Obesity is a physical condition that refers to excessive body fat. Chances are you've experienced the frustrations of dieting at least once in your life, if you're struggling with your weight. Nearly one hundred million Americans go on a weight loss diet in any given year and up to ninety-five percent of them regain the weight they lost within five years. Worse still, a third will gain more weight than they lost, in danger of "yo-yoing" from one popular diet to another. The conventional approach to weight issues, focusing on weight loss diets or weight loss drugs, can leave you with so much weight and the added burden of poor health.
Today, sixty-five percent of all American adults are obese or overweight. Our culture is obsessed with staying slim even as we grow up, but it's not about looks. Obesity is known to be a precursor to many debilitating health problems such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, osteoarthritis, and gallbladder disease. Obesity contributes to 375,000 deaths each year. Moreover, the public health costs for obesity are staggering. According to Harvard University researchers, obesity is a factor in 19% of all cases of heart disease with annual health costs estimated at $30 billion; It is also a factor in 57% of diabetes cases, with healthcare costs of $9 billion a year.
Set realistic goals:
You've no doubt fallen for one or more of the weight loss diet plans over the years promising quick and painless weight loss. Many of these rapid weight loss diet programs undermine your health, cause physical discomfort, flatulence, and ultimately lead to disappointment when you begin to regain weight soon after losing it. Fad diet or quick weight loss programs usually skim over one type of food. They violate the fundamental principle of good nutrition - to stay healthy, you need to eat a balanced diet, which includes a variety of foods. Safe, healthy and permanent weight reduction is what is truly lost among the thousands of popular diets.
Some of the weight loss diet programs reign supreme briefly, only to fade away. Although some have lost popularity due to their unproductiveness or dangers, some simply lose the curiosity of the public. Examples of such fad diets include the South Beach Diet, Atkins Diet, Grapefruit Diet, Cabbage Soup Diet, Rotation Diet, Beverly Hills Diet, Respiratory Plan, Ornish - the list stretches again and again. These fad diets advocate a specific technique (such as eliminating a certain food or eating only certain combinations of foods) in conjunction with the basic idea that the body makes up the difference in energy by breaking down and using part of itself, converting essentially imports energy. This self-cannibalism, or catabolism as it is referred to, usually begins with a breakdown of stored body fat.
