A Closer Look at Weight and Blood Cholesterol

Increased weight negatively affects cholesterol levels in the body, as well as some of the components of cholesterol. Your total cholesterol level is made up of three different types of cholesterol: LDL (“bad” cholesterol), VLDL (a mixture of triglycerides and cholesterol), and HDL (“good” cholesterol). Each type of cholesterol has a different function. For heart health, the goal is to decrease LDL cholesterol and increase HDL cholesterol, since LDL contributes to heart disease risk and HDL helps protect the heart. Increased weight creates problems by increasing LDL levels and decreasing HDL levels. It also drives up triglycerides, another type of fat in the blood. Weight loss improves the blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

TARGET CHOLESTEROL LEVELS

What It Stands For Levels to Aim For (mg/dL)

TG Triglyceride Lower than 150

LDL Low-density lipoprotein Lower than 100 is optimal; greater than 160 is high

HDL High-density lipoprotein Greater than 40

Is your body shaped more like an apple or a pear? When it comes to weight and health, being shaped like an apple carries greater health risks than being shaped like a pear.

You are apple-shaped if your body fat has settled around your belly. Men are genetically predisposed to gain weight around their belly, although there are exceptions. Having an apple-shaped body means that you have too much abdominal fat. Abdominal fat increases your risk of heart disease, diabetes, and breast cancer following menopause.

Pear-shaped bodies store more fat in the buttocks and hips. Women tend to gain weight on the hips and thighs. Whatever your shape, however, BMI is still important because it is linked with overall body fat. Chances are, if your BMI is high, your waist circumference will be high too.

How to Evaluate Your Abdominal Fat

• Using a cloth measuring tape, like the one used by tailors, measure around the widest area between your belly button and the top of your hips.
• For men, if this measurement is more than 40 inches, you have abdominal obesity.
• For women, if this measurement is more than 35 inches, you have abdominal obesity.

You can lose weight with exercise alone?

Nobody is going to tell you that exercise is not a good thing. It offers many health benefits – better sleep, reduced stress, improved strength and muscle tone, and it puts you in a better mood. It also burns calories. So it makes sense that increasing physical activity be part of the weight-loss formula. But exercise as a weight-loss method has limitations. This chapter explores the effectiveness of exercise and its role in weight loss and maintenance.

Most diets fail because they focus on the wrong thing. Successful weight loss is not really about food; it is about exercise. The main focus of a weight-loss effort should be exercise because it will make the pounds come off faster and the loss will be maintained. With all the technological changes in our daily lives, most of us are not getting enough exercise. People, especially guys, start gaining weight in their late 20s, then continue to gain weight into their 30s and 40s as work and family take up more of their time. With less time to exercise and be active, of course they gain weight. So it makes sense that getting back into exercise will melt away the pounds. The commitment to exercise is not very demanding. Getting to the gym just a few times a week will make a huge difference in weight loss. And the more time spent at the gym, the faster the pounds will come off. It should take only a couple of hours a week for the next two or three months to lose the weight that has accumulated over the past ten or so years. Going to the gym tones the body, flattens the stomach, and firms the thighs. It changes the shape of the body. Losing weight through dieting can’t do that. So even if the pounds on the scale stay the same, that is okay; it just means that the fat is turning into muscle. The amount and intensity of activity determines its health benefits.

Moderate-intensity exercise is recommended for weight loss and also improves your cardiovascular fitness. High-intensity exercise performed continuously for at least twenty minutes is recommended mainly for heart fitness. People who are more than 30 pounds overweight should not exercise at an intense level without talking to a doctor. Light activity burns only a modest amount of calories but offers numerous benefits. It generally does not burn enough calories to aid weight loss unless it is performed for a long period of time.

The Link between Weight and Health

Weight and health are strongly related to each other. Disease risk goes up slowly as weight gain pushes you out of the healthy weight range and into the o

verweight range. Your risk of disease and death increase significantly if extra weight puts you in the obese range. One study reported that obesity in middle age reduces life expectancy by seven years. The list of weight-related diseases continues to grow. Increased weight raises blood lipids (cholesterol and triglycerides) and blood pressure, which are heart disease risk factors. Weight gain impairs the body’s ability to handle glucose (blood sugar) and contributes to a pre-diabetic condition called insulin resistance. Other medical conditions that are associated with increased weight include certain cancers, osteoarthritis of the knees and other weight-bearing joints, gastrointestinal tract disturbances, interrupted sleep and sleep apnea, and reduced fertility. To date, obesity has been linked with more than thirty medical conditions.

It is not just big gains that carry ill health effects—the consequences of gradual or modest weight gain add up quickly. Even 10 or 20 extra pounds increases the risk of death among adults, as shown in a large study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. A recently published study found that just a 5% increase in the BMI over time had a negative impact on simple body functions like walking. Research on women, weight gain, and cancer found that women who gained 21 to 30 pounds since age 18 and were not on hormone replacement therapy were 40% more likely to get breast cancer than women who had gained no more than 5 pounds. The risk increased as the women’s weight increased. Similarly, another study found an 8% increase in the risk of postmenopausal breast cancer for every 11 pounds gained.

DO THOSE EXTRA FEW POUNDS REALLY MATTER?

As weight goes out of the healthy range, risk increases for

• Heart disease
• High blood pressure
• Stroke
• Diabetes
• Several forms of cancer
• Metabolic syndrome (Syndrome X)
• Gallbladder disease
• Gout

Understanding Weight Loss

BMI (Body Mass Index) Demystified

Before getting into the whole truth, let’s explain a term that will help you better understand weight and weight loss: Body Mass Index (BMI). BMI is the standard used around the world to determine whether a person’s weight is healthy, overweight, or obese. For most people, BMI is strongly related to the amount of body fat you carry. You could calculate your BMI using your body weight, your height, and the BMI formula, but it is far easier to look up your BMI on a chart like the one below. To determine your BMI category, find your height in inches in the column on the left, run your finger across to the range that includes your current weight in pounds, then look up to the top of that column for your BMI range and category. This chart applies to both women and men.

Body Mass Index and Weight Classification

Sustainable Weight Loss – Action Steps

The path to sustainable weight loss needs a beginning. As you put your new knowledge to work and embark on a comprehensive weight-loss method, there are several things you can do. The goal is to maximize your knowledge so that you are prepared to make informed decisions for your best approach.

• Consult with your doctor before starting any weight management program. It is a good idea to get a complete physical before beginning a diet and/or exercise program to rule out medical limitations.
• Ask your doctor or pharmacist if any of the medications that you’re taking might affect your weight-loss success by increasing your appetite or slowing your metabolism. The good news is that in almost all cases other drugs are available that treat the same condition but do not affect weight. It is worth finding out whether a simple change in your medication can remove this potential obstacle.
• Think about weight-loss methods that you have used in the past.
• How many of the factors that predict successful weight loss and sustained weight loss were part of these methods? Are there things that you could have done differently to include more factors?
• What do you see as your “happy” weight and when do you see yourself achieving it? If your answer is a weight that is less than 90% of your current body weight and your time frame for reaching that weight is in less than six months, rethink your expectations. A reasonable goal is a loss of 10% of your current weight over six months. Start with that goal you may very well surprise yourself by exceeding it!
• Identify at least three people you know who have successfully lost weight and are keeping it off. Find out about their experience what method they used, what strategies and approaches they took to make it work for them, and what they are doing to sustain the weight loss. Compare what they tell you about the factors of successful weight loss, the factors for sustained weight loss, and the basic components of a weight-loss program.
• Remind yourself often and with confidence that sustained weight loss is possible. Your body will not undermine your achievements by slowing metabolism so that you gain the weight back.

Do those extra few pounds really matter?

A large number of us gains weights each year. In fact, adding pounds as we add years is so commonplace that we’ve come to accept it as a natural part of the aging process. We have also come to expect that we are likely to develop common health problems, like high blood pressure and diabetes. Consider for a moment, however, how these extra few pounds may be increasing your risk for developing these medical conditions. Read on to learn why a few extra pounds do matter, how you can halt the gain, and how losing a little pays back a lot