Who hasn’t gone on a diet …
bought exercise equipment …
joined a gym …
paid to join a dieting club?
There’s always someone who is willing to tell you why you’re too heavy, isn’t there! Can’t you hear ’em right now! You eat too much! Just stop eating so much, start exercising and the pounds will melt away.
Everyone knows someone who lost a lot of weight eating less and exercising more – don’t they. What can you do when that doesn’t work ?
Don’t stop eating ! It may be the worst thing you can do to yourself.
There are four reasons why otherwise healthy people are overweight:
- metabolism
- digestion
- prescription drugs
- dietary choices
Metabolism
Metabolism is the body’s engine. During the day, catabolic metabolism provides the energy for all of the components of alert, waking hours activity. The function, use and overuse of the various components of body during waking hours stresses and damages tissue.
During sleep, anabolic metabolism provides the energy to replace the 300 billion cells that have worn out as well as any tissue that has been damaged and stressed during the day.
Calories are the measurement of the energy potential of food. Fats and carbohydrates have an energy potential of nine calories per gram; protein has four. Researchers estimate that 60% to 70% of all calories are used for metabolism.
The body’s metabolic furnace has a thermostat that regulates the use of the calories. It moves the “temperature” up and down depending on the need for energy and the availability of calories. Also, it establishes a set point for stored energy (fat) by considering the frequency and quality of the food we eat it controls the storage of fat – putting away energy (calories) in case of famine (periods of low calorie intake).
People with a low metabolic set point, besides being overweight, experience low energy levels and reduced alertness. Often, they are just as tired in the morning as they were the night before.
Missing meals or eating low quality food triggers two responses: reducing basic metabolism (both daytime and nighttime) and increasing fat storage.
Trying to lose weight by skipping meals and/or dieting is like creating a personal famine. It is effective because the calories are taken away faster than the body can reestablish a new set point. However, the body will ultimately establish a new lower metabolic set point that matches the lower available calories.
When you stop starving yourself, the body perceives that the “famine” has ended and begins to establish a new set-point. However, because you have started eating again, you are adding calories faster than the thermostat can adjust, you will gain weight. Worse yet, sometimes the body fails to increase the set point which results in significant fat storage from a modest increase of calories.
Nutraceuticals are helpful to establish or reestablish a higher day time metabolic set point. The benefits are controlling appetite, craving, increasing energy, alertness and, because these herbs increase day time metabolism, caloric demand increases and the user experiences weight change.
Night time metabolism is important too! A nighttime Nutraceutical combines amino acids, the building blocks for new tissue, with herbs to establish a higher night time metabolic set point.
Lose Weight While You Sleep
Nighttime nutraceutical supplements address night time metabolism creating an increase caloric demand to support the repair and replacement of cells and tissue which leads to a more toned body,which, in turn, burns more calories and the user experiences weight change.
Plus, there is a sculpting effect” that tones and reshapes the body – your cloths will fit better and as an added benefit is the user will arise refreshed and energized in the morning Learn more about a Nighttime Weight Management Nutraceutical supplement.
Digestion
Digestion, often overlooked, may cause people to be overweight. Digestion is not magic – it is a process for turning food into substances that people need to live – sugars and fats for energy, proteins to sustain the body. The very substances that sustain and benefit the body that, when poorly digested, become toxins that can poison your body.
People with inefficient digestion, besides being overweight, describe themselves as pear shaped, with a distended abdomen.
They experience a bloated feeling after they eat, usually accompanied with gas. Poor digestion may contribute to periodic bouts of constipation and diarrhea. Food sensitivity and heartburn are other aspects of inefficient digestion.
Digestion is an intricate dance between substances called enzymes, stomach acids and intestinal microbes. One partner preparing food for the next with one goal … optimal health. It is an orderly process:
- Digestion begins when you chew the food. Chewing shreds the food in smaller and smaller pieces then mixing it with saliva, which is actually an enzyme called amylase, begins a process which liquefies the mixture of food.
- After a resting period to allow the food to fully liquify, the liquified food is treated with stomach acid.
- The prepared liquid is neutralized and delivered to an army of friendly microbes to be converted into nutritional substances which are passed through the intestinal wall to support the body.
Essential ingredients for the liquification process are food enzymes which are contained in all of the raw, uncooked food. Processing and cooking neutralizes these essential enzymes which sets off a chain reaction in the digestive system.
- Shredded food is partially liquified, more stomach acid is produced to compensate, the higher than normal acid mixture is partially neutralized.
- Microbial action, that converts the food you eat to the nutrition to support your body and your health, is diminished because the microbes are especially sensitive to acidity (some strains of intestinal microbes may be completely destroyed).
- The mass of undigesting food moves slowly along the intestinal tract and begins to spoil. Sugars and starches ferment, fats become rancid and proteins decay.
- The person puffs up because fermentation fills the body with carbon dioxide. The abdomen distends when important organs swell because they are being bathed in the poisons spilling out of the rotting material in the intestines.
There are two distinct requirements to restore digestion:
- introduce essential enzymes that are lost when food is processed or cooked
- restore friendly microbial balance.
Nutraceutical enzyme supplements, when taken at mealtime, provide the food enzymes essential for the liquification of the food. Learn more about an enzymes Nutraceutical supplement.
An exciting breakthrough in the industry is the ability grow and prepare friendly intestinal microbes than can be reintroduced into the body to help restore microbe populations lost because of agricultural residues, antibiotics and dietary choice. Learn more about a probiotic Nutraceutical supplement.
Prescription Drugs
Prescription drugs may cause people to be overweight. Birth control, hormone replacement, blood pressure, heart, diabetes, and anti-depressant medications often contribute to weight gain. It is important to read all of the materials and follow all of the instructions that accompany the prescription. The pharmacist provides you with a document that you must read. It describes the drug and the negative side effects that other people have experienced when taking the drug. The paper instructs you to notify your doctor immediately if you experience one of the side effects. Your doctor has options that may be more appropriate for your needs. If you need a prescription drug, take it as instructed by you doctor.
There are drugs that are elective, notably birth control and hormone replacement therapies. Most of the prescribed drugs in these categories warn users that other people have experienced weight gain when using the drugs. Do not be surprised if you gain weight. Because these drugs are elective, you must decide if you want to be heavy, or not. Investigate other options.
A case in point is hormone replacement therapy. A long term study of a frequently prescribed drug sponsored by the Institute of Health (a part of the Federal Drug Administration) to verify the effectiveness of this drug was discontinued because of safety concerns in mid 2002. For years, menopausal women have been taking this pill prescribed by their Gynecologists. The warning about the side effects were there all along, few people paid attention. This impact of this study has women clamoring for alternatives.
Alternatives have existed for quite some time. Supplement formulators have developed herbal supplements that smooth normal hormone fluctuations for women of child bearing years and help ease hormone transition during and after menopause. Learn more about a Nutraceutical supplement formulated for the special needs of women. Dietary Choices
Dietary choices are huge factors to consider for controlling weight.
What you eat is as important, if not more important, than how much you eat. For example, researchers devised an experiment that caused laboratory subjects to become overweight eating a calorie-controlled diet. Each group maintained the same exercise level and ate the same number of calories. One group of subjects was fed a “super market” diet of refined and processed food; the second group received a low fat, high fiber diet. The results of the 60 week study were: 30 % fat for the high fiber, low fat group; 51% fat for the super market group’s weight.
Most people have a taste for refined carbohydrates – table sugar, milk and dairy products, white flour and starches like white rice and potatoes – and, manufacturers know it! If you cut your portions of these foods by 1/2 you will lose weight – and you will feel healthier, avoid energy crashes and much more.
Read the labels of packaged products at the supermarket diet. The first or second ingredient in many of the things we buy is sugar. White flour is almost as bad. While is may be disguised as enriched or fortified flour, it is a refined carbohydrate just the same. The trouble is refined carbohydrates require minimum action by the digestive tract to be converted into glucose (energy for the body). When these spikes in blood sugar occur without need for the energy, the body turns much of it into fat. The drop in glucose level triggers a hunger sensation. This sugar crash is why you eat so often.
Natural sugars, such as those in fruit, honey, molasses etc. and whole grains require more digestive action that slows the release of the glucose. The slower,time release aspects of complex carbohydrates provides a steady, time released source of energy for the body. Complex carbohydrates, eaten like they are grown, help keep you less fat.
There are other issues to consider. Water for instance. People need water – period. Not coffee, not soda, not tea – WATER! At least 8 – 8 ounce glass every day. People confuse thirsty with hungry all of the time. If people knew the symptoms of dehydration, one of which being bloating, they could avoid many of the complaints that nag them everyday.
Fat is another issue. Low fat this and that. What people need to know is animal fat is the enemy. Oils from vegetables, olive oil for instance, contain essential fatty acids that are just what they say – essential. Nuts oils have similar characteristics.
A common observation is that Americans are obese and, at the same time, they lack the essential nutrients to keep them healthy. More times than not, people mistake obesity with overeating when in fact, they aren’t eating enough . . . of the right food. Often time, when people provide the nutrition missing from their diet, is the best weight management program. willpower. Filling the gap between what you are eating and what you should be consuming, with a quality Metabolism boosting supplements, helps the body lose weight and gain willpower.
