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What Does It Really Mean to Be Overweight?

Obesity is an ever increasing problem in the US now-a-days. Studies show that over 66 percent of Americans can be categorized as either fat or obese, and the medical community is even going so far as to call it an epidemic. However, with today’s aesthetic standards as portrayed by the media and the fashion community, it can be very tough to decipher what is actually a healthy weight. No doctor would recommend trying to be stick-thin, but we all know that obesity is dangerous to the health. So, where is that healthy midline? What, exactly, does it mean to the general public to be “overweight?” Here are the plain facts:

Overweight
Overweight (Photo credit: just.Luc)

The definition. Being overweight means weighing more than what is healthy. This amount varies from person to person, as it depends on factors that are unique to each person’s build. Therefore, what is overweight for you might not be overweight for someone else.

Overweight compared to being obese. It is important that you understand that overweight does not necessarily mean obese. Healthy (or unhealthy) body weight is graded on a scale, including the categories of “normal weight,” “overweight,” “obese,” and “morbidly obese.” Each level has its own set of qualifying factors and, of course, morbidly obese is the most dangerous. Being overweight means being one step above normal weight, one step below obese, and two steps below morbidly obese.

What factors are used to determine overweight? Your body mass index (BMI) is used to determine where you are categorized on the health/morbidly-obese scale. Your BMI is a measure of your body’s composition, accounting for how much you weigh in relation to your height. There are various different methods to calculate BMI. The simplest is to use an online BMI calculator, but for the most exact figure, it is a good idea to see a doctor or nutritionist. If your BMI falls between 25 and 30, you are generally considered overweight. However, it is important to keep in mind that BMI has no way of accounting for your muscle to fat ratio. This ratio can make a major difference in your overall health, and therefore can change your status as overweight. For example, if you are a serious athlete with a lot of muscle, you may weigh more than someone else your height who is at a “normal” weight, but that doesn’t mean you are overweight.

Overweight is a term that is used loosely, which makes it confusing when determining whether or not you fit into that category. Your best bet is to consult with your doctor to figure out if you are overweight, and if you could benefit from lowering your BMI.

About the Author: Tommye Lounder is a health and wellness specialist who specializes in educating people about their bodies. He enjoys researching common medical conditions, including candida expert opinions, heart health, addictions, and the body’s metabolism.

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Is Paleo For You?

It seems like a new diet is hitting the marketplace every other day, and every new diet seems to be dubbed as the one that works. There are so many diets out there, that if you want to lose weight, it can be hard to decide where to begin.
The latest dieting craze to hit the marketplace is called Paleo, and many people are wondering if they should give it a try.

What is the Paleo diet?

The Paleo diet basically refers to only eating the foods that our historic ancestors ate, which includes fruits, vegetables, meat, fish and nuts. This means that you should cut out legumes, grains and dairy. Basically, you want to eat only those items that can be hunted or gathered and refrain from eating anything that has been processed or sealed (so no canned vegetables). Fresh foods contain more vitamins and nutrients than those that have been processed, and they’re more healthy for you than those that tell you they’re healthy.
What’s the point of the Paleo diet?

The Paleo diet doesn’t cut out fat or carbs. Instead, it relies on you eating a healthy amount of food in order to maintain a decent body weight. Eating these foods will increase your metabolism and give you more energy throughout the day. And since you tend to eat more fruits and vegetables than whole grains, you may actually cut out a good deal of the carbs you eat on a regular basis.
Along with keeping you at a healthy weight, the Paleo diet is also known to reduce the risk of major diseases, such as heart attack, stroke and diabetes. By keeping your food intake simple, you are not clogging your body full of supplements or processed foods.

What are the benefits of the Paleo diet?

The Paleo diet doesn’t require you to count points, read labels or consume a great deal of protein shakes. The foods used in the Paleo diet are simple and real, and you know exactly what you’re getting.
Preparing Paleo-approved meals is simple. Choose a meat, choose a vegetable and you’re done. There is no need to read a ton of cookbooks or think too long about what to prepare for dinner. This will also help you decide what to eat more quickly when dining out at restaurants. Rather than spend a great amount of time reading over the menu, you can choose the option that fits best with the Paleo diet.
Is the Paleo diet right for me?

The Paleo diet hasn’t hurt anyone, so as long as you’re okay with eating meat and vegetables and cutting out dairy, grains and  legumes, trying the Paleo diet shouldn’t be that hard to accomplish. And since there is not counting points or reading labels, you can choose Paleo-approved foods more easily than other diets. People have been using the Paleo diet for years. If you start the Paleo diet, you will see an increase in your energy levels, and you’ll start to look better too.

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Tips to Help You Stay on Your Diet

Everyone knows, it’s easy to go on a diet. And that the hard part is sticking with it for a long period of time. Every year, millions of people resolve to eat differently. They want to shed some pounds, and reevaluating their eating habits is an essential way to achieve their goal. However, old habits die hard, and it can be tough to stay on a diet, no matter how well you do in the beginning. If you’re determined to eat differently, here are some tips that will help you stay on your diet and meet your goals.

weight-loss-tips

Enlist Some Support

Don’t go at your diet alone. If you live with other people, speak with them about your diet, and ask for their support. Maybe they’ll want to do it with you. If you’re accountable to more people than just yourself, it can really motivate you to stay on track. If you can’t find support within your friends or family, find a weight loss group in your area, like Weight Watchers, or an online community.

Define Your Diet

Figure out exactly what your diet is going to be, and set clear rules for yourself. Know exactly which foods you can eat and which you can’t. Determine the main purpose of your diet. Is it to stick to a certain number of calories? Is it to eat on a regular schedule? Is it to limit certain foods or food groups? Try to anticipate what breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks will look like.

Set Realistic Goals

If you feel discouraged by your diet, it will be easier for you to stray. Do not set goals for yourself that are not realistic, because you may quit if you don’t feel you’re progressing enough. The trick is to set small, realistic goals. Once you reach a small goal, you should set another small goal that’s a little more difficult. Do not try to do it all at once.

Keep a Food Diary

When you write down the things you eat, you’re more likely to stay on track with your diet. A food diary will help you see how you’re doing and how you can improve. It will be tangible proof of your habits, and it’s a great way to evaluate your progress.

Reward Yourself

Your diet won’t work if it’s all work and no play. Understand that it’s alright to cheat on the diet every now and then. You should enjoy eating. You won’t derail all your progress if you have a small dessert now and then. Try to reward yourself with treats here and there. It will help you stay on your diet in the long run.

Rethink Success

Are you too preoccupied with the number on the scale? When you’re dieting, you’re going to see more results than just shedding the points. If you’re eating healthier, you should notice an increase in your energy level and self-esteem. You may notice some of your health problems have improved, such as having lower blood pressure. Anything can be a measure of your success. If you notice all the benefits of your diet, you’ll have more reason to stick with it than just losing weight.

Katherine Taylor is a therapist and avid writer who loves to spend what time she can traveling the world. She already has a wonderful summer trip booked at a beach hotel in Mauritius. She wants to mix with the locals, practice her french, and see as many beautiful beaches as possible while staying at her hotel in Mauritius.

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Losing the Stubborn Baby Weight

When my youngest daughter, Lizzie, was born, it was one of the happiest days of my life. I grinned from one ear to the other ear. After two baby boys, we finally had a baby girl. My husband and I were truly delighted with our new family member. With my two others, I found dropping the baby weight relatively easy. There was no outrageous dieting or exercise. The excess weight fell off quite easily. But not with Lizzie.

My family GP recognised my older age may have contributed, but no matter what I tried, I couldn’t return to my pre-baby weight. This wasn’t about me wanting to be rake-thin. I just wanted to be comfortable in my skin, and as I was, I wasn’t comfortable.

I turned to my lovely mother for her advice. She (shockingly) was no help. She kept telling me all about how she just ‘snapped back’ after having me, her fourth child. If she had magic genes, I certainly didn’t inherit them.

As a new mum, I didn’t have time to go to the gym regularly, and I certainly had enough on my plate without the erratic mood swings that come with crash dieting (ladies, you know exactly what I’m talking about). I was lost, but one day, when I picked up Zach from school, I crossed paths with his friend’s mother, who gave me some pointers that actually helped me regain my previous figure, my confidence, and most importantly, my comfort.

Eat at regular times

As a new mum, I tended to think: ‘Baby first, baby second, baby third, me possibly fourth’. I wasn’t eating on a regular basis. If I was in the kitchen and felt hungry, I’d snack on something. I hardly ever sat myself down for a full meal. So, the first thing I did was, I forced myself into a regime. I ate breakfast with my eldest children, I ate lunch at half-past twelve, and dinner at six. I snacked far less, but when I did, I opted for healthier options like celery and carrots.

Walk

Thank goodness for whoever invented the stroller! It’s great for kids to get out, and it’s great for you to not be locked up in the house. I scheduled two strolls a day, one in the morning before it got too hot, and one in the evening. I’ve never understood people who use treadmills, and living in Vale, Aveley, half an hour out of Perth, I have no reason to. The scenery is gorgeous (we’re near the Swan Valley) and the people I come across are genuinely pleasant. We’ve actually formed a new mothers walking group, which I highly recommend.

Be lenient with yourself

Don’t expect this to happen in the blink of an eye, and don’t beat yourself up if it doesn’t. You’re not a yo-yo, and you don’t want to be one (remember, a yo-yo that goes down has to come back up). So give yourself time and enjoy the journey and your new bub

Jocelyn Waterhouse is a proud mum of three darling children. If you can’t find her at home or work, she’s probably out strolling around Vale, Aveley.

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The Low Fat Fryer – Giving Dieters a Helping Hand

Every year people commit to a diet in order to improve their health and appearance, and do so with the very best of intentions of seeing it through until they reach the goals they have set for themselves. Once they start, though, they often find that it’s not as easy as they first thought – and with temptation constantly in their path, it’s all too easy to for them to give in and undo all the hard work that they’ve put in so far.

One of the hardest things about trying to stick to a diet is having to give up many of our favourite “unhealthy” foods. By making a sudden and complete change to what we eat it’s only natural that our bodies take time to adjust, and during this time we crave the foods that we always enjoyed eating. Giving in to temptation during this is the worse thing that we can do – if we start to make exceptions during this early phase, the diet is almost certainly doomed to failure.

A more sensible approach would be to try and find some way of being able to eat some of our old favourites without going against the healthy eating principles of our diet, and we can often do this simply by cooking these foods in a different way. It’s for this reason that the low fat fryer has become so popular in recent years, as they allow us to continue eating all sorts of foods that would traditionally have been deep fried, but as they’re cooked without using any (or a very minimal amount of) oil, they are far healthier.

The most popular of the low fat fryers currently on the market is the Philips Airfyer, and it’s actually a very simple device to use. It works by circulating hot air around the food as it cooks so that the surface dries out and forms a crispy coating, similar to that which it would get from being cooked in a fryer. As no oil is needed for the cooking process, anyone who’s on a diet can carry on eating chips or French fries and ‘fried’ meats with every meal… diets have never tasted so good!

By allowing ourselves to eat these types of foods whilst remaining completely guilt-free, we’re far more likely to carry on eating healthily into the long term rather than just as part of a temporary fad. The Airfryer is big enough to cook enough food for a whole family, so you can improve the health and well-being of your kids without them even knowing – and anyone who has a fussy eater for a child will know just how hard this can be!

There are many benefits that using a low fat fryer can bring, and you can read more about them here. They can be bought fairly cheaply these days, just as many kitchen appliances can – but what sets them apart is that while most modern kitchen appliances aim to make your life easier, low fat fryers aim to make your life better.

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What is the best time to do weight exercise for weight loss?

Author: Mario Tomic, owner and writer at ShockingFit.com, my website is dedicated in helping people with fitness, bodybuilding and weight loss. Jump to my website from time to time if you like to learn the latest proven techniques on how to building muscle, lose weight and develop an amazing body. Thanks!

You could simplify things and say “I exercise every day and I’m successfully losing weight”. That might be true, but maybe I can help you burn more fat and lose more weight by making an easy adjustment. I’m writing this article for people that want to learn how to maximize their results. This is not something you have to do, but I believe that every person want the best possible results when doing something. Research shows that to lose weight we have to spend more calories each day then we eat. The formula seems quite easy, but there are some tricks on how to get more results in less time. One of the tricks I’m writing for you today is how to pick the best possible time to exercise each day if you want to burn more fat.

How the time of the day when you exercise directly affects fat burning?

If you exercise early in the day, once you had only 2 meals your body will burn more fat then if you did the same workout later that day, an example would be:

  • 7:00 – You just woke up and had breakfast
  • 10:00  – You ate your Second meal
  • 11:30 – Weight training + 20 min cardio after
  • 13:00 – Post workout meal etc…

Secret here is that your resting metabolism will burn more fat after the exercise and also will use up more energy to recover as you will be awake for more time if you do the exercise early. Problem with working out late is that you go to sleep soon after your workout is done and then the metabolism boost goes to waste, since metabolism naturally slows down when sleep hormones are released.

Pros and cons of working out early

Biggest pro of early exercise is that you’ll burn more fat, that sounds amazing and it is. However exercising earlier has its cons, one is that you will have most definitely have less strength then if you trained in the late afternoon. The other con is that it might be harder to warm up and you will have to spend more time doing it just to be sure you are ready for the workout to avoid any injury. Research shows that the body gets stronger as the day goes on, and the peak strength is somewhere around 18:00. If you goal is to only build up strength and mass without worrying about fat loss  i suggest that you train in the late afternoon and save the early workouts for the cutting phase. They say Arnold Schwarzenegger used to exercise early when he was cutting for Mr. Olympia, he trained very early in the morning claiming that the peak testosterone levels in the morning help build muscle and burn fat at the same time.

Building a perfect daily exercise routine

Most successful people in the fitness industry use a simple technique in planning. They come up with the perfect exercise day and try to make each day as close as possible to that. We are all human and there are a lot of factors involved in weight loss, for example one day can be a bit stressful and stress is proven to affect weight loss and maybe the next you got some other urgent issues to attend to so you have to skip your workout, these things happen and there is no way to escape life. But we will all admit that this is not something that happens every day, most of the days you have spare time for workout but you decide to watch TV or do something else that will not bring you any closer to your goals. Even if you don’t have time in your busy life to visit a gym every day there are no excuses not to try a home workout routine with no equipment required. You must motivate yourself to overcome these obstacles and just be goal oriented, once you start getting results you will easily find inspiration by simply looking at the man in the mirror. You don’t need to look at any fitness photos, your own mirror can be the motivation that keeps you going when it is the hardest.

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