What Is Your Healthy Body Weight?Written by Kim Beardsmore
Since 1980s both adult men and women in USA, Australia, New Zealand and United Kingdom have become heavier. Obesity rates have more than doubled in last 20 years! Children also are also becoming heavier and obesity is linked to high blood pressure, heart disease and even shortening of life expectancy. Some have said this generation is digging our graves with our teeth! How can you tell what is a healthy weight for you? Well, certainly not by stereotypical 'perfect' female shape we see in movies and on TV! The truth is these images do not depict typical female form. Men also struggle to find a realistic picture of healthy male. The pressure to lose weight to an unrealistic slimness is immense and can lead to more heartache rather than good health. It is time to pay attention to our weight but how can we determine what is a healthy body weight for each individual that is not based on unrealistic expectations? The simplest way to check your weight is to measure your waist circumference, using a tape measure. This gives you an idea of whether you have a lot of fat stored around your middle. Waist circumferences associated with increased health risk are: · Men - Waist circumference greater than 94cm · Women - Waist circumference greater than 80cm
| | Diet and Exercise Evolution: Adaptation (part I) -- TheoryWritten by David McCormick
Adaptation is most important weight loss concept you can learn. The human body adapts to pressures it is put under with goal of prolonging life. Your body wants to survive as long as possible, and it will adjust its internal workings quickly if it is presented with changes. So, everything that happens to you - especially things that happen regularly, like eating habits, sleep cycles and general activity - will have two effects on your body. 1) An immediate effect in short term, then 2) for long term, your body will adapt to it to better perform next time. It is this adaptation that most people forget about.Mind-Body Split Your mind perceives changes to your environment through your eyes and other senses, that's how you understand world around you. But your organs and cells can only perceive changes in demands made on them and kinds of nutrients they get in your blood. Whether stimulus comes from world (a virus enters your body) or from you (you decide to take stairs instead of elevator), cells in your body will react so that next time that event happens, cells can handle situation better. In case of virus, your body creates antibodies. In case of taking stairs, your body ups endurance of your leg muscles. Your thoughts have little effect on what happens in your body at level of your organs, and even less at level of your cells. You are always in mental control of your muscles except for built-in reactions, and you can consciously take control of your breathing. However, none of your other systems can be consciously controlled. That's why you can't will yourself thin. So, never mistake by doing something that you "intend" to lose weight, but instead think of how your body will adapt to your performing action. The Factory You can think of your body as a factory: The boss (your brain) can see where finished product is going, and how much profit to make. But workers can't see all accounting papers or costs of materials or even customers. The workers (your cells) only see that they're being asked to work on a certain task, at a certain rate of pay, for a certain number of hours, and so on. That's what makes a difference to them. The factors that directly affect them and their job are only things that will affect how they do their job. If boss of this company needs more production or more profits, he can't just tell workers to work harder. That never works! He could raise their pay, or give them more breaks, or just put some music over intercom. There are many ways to communicate to your workers, but you have to send message that has right effect. What about giving workers fewer breaks so that they'll have a better output? They're not wasting time, after all! But we all know that workers need breaks or else they slow down, get tired, get angry, and maybe quit from stress. The same applies to lowering wages. The bad boss thinks that he can make more money if he pays his workers less. As boss of cells in your body, you shouldn't just eat less, because that's like lowering salary of your working cells. You have to get your cells to adapt in direction you want, and tactics to do that may not be obvious. You have to do cellular equivalent of improving morale and increasing worker satisfaction.
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