Mind Body Rhythm

It is now being observed that many women struggle to conceive because of obesity and related health problems. Overweight women usually have issues with their menstrual cycles and may even have amenorrhea or anovulatory cycles, all of which can predispose to sterility or difficulty in conception. Medical practitioners are increasingly advising women with excess weight to try weight loss to get pregnant.

Having a baby is a joyous occasion for all mothers and every single of them wishes and hopes only for one thing – to deliver a healthy baby. To deliver a healthy baby, one of the first prerequisites is that the mother has to be healthy.

Not all pregnancies are planned but since it involves bringing a new life into this world, it certainly deserves a lot of planning and preparation and trimming away of the excess weight and flab in your body is a good step to begin with.

Dangers of Obesity during Pregnancy

In addition to the fact that obesity can stop you from getting pregnant in the first place, carrying excess weight during pregnancy is also more dangerous. Obesity puts not only the mother but also the intrauterine fetus to grave dangers like congenital birth defects, intrauterine death of the fetus, premature deliveries and a host of other issues.

Obesity in pregnancy can predispose to high blood pressure leading to preeclampsia, gestational diabetes and miscarriages too.

How Much is the Recommended Weight Loss to Get Pregnant?

There is no fixed recommended weight loss to get pregnant, because the actual amount will depend upon your starting body weight. This means that if you are obese and trying to get pregnant, your aim must be to get at or close to your ideal body weight that is recommended for your age, sex, body frame, height and physical activity.

Also another important factor to consider is your BMI or Basal Metabolic Index. It is always better that your BMI scores falls between 18.5 and 25 when you start out with your pregnancy. So you now have a good target to achieve, which is a BMI of 18.5-25.

If you are trying weight loss to get pregnant then it is better to stall conception until your BMI matches the ideal score.

How to Attain Ideal BMI Levels?

There are many ways to lose weight, but not all of them are healthy and safe options. Going on crash diets and extreme fasting to trim down may all be very effective in getting lighter but neither will the slimming effects last long nor will your health stay fine. So it is better to adopt a healthy, well balanced diet that includes a lot of fresh green veggies, fruits, fish and nuts.

Cutting off sugar in all forms from your diet can by itself bring in tremendous results. Use additives very sparingly and keep off any and every kind of junk food from your plate. Use more of whole grains and germinated beans (sprouts) and avoid white refined flour, preservatives and food colorants of all kinds.

Olive oil, especially virgin olive oil is a better cooking choice than butter or fats. Do not forget to include a lot of fiber in your diet which can be provided via oatmeal, nuts, beans, peas, raspberries, Brussels’s sprouts, broccoli etc.

Keep yourself well hydrated by consuming at least 8-12 glasses of boiled, filtered and cooled water. If you do not like the idea of having plain water, use few drops of lime juice, but avoid all other canned juices, beverages like tea and coffee, carbonated drinks and too much of fresh fruit juice as well.

Diabetes is a chronic metabolic disorder and it calls for lifelong medications and of course a strict diet control regimen. As this disorder affects the normal metabolic activity in the body, it obviously is closely associated with your diet, your body weight and overall health. One of the major concerns for a diabetic patient is to maintain normal body weight. This post aims to highlight the reasons why weight loss for diabetics is so important.

Relation between Body Weight and Diabetes

There is an intrinsic relation between your body weight and diabetes, especially the Type2 Diabetes. Research has unearthed the fact that about 80-90% of Type 2 Diabetics are also obese. This means that the link between both the conditions is definitely strong. When you are obese your body finds it difficult to maintain a normal insulin and blood sugar response. In other words it means that your body has to overwork and strain in order to maintain normal blood sugar values when you are obese and often excessive body weight is the precursor to Diabetes.

Another issue is that if you continue to put on weight after developing Diabetes Type2, your body will need larger amounts of medications to keep your blood sugar in control.

So these facts clearly demonstrate that if you want to avoid Diabetes or want to control it, then maintaining a normal body weight is very crucial.

Weight Loss with Diabetes

Consuming a healthy balanced diet is an important step towards weight loss for diabetics. Now it goes without saying that a healthy balanced diet is a necessity for every individual and not only for diabetics. But a healthy balanced diet for a diabetic focuses more on consuming a diet that will help in keeping blood sugar (glucose/ fructose) levels under control.

Dieticians advise a diabetic diet, which basically is a diet that includes all the essential nutrients vital for normal physiologic functions of your body and excludes anything that can raise your blood sugar in sudden spikes or over prolonged durations. If you can stick to this diabetic diet plan then it will not only help you in keeping your Type2 Diabetes under complete control but also aids in weight loss (if obese) and maintaining a healthy body weight and promotes fitness.

Foods Included in Diabetic Diet Plan

The major feature of foods that are included into the Diabetic diet plan for weight loss is that they have a low glycemic index (G.I.) The glycemic index of a food is its ability to influence the level of glucose / sugar in your blood stream. So a food that has higher glycemic index will obviously cause higher blood sugar levels and low G.I. foods are hence preferred for diabetics.

Since the glycemic index for foods varies between 1 and 100, it is preferred to look for foods that have G.I. lower than 55 and even among these foods, the lower the better. In grains barley has the lowest G.I. at 28, followed by whole wheat kernels at 30. Rice is not a preferable grain for diabetics or for those looking for weight loss as the lowest G.I. that it provides is 50 (which is not the regular white rice, but the brown variety).

Among beans, chickpea has the lowest G.I. value of 10 followed by soy at 15, and then by kidney beans and lentils at 29. Among vegetables, avoid parsnips and potatoes like the plague as their G.I. is very high. The safe vegetables are onions, artichokes, asparagus, bell peppers, broccoli, celery, mushrooms etc. Fruits like grapefruit, cherries, prunes, plums etc are safe.

Today’s post is about weight loss and heart disease. Even if you have no medical knowledge you certainly know about the importance of your heart to your health and life. Any disorders affecting your heart can have a huge impact on your overall health and of course on your longevity.

Considering the fact that the developed nations around the globe are observing a higher incidence of heart diseases and are at a higher risk of deaths related to cardiovascular disorders, it is very imperative to be informed in detail about it. Another equally disturbing fact is the rising incidence of obesity. Now heart diseases and obesity have been found to have a very deep connection by medical researchers and scientists and that makes it all the more important to know about both of these issues simultaneously.

Relation of Body Weight to Heart Health

While it is common place to hear medical practitioners put a lot of emphasis upon maintaining optimum body weight, it is necessary to first know exactly how your heart gets affected by your weight in order to realize the significant connection between weight loss and heart disease.

Your heart is assigned with an ever important function of pumping blood so as to deliver the life giving fluid to each and every nook and corner of your body. This heart is a strong pump because it is made up of muscles. But as with any man made pump, your heart too has a certain limit up to which it can function to the best of its ability. This limit is very closely related to a healthy body weight that is recommended / ideal for your height, age, frame and physical activity.

When you gain weight, you are increasing the body mass which needs blood supply but your heart muscles are not growing stronger to cope with this extra work. This leads to undue stress upon your heart and it has to exert itself to pump stronger in order to deliver blood to the extra mass in the body.

Relation of Food Habits and Heart Health

Another important issue while considering weight loss and heart disease is that obesity brings with it a host of other problems as well. Obese people usually follow unhealthy dietary habits, which in all probability includes junk food, foods cooked in transfats and lots of additives like sugar, salt etc. This often leads to high cholesterol levels and subsequent atherosclerosis and finally heart disease.

Thus it is very clear that the starting point is the diet. Your diet determines to large extent about the status of your overall health and your longevity.

Diet for Weight Loss and Heart Disease

There are many diets that have been recommended by medical and nutrition experts for weight loss and heart disease. Of them the most popular are the DASH diet, Ornish diet, Mediterranean diet, TLC diet, vegan diet etc.

While the characteristic features of each of them may be different, the basic premise in any diet that promises excellent heart health and optimum body weight is almost similar. Cut back on meat, especially red meat, organ meat, too much of fats, especially transfats, caffeine, tobacco, alcohol, junk food, processed food etc. Try to get more of complex carbs in your diet, nuts, fish, greens, fresh and raw veggies and fruits and of course a lot of outdoor activity or exercise.

Obesity is one of the major concerns across the world, not only because it steals the natural beauty of the human physique but also because it is a precursor to a hoard of chronic and even life threatening health disorders. While each one of us would love to stay fit and maintain normal body weight, only few would be willing to take trouble for achieving these results. Slimming without effort is fast becoming the need of the hour and in today’s post we will discuss a unique technique that attempts to achieve this for interested people.

Melting Unwanted Fat Away

Almost everyone who looks at the mirror and sees unwanted fat hanging on different parts of their body has intensely wished for a magic formula that can melt the unwanted fat away. Now science claims to make that happen for you.

Cryolipolysis uses extremely low temperatures or sub-zero temperatures to get rid of the unwanted fat in your body. It does come across as a bit contrary to what people normally expect, because traditionally heat has been used to melt away excessive fat from the body. But the premise here is that extremely low temperatures can lead to lysis or breakdown of the fat cells. Once these fat cells have broken down or undergone lysis, then it is not possible for them to regenerate or grow back again.

So you could basically call Cryolipolysis as a procedure that brings about slimming without effort and is more or less has a permanent solution to tackle all the extra flab within the body.

How is Cryolipolysis Done?

Well, Cryolipolysis is a medical procedure that makes use of specific devices that are called as Cool Sculpting devices. The patent to this trademark is owned by an US company named Zeltiq Aesthetics, Inc. The procedure involves usage of a device that almost resembles a vacuum cleaner. This device helps to induce cooling, that is completely controlled by the person operating the device. The setting is adjusted so as to slowly bring the temperatures down to below zero degrees, of the fat cells that are accumulated immediately beneath your skin.

The device has been designed in such a way that only the fat cells below the skin are subjected to sub-zero temperatures. The skin above will also undergo lysis or breakdown if it gets chilled to such low temperatures, but the device takes utmost care to prevent this from happening.

Why is Cryolipolysis Better Than Surgery?

When you normally think of losing fat without effort, weight loss surgery or liposuction (which is also an invasive procedure) comes to mind. The major advantage and attraction of this Cryolipolysis procedure to people looking to shed unwanted flab is that in addition to bringing about slimming without effort, it also is a completely non-invasive kind of procedure.

Precautions Regarding Cryolipolysis

There are certain precautions that you must be aware of before you decide to rush to the nearest Cryolipolysis center near you. Extreme cold behaves very similarly to extreme heat, and it could certainly can burn your skin. Many cases have been reported where the overlying skin was burnt due to the sub-zero temperature used during the procedure and subsequently destroyed by unsightly scars and causing the patient undue pain and suffering.

Many of the centers offering these kind of services may not be employing staff who are adequately trained or certified and risking your health in such a way is definitely a huge blunder.

Cholesterol is something that our bodies need in order to carry out many vital physiologic functions like hormone and vitamin production, maintaining cell membranes etc. But too much of even a good thing is dangerous and the same fact applies for blood cholesterol too.

Hypercholesterolemia is a disorder where the levels of LDL cholesterol are higher than normal range. If you have been diagnosed with hypercholesterolemia, chances are that your physician has already informed you that losing weight with high cholesterol is a necessity and advised you to keep your body weight under control.

Dangers of High Blood Cholesterol

Before you can understand why losing weight with high cholesterol is so crucial, you will need to understand more about hypercholesterolemia. There are many factors that contribute towards this condition, but the major source of cholesterol in blood is from your diet. In simple words it means that high blood cholesterol levels could be due to a high dietary intake of saturated fats and cholesterol rich foods.

Persistent high blood cholesterol levels pose a grave danger to your health and life, because it can predispose to atherosclerosis, heart disease/ even cardiac arrest and result in sudden death.

Foods to Avoid in High Blood Cholesterol

As mentioned earlier, your diet plays a very huge role in determining your blood cholesterol levels. Certain foods like lard, ground red meat, organ meat, lobsters, cream, cheese, butter, fatty red meat, poultry with skin on and egg yolk etc. are high in saturated fats and will worsen your hypercholesterolemia and add to your body weight.

Also junk foods like potato fries, meat cheese burgers, ice cream, muffins, cookies, etc are also dangerous foods that you must learn to avoid or at least discipline yourself to eat only in moderation and very infrequently if want to keep your blood cholesterol levels at bay.

Oftentimes, losing weight with high cholesterol can turn out to be very tricky because even if you avoid these danger foods you may be ingesting saturated fats even without your knowledge like for example when you eat healthy foods that may be cooked with the wrong oil. Certain oils like vegetable oils, hydrogenated vegetable oils, bacon drippings, and palm oil are all going to increase the bad cholesterol levels in your blood.

Foods to Include in Your Diet

When you are choosing foods to help you control your blood cholesterol levels, remember that almost all the cholesterol in your diet comes from animal food. So the best foods to eat would be from plant sources and of course avoid the dangerous vegetable oils as mentioned in previous section.

The best choice of foods are fresh veggies, fruits, nuts, oily fish, soy products, olive oil etc. Out of these there are certain super foods like garlic, walnuts, avocado, beans of all kinds, peas, lentils, barley, fish like mackerel, halibut and salmon which help in increasing the good cholesterol (HDL) and reduce the harmful LDL cholesterol. It helps to include healthy proportions of these in your daily diet.

Losing Weight with High Blood Cholesterol

The key to losing weight with high cholesterol is to consume a healthy diet that includes the beneficial foods and eliminates the harmful foods as mentioned in the previous sections. The other most important part of proper blood cholesterol and body weight maintenance is to exercise regularly. When combined with a healthy diet, about 30 mins of moderate exercise daily like walking or jogging is adequate. But if you are relying solely on exercise to reduce cholesterol levels and body weight, then you will need to exercise quite vigorously in order to get the required effects.