmer or lose weight? Would you do that were the roles reversed?

So, fasten your seat belts. Breathe deeply and take these posts seriously. If you follow the advice in earnest and affect the changes suggested in your current life style then you shall be well on your way to a healthy and well shaped body in less than three months.

ANOREXICS! PLEASE KEEP OFF THIS BLOG

2011-04-08T05:30:00.001+05:30

Obese and overweight are definitely going to benefit from the posts that are going to follow. However, if you are the girl next door aiming at a career in modeling and think that the way to that passes through sticking to size zero attained by starving yourself, please keep off these posts. I considered making this for adults only but changed mind due to wide spread obesity among students.

There was another reason for doing so. Even anorexics can gain weight and attain a healthy body mass index (BMI) by following some of the advice. The whole idea is to retrain your mind and body to eat properly and get the nourishment required without adding flab to your body and without becoming a skeleton covered with skin. So, go ahead and calculate your BMI. If it happens to be less than 18.5 then you are definitely underweight and need to read subsequent posts with caution. Trying to lose weight further could or rather would kill you.

However, if you have a body mass index of less than 18.5 and still feel that you need to lose weight then there is a problem far deeper than just obesity. You must see a psychiatrist and keep seeing him until your self esteem is back and is independent of your BMI. That is all I can advise you and in case you are a minor then I would advise your parents to take you to a psychiatrist at the earliest possible opportunity.

For, there are far too many girls dying due to malnutrition caused by poverty and gender bias in poorer countries. If you have enough to eat and stay healthy, then it is the worst sin to starve yourself into anorexia because every society needs healthy youth to breed and nurture a healthy next generation.

ARE YOU REALLY OBESE?

2011-04-07T04:12:00.000+05:30

You are already well on your way in the fight with obesity. Pause for a moment and answer the question, “Are you really obese?” It would indeed help to be sure. Neither you not I wish you to be fighting a non-existent demon or a figment of your imagination. You have an expert to guide you in case you really need to lose weight. It sure will boost your confidence and self esteem when you successfully lose even a few pounds of body weight but it would endanger your life if you use the same methods to become anorexic aiming at size zero.

Body Mass Index (BMI) is one of the excellent measures of body fat. It is calculated by dividing your body weight by the square of your height in meters. If you do not wish to take the trouble there are many BMI calculators available on the net. If your BMI is in the range of 18.5 to less than 25 then you are perfect. You might need a little exercise to get and stay in shape but let alone obese you are not even overweight. BMI of 25 or more and less than 30 qualifies you as overweight but definitely not as obese. It is only when your BMI crosses the threshold of 30 that you really need to begin your fight with obesity.

BMI is a far superior measure of body fat than body weight for a very simple reason. A taller person needs stronger muscles to support his longer bones. This causes the taller person to have higher body mass per centimeter than others with lesser height. Body Mass Index accounts for this discrepancy arising due to variations of height and is hence a much more scientific measure of body fat than body weight considered in isolation or in conjunction with height alone.

MY COMPETENCE TO WRITE ON OBESITY

2011-04-06T10:20:00.000+05:30

In that crowd of qualified and certified experts I consider myself a different kind of expert. I have been fat and obese and I have returned to normalcy without a diet or any of those popular health foods. I have never visited a gym except in case my date wanted me to pick her from there. You can be rest assured that I am not going to advise any of those starving diets and certainly you will not need to exercise till you faint. Ex-students of Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur from the last three batches of 1970s still remember me as the fat fellow working for a Ph.D. in Mathematics. Actually, I am quite slim today with a 35 inches waist and a body weight of 68 kg for a height of 173 cm. The best part is that it took me just a little over an year to come down from a body weight of 90 kg to this level and I have maintained it at the same level for almost three decades.

That establishes me as an expert on obesity albeit a self proclaimed one. However, I am neither charging you for the advice nor subjecting you to any torture. So, you have nothing to lose by trying to follow my advice. You will not only lose weight but also find an improved physical and mental efficiency. You will learn how to eat what you wish and still let your body weight continue to decline as long as you desire. Certainly you will not reach size zero or the wonderland of anorexia by following my advice but you will attain a shape that would make you feel far more confident and attractive.

OBESE ARE DIFFERENT

2011-04-05T11:05:00.002+05:30

Obese persons are different and it is as if they lived on a different plane even if you do not believe that they come from another planer altogether. Those considered normal by social and medical standards can never understand the mental and emotional forces that operate inside the mind of the jolly fat fellow next door. The most unfortunate part of the system is that the expert on obesity is often a person who is a skinny skeleton and knows nothing about the real goings on inside the body and mind of a person suffering from obesity.

Sometimes, though you will come across an expert who has been obese and submitted himself to torturous methods for weight reduction. That handsome lady in the local gym for all you know might have undergone liposuction followed by costly surgery. You would never get to see the deep scars in her tissues and the deeper psychological scars that made her go through the ordeal. All these experts have one thing in common. They know how to exploit feel bad feelings of an even slightly obese person to sell their products and keep making tones of money even though their clients seldom lose weight without resorting to torturous methods described earlier.

Profession of dieting and nutrition expert is again typically American creation to make a fast buck selling products that have seldom, if at all helped anyone reduce even an ounce of body weight. It has created employment opportunities for individuals and commercial opportunities for manufacturers of diet foods and nutrition supplements. Uncle Sam is happy collecting his share of profits made by all concerned while the individual suffering from obesity keeps buying the dream of getting slimmer in ever attractive packaging year after year.