You see it everyday, news and information that bring to the front our problem with our weight. It is a national problem. It's not just your older sedentary population; it's not just your overworked middle-age population; and it's not just your nerdy teenage population. It is a national epidemic. How did we go from one of the most physically fit nations, to just wallowing in our weight?
Over the last thirty years, food nutritionists and the food industry as a whole have embraced the idea of lowering our fat intake. This was a direct result of the information published by the government that encouraged less egg consumption because of the cholesterol found in eggs. After that particular piece of information, doctors began to discover that when we consume fat, we have higher incidences of cholesterol problems. The logical conclusion: fat must be bad for you. And so, an entire generation as grown up with fat-free foods. A whole generation grew up believing that fat was what made us fat, clogged our arteries, and generally caused ill-health.
So what did we do? We turned to carbs to make up for the loss in taste of food that had the fat removed; for you see, fat is what gives many of our foods their delicious taste. When you remove the fat, the taste must be artificially injected into the food. The end result is a food that is higher in carbohydrate content, but lower in fat. Hence, all the wonderful labels displaying the claim of fat free but neglect to mention the higher level of carbohydrates. Lowered fat should have created a population of slim, trim, healthy people. Right?
We could not have been further from the truth. As it turns out, fat is a necessary part of our metabolic processes. We need the fat in order to properly utilize many of the vitamins and nutrients we consume. When did we make this discovery? Probably some thirty years too late for some people.
Now, we have an entire generation of young people, who have because of their high carbohydrate food choices, become a nation of obese adults. Never before has a nation recorded the kind of obesity problems this nation is facing now. Never before have we ever had so much, to have so little. These young people are experiencing low self-esteem, weight related health problems, and whole host of emotional problems, thanks to obesity issue. How can we try to help them correct this problem?
According to the guides published by the USDA, calorie needs vary from one age group to another, one gender to another. So how do you determine what your individual needs are? You can setup a journal for recording your daily caloric intake for about a month. Make a note of your weight each day. If you don't gain any weight during the course of that month, you're eating your recommended calorie level in order to maintain your weight.
Now, take that calorie information, use the food pyramid and comprise a combination of foods that will help you achieve this recommended daily intake, and still be enough to be filling and please the palette. You now have an individualized healthy eating plan. This is the safe sure way to reach weight loss goals. It didn't become a problem overnight, and it won't go away overnight.
Despite the billion of dollars spent on spent on weight loss each year, there is no magic diet, no diet pill, or exercise routine that is guaranteed to make you lose weight. We know now that 95% of all diets fail and people are growing larger, heavier and more frustrated by the minute as obesity rates have triple since the 1960's.
Right now 8 out of every 10 people are overweight and many are obese and this number continues to accelerate. Millions of people at any one time are making a monumental effort to lose weight to help them avoid the health risks yet most of them are falling far short of achieving their goals.
One of the biggest threats that people face today is the inability to maintain a healthy body weight. It all boils down to your body's chemical make up? your fat-burning furnace?your body's engine? your metabolism.
Our modern day lifestyles are working in opposition to the needs of our body and our metabolism (the mechanism that drives our entire body) is taking the brunt of it. Any wonder that we are becoming overweight, tired and sick. There are certain things that our genetic blueprint that was formed thousands of years ago dictates that we must have to remain healthy and we are pretending that they don't exist and it doesn't matter.
The first one is vigorous physical activity throughout our lives. But most of us on a daily basis hardly move at all. We drive to work, we sit all day, and we drive back home, sit motionless in front of the television for hours then go to bed.
Our body simply cannot stay healthy living like this; it needs constant energetic movement to stimulate the hormones which are the chemical messengers to take their instructions to the cells, tissues, systems and processes in our bodies. Only when they receive these instructions will they obey and repair, rebuild, replace and renew themselves.
Without this continual rejuvenation we embark on a downward spiral of degeneration and become old, weak and sick well before our time. That is of course if we are not taken out by one of the 'big three' heart disease, cancer or diabetes before we get 'old'.
The problem is nobody is really trying to get this message out there. People should be informed so they can make choices about the fate that awaits them if they fail to alter their lifestyles. But the people who could help make changes to our society are involved in financially driven organizations such as the medical profession and the food industry.
So it seems unlikely the message will come from them they would have nothing to gain and everything to lose if people should become healthy.
Yet this message is so simple, perform a proper exercise program that contains strength training exercise a couple of times each week. The balance of the program should contain at least one session weekly that involves interval training ? shorts bursts of all out activity alternated by slower rest periods.
Forget the long, slow, boring activities that so called 'experts' would have you believe is all you need to do to stay strong and fit. Some walking or gardening or maybe even bird watching is what some of them believe you need to stay healthy. That really isn't working is it with the current global health crisis? Don't be sucked in - you need a lot more than that to stay healthy.
To support your proper exercise program, eat 5-6 small meals throughout the day made up of whole, natural, unprocessed food as much as possible. Each meal should contain 20-30 grams of protein and the balance raw and cooked vegetables
These two factors are all that is needed to totally turn around weight loss challenges, poor health challenges and tiredness and fatigue. Get inspired, get started and get others to join you so future generations won't follow us down this path.
Gen Wright has sinced written about articles on various topics from Terrier Dogs, Acne Treatment and Lose Weight. Do you want to discover the secret to rejuvenating your body and improving the quality of your life? Download my free ebook "I've Found the Fountain of Youth- Let Me Show You Too!" here:. Gen Wright's top article generates over 1220000 views. to your Favourites.