Have Confidence

We need to have confidence in all that we do. Whether it is trying a new sport, or asking that girl out for the first time, confidence is essential. The opposite of confidence is fear. If we have fear, it makes accomplishing what we set out to do near impossible. Too many times I feel like we are afraid to try new things because we tell ourselves that we will fail anyway so why even try. We can NOT have this attitude if we are going to win this battle with obesity in our lives.  We need to tell ourselves that we can and that we will.

Set small goals that are easy to attain. As we attain these goals our sense of self-efficacy will increase and we will be able to make bigger goals and achieve them as well. Our minds are powerful tools, and we need to be continually challenging ourselves to stay healthy. If we think that we are going to fail, we probably will. Tell yourself that you can do it! Because you can! Here are ten tips to instantly improve your self confidence:

• Dress nice
• Walk faster
• Have good posture
• Recognize your strengths
• Be grateful
• Compliment other people
• Sit in the front row
• Speak up
• Work out
• Contribute to your environment

The constant battle with being overweight or obese is tiring and hard for people. But we CAN NOT give up! we need to fight this disease until it is no longer a part of our society! The thing with obesity is that it is not like cancer where you can just get it randomly.  Obesity is a lifestyle. It is a choice. We need to be confident and have confidence in ourselves in order to stop this. Families need to rally together and get out and have healthy habits. Children who suffer from childhood obesity need our help.  It is too hard for them to do it on their own. Get involved in your local community and do all that you can to help fight this growing problem. Because it is not going to stop until each of us individually literally DOES something about it!

Soda

When it comes to Americans who drink soda pop, I am probably just another statistic. I enjoy drinking these sugary carbonated beverages and my guess would be that you do too.  I think if more people knew about what was actually in the soda they were drinking and how many calories it contained, it might make them think twice before they fill up another 32 ounce fountain drink. In that 32 ounce drink alone there are nearly 375 calories!

I am sure everyone is familiar with these cups pictured above. Just about all of us during one point in time or another during out lives have dropped by 7-11 to get a fountain drink during those hot summer days. Here are some reasons why you should think twice before getting another Diet Coke or Dr. Pepper this summer.

• Caffeine is a diuretic. Which will ultimately make you thirstier!
• Caffeine addiction
• Soda is acidic. It has a pH level of 2.5, battery acid has a pH level of 1, and pure water has a pH level of 7.
• The less sugar you take in, the more you weight you can lose.
• Less chance for diabetes

 

Exercise at home

Not all of us have the money to get a gym membership. There are times of the year here in Utah that makes it really hard for us to exercise outside as well. We start to make excuses like, “I don’t have the money to join a gym and it’s freezing outside, so I will work out when it gets warmer.”  Most of the time after we tell ourselves that, we go downstairs and turn on the T.V. We set ourselves up to fail.

There are too many things we can be doing at home to work out to let ourselves fail. Although it’s not always ideal to work out at home, but sometimes it’s our only option. There are a lot of exercise at home DVD’s and workout videos that we can follow. There are a few videos that I have found online that can help us stay in shape for free. My wife recently bought Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred. It was DVD that she bought online for around 10 dollars. It is similar to the video I have linked on here already, but it has 3 different levels for people of all shapes and sizes. It has worked great for my wife, and it only takes 20 minutes a day. We try to tell ourselves we don’t have time to exercise but I know all of us can find 20 minutes a day to work out at home and stay in shape.

Eating Right

Eating healthy may be easy for some people, however I think that for most of us, it may not be so easy. I began to think about why people may be eating the way they do and how our unhealthy eating habits begin. Often times, I don’t have time to make a healthy meal and I find myself running to Little Caesars to grab a 5 dollar pizza. Getting fast food is so easy and so effortless that people have grown accustomed to getting things right when they want them, without having to wait.  In today’s world everything is at your fingertips. We live in a world where you can check your email on your phone and even video chat with your friends from the same device. This has rolled over into the way we eat. Food is made so readily available that you can literally order your food and have it in no more than a minute. I thought it might be helpful to list some healthy foods that can help us stay away from these fatty fast food places we often find ourselves at. Here are some tips for eating healthy while on the run…

• Think ahead of where you will be
• Take time to look over the menu
• If your planning on having  bigger dinner, eat a light breakfast and lunch
• Split your order with a friend
• make any choice healthier by adding tomatoes, lettuce, peppers or other vegetables.
• Use small plates at buffet’s and only go back twice
• If you eat while on the job, keep single serving packages of crackers, tuna, or peanut butter.

Obesity Kills

Many of you might have watched the movies Cool Runnings, Planes Trains and Automobiles, or Uncle Buck. The thing these three movies have in common is that they starred the actor John Candy. When I was little I remember watching Cool Runnings and Uncle Buck all the time with my friends and quoting many of the famous lines from both of them.

Unfortunately as some of you may remember, John Candy passed away back in 1994. He was only 54 years old. Candy was 6’3 inches tall and weighed nearly 330 pounds. The cause of death was listed as heart failure, but what lead to his heart failure were the years of excess weight he carried around. He was always the funny big guy in the roles he played.  Some may argue, if he wouldn’t have been that size he might not have been as funny. To me, there’s nothing funny about dying at the age of 54 because your heart simply does not function properly due to excess weight. Think of all the funny movies and roles he could have played in had he not prematurely passed away.

When you think about the years of potential life lost, if the average male is living to about the age of  78, John Candy would still have had 24 more years of living had he not been overweight. He would be 71 years old today and would still have an expected 6 years to live. I wish more people would recognize how big of an issue this is and make the necessary changes to prevent it from happening.

Type 2 Diabetes

One of the major risks in the early onset of obesity in teens and in children is Type 2 diabetes. With more and more children becoming overweight at younger and younger ages, it is thought that this will have a serious impact in the future.  A study was conducted that followed 37,000 Israeli 17 year olds who had recently joined the military. They followed their medical records for up to 17 years. The study concluded that for every one unit of increase in BMI during early adulthood, lifetime Type 2 diabetes risk increased 10% and the heart disease risk increased 12%.

There is no way anyone wants to live with diabetes. Constantly watching your blood sugar level, taking shots so that it doesn’t get too far off kilter is no fun! My cousin suffers from Type 2 diabetes and from my earliest memories of him, I can remember him having to take insulin shots that I’m sure you have all seen.

The thing that kills me about this is that it is 100% preventable. I watch the show “The Biggest Loser” and it amazes me to see all these people who lose incredible amounts of weight. Sometimes they show some meetings the contestants have with doctors while on the show, and it is so cool to see how much they have decreased their risk of diabetes or heart disease just by exercising and eating healthier. Diabetes doesn’t have to be something that we inevitably get. We can stop it! so quit reading this and go exercise!

Exercise Will Help

You might think that exercising does not do all that much for you. You would also be wrong. Exercising just 30 minutes on one or two days a week has shown to provide great health benefits. In a recent telephone poll of over 280,000 people over the age of 18, the number of days a person exercises for 30 minutes is strongly connected with the likelihood of obesity. Not exercising at all during the week was shown to have a 35% incidence of obesity.

Exercising even one or two days during the week will help you out tremendously.  One of the biggest reasons people become overweight is because they feel depressed or sorry for themselves. this usually leads to comfort foods and things that are not healthy.  Exercising has shown that even after the first time exercising, it can help fight depression. Your body needs exercise. Exercise has too many health benefits to not take this seriously.  The more you exercise, the less likely you will become overweight and depressed. Who wouldn’t want that? the key is to find something that you can enjoy, and that gets you out and moving around. Here is a list of things you can do to stay in shape.

Health Risks of Obesity

I was surprised to hear that there are more than 30 different health risks that can be associated with obesity. I also thought it was interesting to see the actual way to calculate your own BMI. I know we have all seen the charts that we match up with our height and weight, but I never knew how to do it.  I calculated my own BMI using the calculations shown on the video and came out with a 24.6 BMI. I hope to be able to stay in the 21-25 range throughout my entire life, although I realize it will require discipline and effort.

I also thought it was interesting that elderly people suffer from obesity due to decreased mobility. This is why it so important to find something that you can do throughout your life that will help you stay in shape. Finding a hobby like swimming or playing tennis are things you can do until you die. If you don’t have a hobby that you can do for the rest of your life, it might be time to find one now before its too late! Also watch out for extra weight carried above the hips as the movie said.

Childhood Obesity

Childhood obesity is quickly becoming a serious medical condition that is affecting thousands of our nations youth. It is when a child is well over weight for what a normal child his same age and height should be. This is leading to diabetes and other conditions that we used to only see in adults. This can be traumatizing for kids and adolescents, since they are often teased and made fun of for being serverly overweight. We all remember the late parts of elementary school and junior high where is was so important to be accepted by your peers and want to be cool and popular.  Kids who are severely overweight struggle with their weight and often times have a hard time fitting in.  This can even lead to depression in some of them.

The best thing we can do as family members or parents, is to change our lifestyles with them.  If we are used to sitting and watching TV together as a family at night, then it might not be a bad thing to get up and go to the park and play around.  A child will almost never be able to lose weight if the parents and other family members aren’t willing to change their lifestyle as well. There was a recent study done to help parents recognize childhood obesity in the early stages. They had a color-coded chart to help parents understand the sometimes complicated BMI chart. When a parents realizes and accepts that their child is overweight they are more likely to change behaviors to help their child.

Obesity Trends

Obesity is being talked about as our nations next Obesity health hazard. Trends in obesity have shot up over the past twenty years, and there is no sign that this is slowing down.  I chose to do my blog on this subject since several members of my family have struggled with weight gain and I have personally seen the effects of this.

In the last twenty years only Colorado and the District of Columbia have had prevalence rates of less that 20%. The majority of states have had rates of 25% and greater. Some states such as Alabama, are greater than 30%. Nearly 1 in 3 people in the south are not just overweight, but obese. Obesity is considered as having a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or greater. Without proper intervention, obesity will surely kill thousands of people each year.