MEN'S CURE

It seems like everyone is trying to lose weight—but why? Actually, there are a number of reasons why a person may want to lose rate, and these reasons are justified. Losing weight does have great advantages. Of course, there are always going to be horror stories about people who fall into the traps of eating disorders, but for the most part, losing weight is greatly to your advantage.

Weight Loss Advantages

The most obvious advantage to weight loss is, of course, the health benefits. When you are heavier than normal, you put our body at risk to develop a number of disease and conditions, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, and intestinal diseases. These can be prevents and more easily treated if you lose weight. Maintaining a healthy weight is something that you and your doctor should discuss in order to make the best decisions for your body’s health.

There are, however, other advantages as well. First and foremost, when you are of a normal weight, shopping for clothing is more fun and easier because you actually fit into clothing more readily. It can often be less expensive as well. The extra large sizes and beyond use more fabric to make, so many manufacturers raise the prices for these larger articles of clothing.

Losing weight also can teach you about healthy eating, which opens up a whole new world when it comes to food. Cooking with healthy, fresh ingredients can be really fun, and it can be an activity your do with a spouse or children so that the entire family is eating more healthy foods and focused on losing extra weight and maintain healthy weights.

Best

Of course, one of the best advantages is how you will feel about yourself after you’ve lost the weight. Who doesn’t want to receive compliments from coworkers? Who doesn’t want to attend their high school reunions looking even prettier than when actually in high school? Who doesn’t want to smile at their appearance every day when looking in the mirror? Of course, for some people, this takes more than losing weight, but it’s a good start. Discuss your weight loss and potential happiness with a counselor to learn how feeling better about yourself can be possible.

There are a number of other advantages to losing weight as well—you’ll have more energy, be better able to play with your children, have a sense of achievement and much, much more. If you think that you’ve like to take advantage of these great things about weight loss, talk to your doctor today to find out how that can be possible.

Weight loss prevents type 2 diabetes

Diabetes puts in jeopardy one’s life as well as how one leads his or her life because of the complications that result from having it.  Both types of diabetes, type one and type two are linked with being overweight.  To those who already have diabetes, regular exercise and losing weight could help in controlling your blood sugar levels as well as the medication you may be currently taking.  Increase your physical activity.  You could simply walk, jog or dance.  It helps get those blood streams moving as well as lose those unnecessary pounds.

Weight loss helps reduce your risk for cancer

Being overweight is linked with a number of kinds of cancer.  Specially for women, the common types of cancer that is associated with being overweight include cancer of the uterus, gallbladder, ovary, breast, and colon.  This is not meant to scare you, this is only to keep you informed.  Men are at risk too from developing cancer if they are overweight.  These include  cancer of the colon, prostate and rectum.  Extra weight, a diet high in fat and cholesterol should as much as possible be avoided.

Weight loss reduces sleep apnea

Or it could eliminate it all together.  Sleep apnea is a condition wherein one could temporarily stop breathing for a brief period and then would continue to snore heavily.  Sleep apnea could cause drowsiness or sleepiness during the day and – because of being overweight – could result in heart failure.  Shedding those excess pounds could help in eliminating this problem.

Weight loss reduces the pain of osteoarthritis

When one weighs heavily, the joints of  his or her knees, hips and lower back would have to exert double – if not triple – effort to carry him or her through out his / her waking, walking and moving life.  This could cause tension and stress on these joints.  Weight loss decreases the load these joints carry thus decreasing – if not eliminating – the pain of one who has osteoarthritis.

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The perfect weight-loss ways to lose weight include only four words: Eat less, Exercise more. Of course, if it were really that simple. Unfortunately, it’s a lot more complicated than that. Some guys need to eat more to lose weight. And some who are already exercising need to do less, but at a higher intensity.

My targets here is to show you the 10 best ways that you can manipulate your diet, adding in some places and subtracting in others. To start losing weight the next time you open your mouth with the intention of putting something in.

1. Perfect Breakfasts

Eat breakfast, but if you don’t, you’re putting your number one fat burning tool in time-out. It takes calories to digest calories, so eating in the morning fires up your metabolism.

Ways to do: Try a cup of whole-grain cereal with 1 percent low-fat milk and a banana, or two pieces of whole-wheat toast with two tablespoons of peanut butter and an apple. If you hate breakfast food, or have to eat on the fly, take a turkey sandwich (going easy on the mayo) or a slice of leftover cheese pizza and go.

2. Eat Between Meals

So many people discouraged you from eating between meals, probably so you’d eat more while at lunch or dinner.

Perfect snacks: Include one of the following two or three times a day:

An ounce of nuts, pretzels, or string cheese; a medium piece of fruit, six graham cracker squares, or six cups of low-fat microwave popcorn.

3. Fiber-opting

I’m not out to turn you into a vegetarian or anything, but fiber-rich foods are about the only free pass you’ll get in the nutrition world. They have few calories and make you feel full. Your goal is to eat 25 grams of fiber every day (Americans typically consume just 12 grams daily).

Where is: Eat at least three servings of vegetables and two fruit portions daily and add beans to salads and soups. Choose whole-grain breads over those made with refined flour. And for breakfast, pick the highest fiber cereal that doesn’t taste like cardboard.

4. Fight Fire with Fire – joking (Fat with Fat)

Things change fast in my world. A few months ago, you couldn’t tell overweight people to eat more fat without the evil specter of Dr. Atkins appearing over your head. Now, it seems, everyone knows about the health benefits of unsaturated fats, those found in fish, nuts, avocados and olive oil.

But in case you haven’t heard, here’s the basic problem with low-fat diets:

You replace the fat with carbohydrates. Carbs provoke a rise in insulin. More insulin leads to more hunger. On top of that, your body digests carbs faster than fat. So you get hungrier faster. Fat has neither of those liabilities. Your body digests it slowly, and it doesn’t cause an insulin surge. So adding a bit of fat to breakfast, lunch, and dinner actually speeds weight loss.

Another point:

Fat makes you feel more satisfied after a meal. You feel as if you’ve eaten, not just nibbled.

The flip side of this (you knew there was a catch) is that too much fat will make you fat. Fat packs more calories per square inch than protein or carbohydrates. Overeating is easy-especially if you’re breaking rules 1 and 2, starving yourself through the day and then shoveling down a bag of fried pork rinds at night.

So add some nuts and olive oil to your next salad. Put some avocado on that turkey-breast sandwich. Smear peanut butter on your morning toast. And when you eat out, never pass up a chance for a nicely prepared piece of salmon, herring, tuna, or mackerel (these are the fattiest fish).

5. Don’t get juiced

Sure, 100 percent juice beats the pants off soda for nutrition, but juice (and those pseudo-juice beverages, like Snapple) pack just as many calories-up to 225 in a 16-ounce bottle.

Drink This: Water works. It’s not as magical as some make it out to be, but you can’t beat it for calories (zero). Diet soft drinks are the next-best alternative.

6. Slow Down

Want to look better while you’re naked? Try drinking half as much beer, wine, or whatever fuel you choose. Alcohol puts on pounds in more ways than we can list here, but try these highlights:

• Alcohol contains calories. You may drink like a fish, but booze isn’t water. Even a light beer has more than 100 calories. Kahlua and cream? Now we’re talking calories.

• Booze makes you store fat. Your body sees alcohol as a poison, and tries desperately to get rid of it. Your liver stops processing all other calories until it has dealt with the alcohol. So anything else you eat during the time you’re drinking is more likely to end up as fat.

• Alcohol lowers testosterone. With more abdominal fat, testosterone drops.

• A bender interrupts sleep. And sleep is when your body produces its biggest surge of growth hormone, a chemical that signals your body to use fat for energy. The less growth hormone you release, the fatter you become.

7. Green Day

Sipping green tea — the kind served at Japanese restaurants — revs up your metabolism. Green tea may be foreign to you, but don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. You can find it any supermarket, and it tastes fine. (Go ahead and add a teaspoon of sugar if it’s not sweet enough.)

8. Hello Meat

It’s lunchtime in the local food court. Which do you go for, salad or burger? Of course, you think, the salad is better for you. After all, it’s green. And leafy. And has all kinds of crunchy things, which look a lot healthier than a brown slab of dead animal.

But the burger is probably the better choice. Sure, the salad will have fewer calories if you limit what you put on it. Once you add turkey, ham, cheese and dressing, however, you could be looking at more than 700 calories for a three-cup serving.

The burger? About 430 calories for a typical quarter-pounder. Plus, the burger will almost certainly make you feel more full, while the meat is rich in zinc, an important mineral for raising testosterone levels.

9. Go for the freezer burn

If weight loss were a game of poker, portion control would be your ace in the hole. You can eat anything and lose or maintain weight, as long as you don’t eat too much of anything.

So here’s another test: Dinner tonight — frozen meal or pizza? The frozen dinner wins because it gives you portion control. You buy one serving, eat one serving, and you’re done. With the pizza, you buy multiple servings, and hope you only eat one of them-probably two slices. If you can pull that off, fine, eat whichever looks better to you. But if you think there’s any chance you’ll eat more than those two slices, you’re better off not tempting yourself.

If the dinner you choose is just an entree and doesn’t have vegetables, buy a bag while you’re in the frozen-food aisle, and cook a cup of it. Don’t worry about the vegetables not being fresh. In winter, the frozen vegetables are often in better shape than the “fresh” ones that were picked last week in Argentina.

10. And, uh, did we mention exercise?

While it’s possible to lose weight by eating less without doing more, it’s unlikely. The people who lose the most and keep it off the longest tend to approach both sides of the equation with equal fervor. So we’ll see you in the gym.