Prevention First - Weight Management - Dallas Fort Worth Texas

Diet and exercise are the two main components of a weight control program. In order for any of us to loose weight, we must burn more calories with activity than we eat and drink each day. Loosing a pound of fat requires burning more than 3000 calories over what we eat.

About exercise and the role it plays in your health
Your body needs exercise to stay healthy. Regular exercise helps you maintain your weight within correct range for your body size. Exercise can also reduce depression, lower your blood pressure and help balance your blood cholesterol scores. If you have been inactive, however, be careful when beginning an exercise program.

Muscle toning exercise focuses on building muscle strength, and aerobic exercise elevates your heart rate. Both muscle toning and aerobic exercise play a part in a good exercise program. Running, swimming, biking, skiing and tennis are examples of aerobic activities. During aerobic exercise, the heart works hard to pump blood throughout the body, and the lungs work hard to take in more oxygen. The ideal exercise program would be one in which your heart elevates into a target range appropriate for your age for at least 20 minutes, five times a week. You can calculate your target range by subtracting your age from 220 and multiplying by 80% - (220-your age) *0.8. The aerobic exercise should be preceded by five minutes of warm up and five minutes of cool down.

Weight-bearing exercise involves lifting weights and builds muscle mass. These types of exercises have also been shown to build bone density, which helps prevent osteoporosis, a condition causing bones to become porous and brittle.

Fat is a principal cause of obesity and heart disease. Fat clogs arteries around the heart as well as the ones leading to the brain. The result could be a heart attack or a “brain attack,” that is, a stroke.

Reduce caloric intake
A gram of fat has more calories than a gram of carbohydrate or protein. Therefore, to reduce overall caloric intake, it only makes sense to cut back on fat calories. Some types of fat in moderation may serve useful purposes, such as insulating internal organs or transporting vitamins. But, in reality, the human body needs very little fat. In fact, the entire amount of fat the human body requires on a daily basis is only a single teaspoon. However, most people take in almost four times this amount. Only about 10 percent of your calories should come from fat, but the average American male’s diet includes about 40 percent of calories from fat.

Part of the problem is that, in America, we have become acclimated to large servings that are often filled with fat and sugar. When you first begin reducing your caloric intake, it is important to understand that it will take a month or so for your body to adjust. However, after your body does adjust to a lower-calorie diet, that greasy burger will no longer be as appealing or desirable.

Here are some tips for creating a healthy diet:

Eat more fruits, vegetables and grains.
Reach for non-fat or low-fat milk dairy products.
Substitute tomato sauces for heavy, cream sauces.
Cut back on the sweets.
Buy lean meat.
Remove the skin from poultry.
Avoid fried foods and fast foods.
Cook soup and stew in advance. Cut off the congealed fat before serving.
Use fat-free salad dressing and low-fat mayonnaise.
Drink at least eight glasses of water each day.
Eat smaller portions.

Diets
Unfortunately, research shows that most of us can only loose 5-7 pounds by cutting back and exercise alone. In order to loose more weight, a formal diet plan is required. Two types of diets have been shown to work well for most people, low carbohydrate diets and balanced diets.

Low carbohydrate diets restrict the amount and type of sugars and starches you can eat. Popular examples are the Adkins Diet and the South Beach Diet. Low carbohydrate diets result in faster weight loss and more total weight loss. Some people find these type of diets to be restrictive since some foods are not allowed. In addition, the Adkins Diet has a poor track record on maintaining weight after it is lost. South Beach has a better maintenance record and allows more variety. We at Prevention First recommend South Beach for those desiring the low carbohydrate approach.

Balanced diets allow most food types, but restrict the amount you can eat of each type of food. Weight Watchers is an example of a balanced diet program. The original program from Jenny Craig, NutriSystem, and Diet Center are also balanced. Balanced diets are slower than low carb diets, but have much better maintenance records. Weight Watchers now have a web based product that many active people favor.

Consult your doctor before beginning a weight management program. Prevention First recommends persons wanting to loose more than 10 pounds review South Beach and Weight Watchers diets. After review, choose the one that best fits your lifestyle and get started. We ask our patients to set weight goals for a time period. Prevention First then has the patient come in at the end of each time period and checks their weight. Research has shown this type of accountability results and greater and more sustained weight loss.

Diet drugs
Despite billions of dollars spent on research, there remain no safe and effective weight loss drugs. Some of those tried in recent years, like Phen-Fen, have later been shown to have significant side effects. Several others like Meridia and metformin, have had disappointing results in controlled studies. When patients have been successful on diets and reach a plateau, some safe drugs can be helpful in getting them back to loosing weight. None of these drugs are effective at the start of a diet.

Weight loss surgery
Patients who are more than 100 pounds overweight or have a Body Mass Index (BMI) greater than 40 often benefit from weight loss surgery. BMI is calculated by dividing your weight in kilograms by your height in meters squared. Normal is a BMI between 20 and 25. A BMI between 25 and 30 are considered overweight, and over 30 is obese. Gastric bypass surgery, lap band surgery and gastric stapling are the most widely performed weight loss surgeries. All have been shown to be the effective in weight loss exceeding 75 pounds. Gastric bypass is the best studied and currently considered the “gold standard”.

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