Why Should You Lose Weight?

If you have made the decision to lose weight, either as an overweight or obese person or someone in between, then you have made a wonderful decision, and in fact one of the best decisions that you would ever make in your life. Why is this so? It is because being overweight or obese increases your chances of having cancer, diabetes or cardiovascular disease. When you have a normal weight, your risk of these deadly diseases, as well as other diseases, reduces.

Every year, millions of people all over the world die from cancer. In 2018, there were 9.6 million deaths globally from cancer. Cancer is the second leading cause of death worldwide. Diabetes, also a leading cause of death worldwide is estimated to affect about 425 million people around the world.

Cardiovascular disease, which is also called heart disease, is perhaps the deadliest of them. It is the number one cause of death worldwide. Every year, more people die from cardiovascular disease than from any other cause. Overweight and obesity are risk factors for cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.. Do you see why losing weight is non-negotiable?

While you are about achieving your weight loss goal, it is important for you to remember that how you lose weight matters. There is a lot of information on weight loss out there but some of these weight loss tips would not only prove unhelpful in the long run, but they may also be damaging to your health. Why should you lose weight at the price of your health? That doesn’t make any sense. Does it?

Unhealthy Weight Loss Practices

A healthy weight loss plan is one that improves your overall wellbeing as well as help you to lose weight. In the same way, a healthy diet is one that includes different types of foods from all food classes in appropriate amounts. Let’s take a look at unhealthy weight loss practices you should never try. If you are guilty of any of them, you should quit right away.

Eliminating Fats from Your Diet

Fats are not bad; it just depends on what type you are eating. Fats are one of the classes of foods and they are essential for the body. Your body needs fats to survive. Eliminating fats from your diet would do your body more harm than good. What type of fats should you eat? There are two main types of fats – unsaturated fats and saturated fats. Unsaturated fats are healthy fats. They are mostly found in foods from plants.

Unsaturated fats play very important roles in the body including improving blood cholesterol levels and stabilizing heart rhythms. Unsaturated fats can be classified into two – polyunsaturated fats and monounsaturated fats. Sources of unsaturated fats include almonds, walnuts, fish, corn, avocado, peanuts, flaxseed, sunflower and soybean. Saturated fats are tagged the “bad fats”. They are bad because when eaten in excess amounts, they can cause cholesterol buildup in the blood stream or arteries.

Saturated fats raise the level of LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol in your body. A high LDL cholesterol level increases the risk of stroke, diabetes and heart disease. Eating them a lot would also make you gain a lot of weight. Sources of saturated fats include butter, coconut oil, red meat and junk foods. Unsaturated fats are definitely the type of fats you should be eating. Saturated fats, on the other hand should be eaten sparingly. This also includes chicken.

It is recommended that you obtain less than 10% of your daily calorie intake from saturated fats. Transfat are the very bad type of fats. Eating just a little of transfat have harmful effects on the health. Besides reducing the levels of good cholesterol in your body and increasing the levels of bad cholesterol, they also play a role in insulin resistance. Processed foods contain high amounts of transfat.

Engaging in Excessive Exercise

We all know how important it is for us to exercise. A weight loss plan that promises you weight loss without exercise is not a healthy weight loss plan. This is because physical activity plays an important role in losing weight and maintaining a healthy weight. What you shouldn’t do is to exercise too much. Too much exercise would indeed make you lose weight, but it exposes you to other health problems.

Excessive exercise does just the opposite of moderate exercise. It increases your stress levels and disrupts your hormones. Too much exercise can cause infertility. When you exercise more than you should, you would also feel hungrier. This could make you eat more. In the end, you’d gain the weight that you had tried so hard to lose, even more. The benefits of exercise are best reaped when they are done moderately.

Eating only a Type or Class of Food

This sounds impossible but it’s a common practice. Fruits and vegetables are known to be lifesavers. They are rich in antioxidants and they offer amazing benefits for the health. Yet, that does not mean all you should ever eat are fruits are vegetables. This will make you sick! It’s the same way if you eat just proteins.

You need all the classes of foods in right amounts to lose weight and maintain your weight loss. Restricting your diet to a particular type of food may seem to work at first. In a little time, you could lose a lot of weight, but your body is never able to maintain that weight loss. With time, you would pack up the lost pounds but before then, other illnesses as a result of nutritional deficiencies would crop up.

Skipping Meals or Eating too Little

Fasting is good for the health. Various studies have shown that intermittent fasting is beneficial to the health as it may help to reduce cholesterol levels and lower blood pressure. But the keyword there is “intermittent”. You should never employ meal skipping as a tool to lose weight, especially breakfast.

Eating too little will make you less productive. You would have to try so hard to carry on with daily activities due to lack of strength. While meal skipping will definitely help you to lose weight, and very quickly too, you would regain the weight, and not only that, but with a greater risk of excess body fat.

Now that we have looked at unhealthy ways to lose weight, what’s the healthy way? What type of food should you eat to lose weight? What really is a healthy diet? Keep these three things in mind:

• A healthy diet is one that includes all the essential nutrients and contains different types of foods from all the main classes of foods. The focus of this type of diet is to help you achieve a balance between the calories you consume and the calories you use up.
• Weight loss takes time and it is never abrupt, except in the instance of an illness. In the same way those pounds accumulated gradually, real and healthy weight loss happens gradually, never immediately.
• Weight loss is hard work with a lot of commitment. It really is not easy.
• A healthy weight loss plan is always sustainable. If you are struggling to keep up with your weight loss plan, then it may not be good for you. Your weight loss plan should be realistic, achievable and practicable for as long as you live.

In conclusion

By now, you should be able to tell if your weight loss plan is good for you. It is very good for you to lose weight, but certainly not by any or every means. You should never become obsessed with your weight that you become desperate. What you should aim for is not only to lose weight, but to also maintain a healthy weight in good health.