Change Your Habits to Change Your Weight

Weight gain is a direct results of one’s habits. Conversely, weight loss or healthy weight maintenance is also the direct result of one’s habits. Inability to inculcate correct weight loss and weight maintenance habits is one of the main reasons for rebound weight gain.
Habits

Wikipedia defines habits as follows;

Habits are routines of behavior that are repeated regularly and tend to occur subconsciously, without directly thinking consciously about them. Habitual behavior sometimes goes unnoticed in persons exhibiting them, because it is often unnecessary to engage in self-analysis when undertaking in routine tasks.
Weight Gain or Maintaining Weight Loss is a Reflection of Your Habits

People do not gain weight over night. Weight gain is a long process. It is often the result of habits that that make it conducive for someone to gain weight. Since habits are planted so deep within the subconscious mind that most people may not even be aware of the habits that are causing them to gain weight.
Social Weight Gain Habits

Social habits are acts that people carry out socially in a fixed routine or in a fixed recognizable pattern. For instance, John goes out drinking with his buddies every Friday. He uses this as an excuse for relieving stress from the hard long week preceding it. Another example is of Albert who meets his buddies every Saturday to watch football. Watching the game is not the only thing that Albert and his buddies do. There is also plenty of beer and various types of junk food.

While there is nothing wrong with socializing, one needs to be be aware of social appointments that are contributing to weight gain or sabotaging weight loss efforts. Instead of watching football on television, why not play football or any other game you fancy. It gives you a chance to socialize while giving you an opportunity to trim your waist.
Mental Weight Gain Habits

Certain mental habits make you powerless when trying to lose weight. One such habit is procrastination. You know that you should lose weight but keep putting it off. This can be a serious problem for a lot of people.

In addition to this, there are those who are not able to prioritize important tasks to better manage their time. They fall prey to negative habits that do not add value to their lives but instead steal valuable time that could be channeled to useful activities such as exercise.

There are also those who suffer from excuse-itis. They have an endless list of excuses to justify their negative actions. Instead of taking the time to do what is necessary to lose weight, they spend all of their time justifying why weight loss is difficult.
Physical Weight Gain Habits

Physical weight gain habits are perhaps the most obvious and the easiest to change. Some of these habits include;

* Taking second helpings at lunch or dinner
* Snacking on junk food
* Consuming unnecessary liquid calories in the form of colas, sodas and lattes
* Missing breakfast or other main meals
* Keeping sweets, chocolates and other calorie dense food within easy reach
* Watching television when the time could be channeled towards exercise

Change Your Habits to Change Your Weight

Psychologists say that it takes about 21 days to change your habits. Once these habits have set in, they need to be reinforced for a period of time to create a deep groove within your subconscious mind. Unlike negative habits, positive habits require effort to enforce. It’s very much easier to sustain a negative habit than a positive habit.

For instance, it takes continued effort to wake up early every morning to exercise. It is easier to just sleep-in. But after some time, it becomes easier to wake up early in the morning to exercise as the habit has been deeply ingrained.
Replace Bad Habits with Healthy Habits

Someone serious about losing weight should do an honest self-evaluation of his or her habits. Look through all the activities in a typical week and highlight those that are contributing to weight gain.

It would also make sense to analyze eating habits to find those habits that are contributing to your waist line. Once you have identified habits that are making you fat, try replacing them with healthy eating habits. Create new patterns to offset the existing ones. Healthy eating habits would help you sustain the weight loss.

For instance, make it a habit to have breakfast every day. Keep junk food out of reach. Make it a habit to get exercise done as early in the day as possible. Avoid socializing in gatherings that sabotage your weight loss efforts. Once these new healthy habits have settled in, you will surely lose weight. As you adopt these habits deep within you, maintaining weight loss becomes a breeze.



Change Your Habits to Change Your Weight « Correct Weight Loss Blog

What is normal weight obesity?

Detroit Women's Health ExaminerLaQuanda Randall

Most of us judge our health by our appearance. If we look good in certain outfits and our clothes are still fitting, we consider our weight to be a non-issue. Some people have maintained the same pant or dress size for most of their lives. As long as that size stays in the same range, there will be no cause for concern regarding their health and fitness.

However, more than half of adult Americans who are considered to be of normal weight, actually have a high percentage of body fat. According to the Mayo Clinic, as many as 30 million Americans who are of normal weight, may have the body fat of an obese person. This high body fat puts adults in jeopardy of getting the same life threatening health risks of a clinically obese individual. Those health risks include: diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and metabolic syndrome.

The researchers of the Mayo Clinic determined normal body weight by the use of Body Mass Index or BMI. The normal body fat percentage of men is somewhere between 18-26% and the normal body fat percentage of women is between 25-32%. The body fat of male athletes range from 6-13% and female athletes range from 14-20%. Those individuals with normal BMI who also have a higher than normal body fat percentage would fall into the category of normal weight obesity.

How do you measure body fat? The methods for measuring body fat range from the primitive and inexpensive to the highly technological and pricey. Skinfold calipers have been the standard in measuring body fat for many years. Although the method is not a perfect estimation, it is a good tool for the evaluation of body fat composition. Dual Energy X-ray absorptiometry or DXA is a newer and much more accurate method for determining body fat composition. However, this method could be quite expensive.

ABC.com reports today that doctors are not recommending body fat percentage testing for persons concerned about being normal weight obese. The waistline may be the key to determining if you are at a normal or healthy weight. Extra pounds around the mid-section is the most dangerous aspect of being overweight. The extra fat puts stress and strain on the heart and lungs. Having extra fat around the waist and love handles puts your health at the greatest risk.

If you are concerned about being obese or normal weight obese, there are ways to jump into action. In Metro Detroit, the weight loss business is in full swing and there are plenty of options for you to choose from. Centers such as Medical Weight Loss Clinic focus on a medical approach to weight loss and normalizing body fat. While facilities such as Curves concentrates on increasing physical activity with both cardio and strength training exercise. Both offer locations throughout the Metro Detroit area. Oakland County's Adventure Boot Camp for Women takes a jump start approach to improving your health with a 4 week outdoor bootcamp that provides nutritional counseling, fitness instruction, and motivational training. The Boot Camp boasts an expected result of 3-5% body fat loss upon completion.

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