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Weight

Your Fitness - Part 3 of 4

What perfect timing! Just as Americans are heading to the beaches and mountains for some added exercise and recreation, the press headlines let us know: we are indeed exercising more, as we've been told to do, but unfortunately, we are no thinner for it. Our poundage is expanding despite the increased exercise!

If you consider yourself basically healthy, without abnormal lab tests or worrisome excess abdominal fat, you exercise and want to be even more fit - but, you'd like to lose that last 5, 10, or 20 pounds. How does someone who is fairly healthy, active, but overweight lose that weight sensibly and improve their fitness at the same time?

I call this group the “Weight Challenged” and in my office these folks report a familiar story. When I meet with you, you report that

  • You weight more than you'd like to.
  • You carry your extra weight well distributed on your body.
  • Your lab tests are normal, congratulations!
  • Your goals are to normalize your weight and optimize your fitness!

Your task won't be that difficult, as you have already done a lot to maintain good health for yourself.

Live and Learn and Lose It!

The second session of my class on losing it (weight, inches or inflammation - or all three!) is underway, and for those who didn't make it into the class, I want to talk about the main focus of the class: reducing carbohydrate intake. “Low carb” is a hot topic, attracting its supporters (many with their own success stories) and its detractors. Despite its failure, many docs and health advisors still cling firmly to the conventional dietary wisdom recommending My Plate, roughly divided into quarters - grains, vegetables, fruits, and proteins - is the healthiest way to eat. I admit I had to look it up, those ideas are so foreign to me now. Dairy is included in a milk-glass-shaped portion off to the side.

If your waistline expands over your hips in an expanding version of the My Plate shape, do not follow these dietary guidelines! If you'd like your waistline to be a trimmer oval, sitting snugly inside your other body contours, you have two choices.

Magnesium

Magnesium is a chemical element that chemists refer to by the symbol Mg, but Mg never exists by itself anywhere on the planet. It is embedded in rocks, or molten in earth, or dissolved in seawater.

Magnesium is essential to life, found in every living cell and involved in every physiological process we rely on to live. Our energy currency is called ATP, and magnesium is essential for its production and utilization. Magnesium plays a vital role in the contraction and relaxation of muscles, including skeletal muscles, as well as the of the gastrointestinal tract, and muscles regulating blood flow, blood pressure and breathing passages. Our heart is a muscle, and regulation of the electrical and muscular function of the heart depends on magnesium. Optimal mental and emotional function require adequate magnesium for neurotransmitter and hormone production.

Successfully Following a Low Carb Eating Plan

Success at following a low carbohydrates life style comes most readily with a few cautionary suggestions.

Foods to Enjoy

Your choice of foods is always the first place to start. Which low carb foods do you most prefer - eggs, meat, cheese, shellfish? You can eat them to your heart's delight. Even if it means spending a little more money (the money you are saving by avoiding processed foods, fast food, snacks, and ultimately higher medical bills), buy a higher quality than you ate before.

Reach for the tastiest organic cheeses, seek out the pasture-raised chicken, beef, and lamb, and look for the organic, hormone-free pork. Pay an extra dollar or two for eggs from free-range chicken. Buy the larger avocados and the tastier olives. Buy a large bag of organic nuts and make them into Crispy Nuts. These foods are all more tasty, higher health quality, and easier on the planet.

Drink plenty of water or tea and add salt to your food to taste.

Solutions for Obesity

Have you noticed a slowly increasing waist size? The first sign may be that last year's bathing suit doesn't fit, but the steps to follow are much worse. For both men and women, even loose shirts are stretched taut over pregnancy-shaped abdomens, and many folks find they don't fit comfortably in airplane seats. Your doctor may be the last person to tell you that you have a weight problem - often because your doctor has a weight problem as well. The nation as a whole, and the medical profession included, are suffering a serious obesity epidemic.