| Excessive body weight compounds many health | | | | quickly to make sure the diet you intend to use is a |
| problems. It stresses the heart, the muscles, and the | | | | sound one. During the weight loss stage, many of your |
| bones. It increases the likelihood of hernias, | | | | calories are provided by your own body fat and |
| hemorrhoids, gallbladder disease, and many other | | | | protein as they are being broken down, so you need |
| conditions. Excess weight makes breathing more | | | | little or no fat and much less protein in your diet during |
| difficult, slows you down, makes you less effective in | | | | this period. Complex carbohydrates are important to |
| personal encounters, and lowers your self-image. Fat | | | | most sound diets. Diets usually have a gimmick of |
| people are hospitalized more frequently than people | | | | some kind that encourages you and helps you to |
| with normal weight. They have more surgical | | | | remember the diet. |
| complications, more cases of breast cancer, more high | | | | Most people have some success in losing weight. If |
| blood pressure, more heart attacks, and more strokes. | | | | you set a target, tell people what you are trying to do, |
| Weight control is a difficult task. Fortunately, it | | | | and stick with it for a while, you can probably lose |
| becomes a little easier for seniors than for others. | | | | weight. Remember that it has to go slowly, however, |
| Maximum body weights are generally obtained | | | | since even a total fast will cause true weight loss of |
| between 45 and 64 years of age; after this most | | | | less than a pound a day. Rapid changes in weight are |
| individuals do lose some weight. Excess weight is very | | | | generally due to loss of fluid. Because low-calorie diets |
| seldom due to thyroid disease or other specific illness. | | | | tend to be lower in salt, the first few days of a diet |
| For most of us the problem and the solution are | | | | give you a false sense of accomplishment as you lose |
| personal, not medical. As with the other habits that | | | | some of the fluid that the salt was retaining in your |
| change health, management of this problem begins | | | | body. Then, when the rate of weight loss slows down, |
| with its recognition as a problem. Weight control | | | | you may think that the diet has failed. You have to be |
| requires continued attention. For those of us with a | | | | patient with the weight loss phase. A pound a week is |
| potential problem, the vigilance must be lifelong. | | | | a reasonable goal. This requires elimination of the |
| Increasingly, exercise is being seen as an important | | | | equivalent of one day's food each week. |
| key to weight control. Part of every weight control | | | | The second phase is maintenance, maintaining the |
| program should be an exercise program. Obesity is | | | | desired weight you have achieved. This is more |
| not just the result of overeating. Obese people, when | | | | difficult, and it requires constant attention. Weight |
| studied carefully, are found to move around less than | | | | yourself regularly and record the weight on a chart. |
| other people and, therefore, to burn too few calories. | | | | Draw a red line at three pounds over your desired |
| Thirty-five hundred calories equals about a pound of | | | | weight and keep your weight below the line, using |
| body weight. If you take in 3,500 calories less than you | | | | whatever method works best for you. It is easier and |
| burn, you lose a pound. If you take in 3,500 calories | | | | healthier to make frequent small adjustments in what |
| more than you burn, you gain a pound. If you want | | | | you eat than to try to counteract binges of overeating |
| your horse to lose weight, you just give him less hay | | | | with dieting. Keep yourself off the dietary roller coaster. |
| or exercise him more. | | | | Many people just can't keep weight off no matter how |
| These are two important phases to weight control: the | | | | hard they try. For some people, overweight is |
| weight reduction phase and the weight maintenance | | | | determined by their genes. If this is you, don't feel guilty |
| phase. The weight reduction phase is the easier. Here | | | | about your failure to lose weight. But you must work |
| the method you use to lose weight doesn't matter | | | | twice as hard to reduce all of your other health risks. |
| very much, although you should check with your | | | | You must find a way to exercise, eat less fat, and if |
| doctor if you plan to lose a large amount of weight | | | | you smoke, quit. |