subject: Keeping Your Weight In Check For Optimal Health [print this page] More and more today, our society leans toward obesity. The combination of less strenuous jobs and a more sedentary lifestyle when we are not working have made America, in particular, a nation of people who need to lose weight in order to remain healthy.
In order to age well and to keep some kind of quality to our lives, maintaining an adequate weight is a necessity. It goes without saying that if a young person takes good care of their body, as they age, they will enjoy a greater quality of life.
One aspect of keeping the body healthy and active as we age is maintaining optimal weight. Attending a regular physical and taking care of one's dental health is something that most people do, but many people neglect the monitoring of their own weight, despite carrying it around with them every day. A younger person who does not maintain a healthy weight may not enjoy life as they age as much as someone who takes precautions with their weight. Teaching proper diet and exercise in childhood is important for assuring a high quality of life when they reach adulthood.
Crash diets and unhealthy weight loss regimens are unnecessary and can be obstacles to your weight-related goals. In fact, these methods of losing weight are particularly unhealthy and may even lower the quality of life as we age. Diets such as these may actually cause organ damage by virtue of the caloric limitations or medications that are taken in.
Also, adequate and proper weight does not always mean losing weight. It is true that, for some people, this means they must lose weight. For others though, they must actually gain weight to be considered in optimal health. Fortunately, controlling your weight is possible with a few simple methods. The best method of weight control is preventive maintenance. This means adopting either an adequate diet to maintain your current weight, or a slow and steady weight loss or weight gain program is ideal. Controlling our weight by a reasonable intake of food and the right amount of exercise is the best method of assuring that your body and health remain intact.
In order to maintain the same body weight, a diet should balance the calories taken in against the calories that the body expends daily. In order to gain weight, the body must intake more calories than it expends in a day. Prevention of certain kinds of diseases and health risks means keeping the body weight to a level that is considered healthy by your doctor or qualified medical professional.
In general, the body requires about 3500 calories to create a pound of fat. This means that for every pound of fat that must be lost, the body must burn 3500 calories more than are taken in. Conversely, if it is necessary to gain body weight, the body must take in 3500 calories more than it uses.
Every person burns calories at a unique and different rate. What may be effective to burn the calories for one person, may not do so for another. Creating your own program for managing your weight is essential to leading a healthy lifestyle. A diet that is lower in fat and caloric content should be taken in by those who seek to lose weight, while a diet that is higher in protein, iron, and calories, should be taken in by those who seek to gain weight.
The proper nutrition and exercise is important for everyone. From children to adults, learning about how to maintain the proper body weight for your frame is imperative in order to remain healthy. People who are underweight can be just as unhealthy as those who are overweight due to inadequate liver and kidney function and other related ailments. Those who are overweight for a long period of time may be, as they grow older, prone to hyperglycemia, or adult onset diabetes, strokes, heart attack, high cholesterol, and numerous other debilitating conditions and diseases that will rob them of the quality of life they had hoped to enjoy. When learning about diet and exercise, keep in mind that the ability to age more healthily and remain productive for longer can help to protect, not only ourselves, but also the people we love.
