IMPROVE YOUR APPEARANCE: FAT LOSS

Appearance has become to a large extent a key determinant of an individual’s self-esteem. As a point of reference, would you be comfortable to jump straight out of bed onto a stage full of an audience more interested in seeing you rather than hearing you? Your most probable answer would be no as is the case with most of us. Due time is used taking care of the appearance. Especially among the twenty-first century generation, appearance is a key factor in granting one the due respect. If properly taken into consideration, your appearance may rank you high than may be the case.

Are You Fat?

 What really does this word imply? Is it really an insult? From my personal aspect, I would not smile back at you if you dare call me “fat”.According to English Oxford Dictionaries fat when used as an adjective suggests one that has an excessive amount of flesh present on the body. This is undesirable as you know no one wants too much of anything. Well to some extent does this apply? I would shout NO. I would appreciate more and more knowledge and wisdom honestly speaking. Measuring whether a person is fat or not may be a challenge in itself. For that, Body Mass Index (B.M.I) is used to identify healthy weight. Waist size also comes in handy when it comes to estimating the amount of fat on an individual’s body. Further on B.M.I, it also includes the height in the whole estimation. A large proportion of the American population is obese. This makes B.M.I a better judge on whether you are fat or not rather that your friend with whom you may even exchange blows if not just counter abuse after counter abuse. This is how it works;

1. Take your weight in pounds
2. Multiply it by 703
3. Measure your height in inches
4. Divide the answer in (ii) by this height
5. Divide the answer by your height in inches again
6. After arriving at the answer, the following scale should help categorize you:

• Below 18 : underweight
• Above 18 – 24.9 : healthy
• 0 – 29.9 : Overweight
• 0 – 39.9 : Obese Over
• 40 : Morbidly obese

We should also appreciate scientists who made fat determination easier by developing an instrument that actually measures thickness of the skin. The instrument is known as skin calipers. No one calls you fat as a compliment at least not in the current generation. The word is largely associated with laziness and people who are not attractive. What annoys mostly is that the person calling you fat has already passed a judgement on you without being called upon to do so. But why is being fat seen as such an awful thing? Let us dig a bit deep on some of the challenges that fat people or those having excess weight, as it is more commonly termed, face in their day to day lives. Basically as you age, the amount of fat in your body increases as the muscles composition decreases. This largely due to the fact that metabolism slows down together with the fact that activity reduces hence increasing probability of weight gain.

Nightmares Fat People Live With

• Working out in the gym becomes a hell of an undertaking
• High blood pressure
• Certain cancer forms
• Minimal if any involvement in sports
• Fat people are at a higher risk of heart diseases
• Significant reduction of the self esteem
• Diabetes
• Fat people are assumed to snore more than their “not-fat” counterparts
• Most people are less attracted to fat people
• Flexibility is significantly reduced
• Fat people tend to eat too much

These just explain why being fat is not a preferred state of your body. As you try as much as possible to avoid fatness, there is that young man or lady who is already fat. What is in for him or her? We will take a look at fat loss shortly. But first, let us make sure you are practicing what is required in order to prevent excess weight.

Measures To Prevent Excess Weight

1. Lifestyle

The major aspect of your life that is brought into consideration in order to prevented gaining of excess weight is lifestyle. Lifestyle is a collective word for habits, moral standards, economic level and tastes of a person. This is all together the mode of living of a person or even a group. Some lifestyles begin as early as during the individual’s childhood meaning that parents play a key role in influencing their child’s lifestyle. A healthy diet for instance may trace its origin back to your parents. You may consider making the following adjustments to your lifestyle:

• Being active-the human body is designed in such a way that food is taken to provide energy used during work and also repairing damaged tissue. Imagine of a situation where you add fuel to your car yet you are not driving it. Is this logical at all?

The same happens to the body. When you feed and yet not work, the food is just stored and accumulates into fat. This results in significant gain of weight as the food is not used up. As such, it is important to do something active especially after meals to bring the food into good use. You could for instance just decide to lough your yard.

• Watch the quantity of food you eat-this measure works logically well as a firewood cooker. You would be much better off adding little by little firewood instead of adding a whole bunch to cook a meal. The whole bunch will light such a big fire it may even cover the pot. Let me term it as excess fire. In the case of the human body, food replaces the firewood as the input. The fire is the output and in cases where you take too much food. Excessive weight is usually the output “large fire produced’.

2. Diet

In order to prevent being fat, it is important that you pay attention to the type of food you eat. Make every meal you eat healthy by keeping calorie needs in mind. Foods high in fats should be avoided and ensure the amount of energy in and amount of energy out should be balanced.

3. Evaluate yourself

 It is of importance to watch your weight by weighing yourself at regular intervals. This enables you to you to realize it as soon as weight starts creeping in. On realizing this time should be taken to re-evaluate yourself and thereafter know where you went wrong. You should then set to correct yourself. The following key points will ease the evaluation further;

• Have I increased the amount of food I take in? This in particular may be rather challenging in instances where little is eaten during meals but much is eaten as snacks in between meals.
• Shortness of breathe
• Have I reduced my engagement in physical activities? This will have an easy answer especially if you have been seating back catching episodes of your favorite television program.
• Skin problems. This is usually as a result of skin folding and moisture accumulating in between the skin folds
• Varicose veins may be visible
• Difficulty when it comes to sleeping

Remember, “It is worth nothing evaluating yourself if you are going to continue with the same negative engagements or activities”.

Possible solutions for the obese

For those who are already overweight, fat or obese all hope is not gone as the situation may be as well reversed. These measures should be taken into consideration;

• Lesser calories should be consumed
• Regular exercising
• Prescribed diets together with medication: the effect of one using this on long term is not yet determined. Usually weight gain is a common occurrence when you stop taking the pills
• Non-prescription diet pills: these are sold over-the-counter usually their constituents result in higher blood pressure as they increase the heart beat rate. It is argued that they produce consistent weight loss
• Orlistat: This is non-prescription and prevents the absorption of fat in the intestines
• Surgery; on extreme cases, surgery may be opted for to reduce weight. It is usually the last measure in case the others fail. There are a number of surgical procedures which include;

1. Gastroplasty or stomach stapling: this works in such a way that it reduces the size of the patient’s stomach. You will not take too much of anything if you do not have the space to keep it. A band which is adjustable is placed around the stomach invasive surgery being minimal in this case.
2. Gastric bypass: in this case a direct connection is made between the upper part of the stomach and the small intestines. As such the stomach is bypassed together with the upper small intestine. This instance I would say closing down a store that is used to getting excess supply.

My Appearance after Losing Fat

Would you take a minute off and imagine a bag stacked full of goods let us say potatoes. When you take out a number of potatoes from the bag especially from the sides, the bag is left sagging. This is similarly the case when it comes to individuals who have just undergone significant weight loss. The skins are more often than not let loose. Said straight without beating around the bush, “loose skin is ugly”. Let us take a look at what you may do to further better your appearance after the losing weight part.

Dealing With Loose Skin after Weight Loss

Loose skin can be really a pain in the neck especially after the hard work out that is usually involved in losing weight. It is a big letdown from what most you who lost weight really expected of their bodies. Mostly, gym instructors and doctors leave you at the point where you have just lost weight. But I tend to be different from them in that we will go further after the workout and all, until you arrive at what you really desired of your body. I have a hard believe that one should get what he or she really wanted when he or she chose a particular path or course of action. As earlier justified we are living in the twenty first century where obsession with looks is nothing new to us. Am pretty sure both you and I would be really impressed with our healthy, lean and strong bodies and others to the extent of showing off. I exempted from the latter. I do believe the feeling of having such a body should be experienced by all regardless of initial size or shape.

What most people term as excess skin is in most circumstances just excess body fat? If it feels thick when pinched, the fat losing part is not yet finished. This is an indication of more fat that has to be lost. This remaining fat makes the skin sag since it is attached to it. Excess skin may be seen in instances where the skin is very thin yet rugged. Fat in some areas of the body is usually harder to burn out than in the rest of the body. For this reason, workout that is directed to these specific regions is necessary to get rid of these fat. You will realize that these are the fats you referred to as excess skin mostly because of their strategic location which includes;

• The butt
• The abdomen
• Thighs
• Love handles(lower back)
• The hips

Muscle Building

 I know must of you skipped through the earlier subtopics just to land on this one. “THE MUSCLES”. The truth is that quite a good number of those in weight loss programs are in it for the muscle gaining. A good proportion being the males. Most males would like to show their well-built bodies full of muscles. Well, in today’s society, I must admit, it earns one good ’bargain power’ when it comes to attracting the females. If you are a female I know you lust for a muscular male by your side rather than a ‘fat’ one. Most actors have these muscular looks which leaves me wondering, is it really a requirement for the movie industry or mere coincidence? Perhaps they are responsible for swaying our beloved ladies in to admiring muscular bodied men.

How Muscle Building Happens

 Underneath the skin, the human body is made up of fat and muscles. Increase in either the muscles or fat pushes the skin outwards resulting in change of shape or size. When fat is lost especially at a very high rate, there is space that is left under the skin. This room allows for sagging of the skin.

Building muscles is quite an excellent solution as it takes up the space that was occupied by the fat which is now eliminated. It fills the gap left behind by the fat giving the body a tight healthy look.

How Much Better Would Your Sex Life Be Without Excess Fat?

 When you are morbidly obese from measurement by the M.B.I your sexual life is almost always affected to some extent. Significantly affected will be;

• Desire for sex
• Enjoyment of sex activities
• Your overall performance during sex

Sex is a form of activity, as we had earlier indicated, the obese tend to stay away from most physical activities, sex included. The probability of a morbidly obese person reporting a challenge in their sex life is greatly higher than chances of normal-weight individuals reporting sexual challenges. What really causes such as large portion of those with sexual problems to be the morbidly obese? Worry no more as we are going to look at that in this article altogether.

Sex

Sex has always been an issue hard to be brought to the tables for open discussion. Many suffer silently viewing this a very private affair only between them and their partners. If I may put it in another way, they fear the shame that comes along when one is termed a ‘low performer’ during sex activities. This is despite the tremendous developments taking place among the current generation in regard to almost zero secrecy. Worth giving credit though, today’s generation has brought sex life more open as compared to the previous generations. This has seen varies therapies and treatments being brought forward to address the challenges.

Statistics Involving Morbid Obese People and Performance during Sex

A group of 928 people, men as well as women, all over 40 B.M.I was used for the statistics. 50 percent of these individuals were out seeking weight loss. All the 928 people in the statistics together with an additional 282 people with normal weight participated in the survey. The survey involved filing up a questionnaire revolving about the following:

1. Sexual desire
2. Avoiding of sexual activities
3. Enjoying the act of sex
4. Difficulty when it comes to performance during sex

Results

1. 65 %: obese individuals in the treatment group reporting sexual problems.
2. 41 % of the people not in treatment group reported sexual problems
3. 5 % of people who are normal weight reported a problem

For individuals in the treatment group:

1. 50 % had reported difficulty when it comes to sex
2. 42 % had problem that involved performance during sex
3. 41 % did not want to engage in sex

Among the non-treatment group:

1. 29 % had difficulty in their desire for sex
2. 24 % did not want to engage in sex

Normal weight people:

• 3 % avoided sex
• 2 % had functional problems

The statistics suggested that enjoyment of sex was greatly hindered:

1. 28 % of group in treatment reported that they enjoyed sex less
2. 30 % of non-treatment group reported that they enjoyed sex less
3. 4 % of the normal weight people reported that they enjoyed sex less

From the gender point of view, females reported more cases of sexual challenges when compared to the males. Worth noting is that few challenges were reported among the obese seeking treatment. My advice to you the obese, rise up and go seek the treatment. A few of us may not be very friendly when it comes to matters involving number as in the statistics. I got you covered. The major point show that;

• Many people who are overweight are out there not seeking treatment and experiencing stigma
• The obese are entitled to lead a normal life. Treatment is a major step in leading this normal life
• The answer to most sexual problems is not just in losing weight. The real problems could be deeper rooted such as self-esteem in itself.

In Conclusion

 An awesome body is a great tool in increasing an individual’s self-esteem. It is usually accompanied by good overall body health as well as strength. Do not just seat there, rise up and be active. Break a sweat and watch your body appearance change for the better.