Have you been repeatedly frustrated with your weight loss efforts because you were not able to reach or maintain your desired weight? You may have been setting unrealistic goals for yourself. Be realistic, don't compare yourself with someone else. You are an individual and your body likely behaves differently from someone else's body. Weight loss aside, feeling good and obtaining the benefits of healthy lifestyle changes are real goals.
Have you been repeatedly frustrated with your weight management efforts because you were not able to reach or maintain your goal weight? You may have been setting unrealistic goals for yourself, based on an "ideal of slimness" that comes from society.
Popular magazines and commercial diet programs still show you pages upon pages of beautiful, ultrathin models, many of which have been carefully touched up to make the models appear even thinner than real life. You may be comparing yourself not only to a model, but to an unreal model.
And then there is the Barbie doll. Barbie has the features of an anorexic person, but she still is a child's role model. Her message is "if you get the body, you can get the guy." Junior high and high school girls have described the ideal girl as 5'7", 110 pounds, size 5, long blond hair and blue eyes. TV still shows the slim as the ones that are popular, successful and happy.
The ads keep you aware of how far from their ideal you are, and promote the feeling of failure. It is not surprising that we set goals that are not reachable or maintainable. Nor are they desirable.
The flip side of the drive to become slim is the continuing expansion of the fast food and the sweets industry. Advertising associated with this drive is directed at your emotions. It makes it hard to resist unhealthy foods, and it confuses people. You feel guilty if you eat the advertised food, and deprived if you don't.
How can you develop realistic goals? Here are practical considerations:
• Slimness is not the only goal. Other health issues are just as important, including the maintenance of normal cholesterol, blood pressure and glucose levels, smoking cessation, stress management, and regular exercise.
• Your personal weight history and physical activity history should be taken into account. If you are a forty-year old woman who weighed 100 pounds when you were running track in high school, then 100 pounds might not be a realistic goal now.
• Metabolism slows with age. If you continue to consume the same amount of food as you become older, there will be a gradual weight gain throughout adult life. Frequently, you can compensate for this decrease in metabolism by increasing your physical activity.
• Metabolism slows with weight loss. As you lose weight, you require fewer calories to maintain your weight. Again, an increase in physical activity may help significantly.
• The "ideal body weight" frequently determined from Life Insurance tables, is neither a good measure of your body fat, nor the best measure of the medical risk of obesity. Body mass index (calculable from your height and weight), the waist hip ratio, and body fat measurement by electrolipoanalysis, are much better ways by which to assess your appropriate weight.
When setting weight goals for yourself, remember this: don't compare yourself with someone else. You are an individual and your body likely behaves differently from someone else's body. When losing weight, make sure you exercise regularly. Feeling good and obtaining the benefits of healthy lifestyle changes is the real goal.
Avoid Those Extra Winter Pounds
Winter is approaching, and the natural tendency for many of us was to stay indoors. For many of us, lack of activity and overeating follows, and the result is those frustrating extra winter pounds. When addressed correctly, winter overweight is preventable. However, sometimes professional assistance is needed; and when that happens, make sure to go with those who will take into account your total medical needs, not just weight loss.
The Health Care Dilemma
Health care reform is upon us. But does it address the real issues? Despite the usual claim that the US has "the best health care in the world," and despite the fact that we spend more than any other country on health care, we are seriously lagging behind other industrialized coutries in longevity and infant mortality. Health care reform may not help resolve this discrepancy, but we, as individuals, can.
The Falling Senior Citizen
Almost 30% of people over 65 fall each year. Ninety percent of all hip fractures are associated with falls. Unintentional fall is the seventh leading cause of death among people over 65 years old. Falls are a primary reason why Seniors become home bound. The tendency to fall increases with age, but fall prevention is effective at any age, and should be a part of good health habits of every Senior Citizen.
