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HEALTH
LOSING WEIGHT
Nobody wants to be obese. As many people know,
however, it is difficult to maintain ideal weight and
especially difficult to maintain weight loss. f
Obesity is defined as an excess of body fat. As fat cells
enlarge, excess fat accumulates. In those who are
extremely obese, the number of fat cells in the body also
increases. Both genetic and environmental factors play
important roles in the development of obesity. Some of
these factors include excessive caloric intake, inactivity
and metabolic or endocrine disorders.
WHAT IT DOES TO YOU
Statistically, people who are overweight have a higher
risk of heart attack than thin ones, and their heart
attacks are more likely to be severe. Compared with
thin people, they tend to have higher blood pressure,
higher blood cholesterol, and an increased risk of
diabetes, which itself greatly increases the risk of heart
disease as well as blindness, kidney failure, and amputa
tions. Overweight people also run an increased risk of
cancer of the breast or colon.
ARE YOU OVERWEIGHT?
Most American adults are overweight. Women often
admit they are too heavy. Men are more likely to think
their increased weight is normal even though they are 20
to 30 pounds heavier, on average, than men of their age
and height in other countries. You are overweight if you
are more than 10 pounds heavier than you were slim,
healthy 20 year old, or if the roll of fat on you side, at
the waist line, is thicker than 1 inch.
Although it is best to know the distribution of your body
weight as fat and muscle, this can only be determined by
sophisticated techniques such as underwater weighing or
measurement of skinfold thickness with special calphers.
When this is not possible or is inconvenient, there is
another general rule for estimating desirable weight:
Women are allowed 100 pounds for the first 5 feet of
height, with 5 pounds added for each inch over 5 feet.
Therefore, a 5 ft. 5 inch tall woman should weigh 125
pounds.
Men are allowed 110 pounds for the first 5 feet of
height, with 6 pounds added for each inch over 5 feet.
Therefore, a 5 ft. 5 in. tall man should weigh 140
pounds.
Different body weight allowances are given for different
body skeletal sizes or frames. Desirable body weight
for a person with a small frame is about 10 percent less
than for one with a medium frame, likewise, the
desirable weight for a large frame is about 10 percent,
greater than that for a medium frame.
WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT
First, throw away all diets or diet books which advocate
a "one-sided" diet, such as a high-protein diet, or one
that severely restricts calories. They may be bad for you,
they don't supply all the nutrition you need, and they are
almost impossible to stick with. (If they worked, why
would a new "miracle diet" turn up every few months?)
Then:
1) Eat three meals a day, including breakfast.
2) Avoid foods high in sugar or fat, but do include
starches such as whole wheat bread, potatoes, rice, etc
3) Limit portion size of meat; even lean meat is high in
calories.
4) Use nonfat and lowfat dairy products.
5) Eat slowly, making each meal last 30 minutes without
second helpings.
6) Decide on one mid-morning and one mid-afternoon
snack if you become hungry between meals.
7) Plan low-calorie snacks ahead of time. Fruits and
vegetables are ideal. Eat slowly, spending at least 10
minutes on each snack.
8) Expect weigh loss to be slow but steady. Better to
lose 10 pounds a year and keep it off than to lose 10
pounds one month and regain it the next.
9) Keep a "Food and Exercise Diary". Write down the
time and everything you ate and everything you did at
that time. This will give you a pretty good idea of what
is causing your weight problem: where too many
calories are coming in, and where too few are being
used in exercise.
Second, become more active. This does not mean you
should rush out and jog (which could be dangerous if
you are very much overweight). If you take up a regular
exercise program, start slowly. You have extra work
carrying poundage; exercise will be easier when you
weigh less.
You may have heard that you need to run 3 12 miles or
jump rope for 1 hour to burn off the calories in one slice
of chocolate cake. Seems hardly worth bothering with
exercise. But, if you look at the long-range results, the
picture is different. In the course of a year, if you use up
more calories than you consume, you won't be able to
help losing weight. A miles' walk a day should take off
at least 10 pounds in a year, if your caloric intake
remains the same. In fact, your extra walking may take
off even more than that; brisk exercise can tone up your
metabolism, so that you burn up more calories even
when you are resting. Weigh loss through exercise is
mostly fat, whereas dieting alone deprives your body of
some valuable lean muscle tissue. As you lose fat
through exercise, you will start to look slimmer even
before much weigh loss shows up on the scales, because
some of your flab will turn back into lean muscle tissue,
which weighs more than flab. So use a tape measure
and the mirror to judge progress, not just the bathroom
scale.
You should arrange for at least 20 minutes of EXTRA
activity every day, if possible, half an hour, or even a
whole hour. Set yourself a goal: a total of 20 to 40
minutes of exercise a day:
12 SUGGESTIONS FOR EXTRA ACTIVITY
1) Take stairs instead of elevator.
2) Walk between stores.
3) Walk to work.
4) Park at the far end of the parking lot.
5) Get off the bus one stop too soon.
6) Do extra housework ( mopping, vacuuming).
7) Mow the lawn.
8) Garden (extra sweeping, hoeing, digging).
9) Bicycle to stores, or to work or school.
10) Walk down the hall to talk to a colleague instead of
using the office phone.
11) Walk to eating place at lunch.
12) Take up a regular exercise program such as: walk
ing dancing running - bicycling - exercise classes -stationary
bicycle riding. .
CHUBBY CHILDREN
Far too many American children are overweight, and
grow into obese adults with all of the health risks obesity
causes. Being overweight may run in families - but
mainly it is because some famines exercise too little and
eat more than they need. Help your children grow up
slim by getting them to:
Be more active (less TV time).
Snack at REGULAR times, not all the time.
Cut down on junk foods that are high in sugar and fat.
Children who grow up with good eating and exercise
habits grow up to be strong, healthy adults.
Next on our Staving Healthy series, we will talk about
exercise and its overall importance in keeping ourselves
healthy. Be sure to join us on Thursday, April 14 at 1:30
p.m. here at the Grand Ronde Tribal Headquarters for
a lively presentation on EXERCISE: WHATS GOOD,
WHAT'S BAD and what it can mean to you as you
strive to STAY HEALTHY!!
Carol Terp,RNC
Tribal Health Program