Weight Loss: Why Do We Gain Weight?Written by Kim Beardsmore
There are many factors that cause us to increase body weight, yet three stand out from rest.Our genetic make up: Every cell in our body has a central control panel, that is a nucleus that contains our genes and chromosomes. This is instruction manual for your body and this is inherited from your parents. It is this instruction manual that is largely responsible for how your body, and even your mind, behaves. The environment in which we live: Our personal environment may also contribute or cue you to adopt poor eating or exercise habits. This is especially true in today's society, which is dominated by speed and convenience. For example, escalators, elevators and remote-control appliances make us less physically active. Also, greater availability and constant marketing of foods that are high in calories, fat and added sugars, and larger portion sizes promote unhealthy eating behaviors. There may also be personal reasons why you are consuming too many kilojoules from food and drinks, or not being physically active enough. For example, when feeling down or bored you may eat more than you need, or if you are feeling depressed it is more difficult to get active. Knowing reason why you may be consuming excess kilojoules or not participating in physical activity, is an important first step in changing your lifestyle habits to help you reach a healthy weight. Our lifestyle: What we eat and drink and how active we are. This is gradual gain in weight as a result of eating food and not exercising enough. The extent to which we can affect our genetic make up and our environment are limited. However, lifestyle is area in which we can significantly manage and if need be, improve our body weight to ensure we maintain a healthy weight for our height, age and gender. This is why learning a healthy nutritious eating pattern and adopting it for life, that is, lifestyle changes has a significant impact on our ability to reach and maintain a healthy weight.
| | Beyond DietsWritten by Debra Betterly, Ph.D., CLC
We can’t choose body we want, rather we have to accept body we are given. Our bodies are an amazing compilation of traits from all our ancestors. They are unique and allow us to have physical experience of life. They are vehicles of our soul. They are connected to our mind and spirit. Our thoughts and emotions can literally make us sick or heal us physically. However, if I asked 10 people if they liked their bodies, what do you think majority, if not all of them, would say? On top of most peoples list would be their dissatisfaction with their weight. Fact: Our current population is getting heavier even though as many as 40 percent of women and 24 percent of men are trying to lose weight at any given time. Unfortunately, our cultures expectation about body size has led to an unhealthy obsession with weight. The underlying cultural view and message given by media is that being thin will make us feel healthier, more beautiful and happier. The media images bombarding us today are unrealistic and seem to lead us on a mission for “ideal body”. Precious time and energy is being consumed by thinking about, talking about, worrying about, and trying to find magic cure for fixing our weight. Even so, statistics prove that there is no magic cure. People who go on “diets” typically gain back as much as one-third to two-thirds of weight within one year and almost all of it within five years. Our self-worth becomes entwined with these messages. Because of our cultures obsession with thinness, it is increasingly difficult for us to see beauty and diversity in different sizes and shapes. It is increasingly difficult for us to not judge ourselves and others by how we look rather than who we are. For, our true beauty is reflected in our soul, our passion, in what we do for others, and how we care for ourselves. Learning to take extremely good care of yourself is a vital part of coaching. Taking a non-dieting approach that focuses on acceptance, physical activity, and normalized eating frees you from “diet mentality” to do better, more important things with your time and energy. The non-dieting approach takes emphasis off calorie counting, counting exchanges, scales, fat gram counting, and “ideal body.” Accept Yourself: •Develop a positive image of yourself. Stop judging your self worth by number on scale, or your body shape or size. Work on remembering who you really are. You know, essence of your soul, you that is “brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous.” (See this quoted from Marianne Williamson’s Our Deepest Fear on my website, www.amazingjourneycoach.com on free writings and assessments page). Stop any negative self-talk in it’s tracks and change it to something positive about yourself. •Become more aware of media and cultural messages that promote an “ideal” body shape. Remind yourself that such expectations are unrealistic. The images appearing in magazines are often computer generated, computer altered and airbrushed! They are not real! •Put away your scale. It does not matter what you weigh. It only matters how healthy and fit you are. Also, weighing encourages weight obsession and measuring your self-worth by what scale says that day.
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