Nutrition & Diet Are Your Best Medicine
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It’s no secret that America needs to lose weight. We lead the world in obesity – and lag it in nutrition.![Too much weight gain needs help feet on bathroom scale showing the word HELP](http://ourhealthcaresucks.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/weightlossscaleiStock_000001667800XSmall-1-300x198.jpg)
Nor are the reasons hard to find:
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The heavily processed & packaged Standard American Diet (S.A.D.) – largely stripped of nutrients – promotes weight gain;
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Many medications promote weight gain – and deplete your body of needed nutrition – and America leads the world in drug consumption;
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Calorie consumption today averages almost 50% more than the typical consumption assumed in food labels;
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Physical activity has declined substantially as computer-bound desk jobs have increased;
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Stress, sleep deprivation, and personal toxic burden have all risen dramatically – and all three contribute to weight gain, not weight loss;
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Low-calorie vegetable consumption in the U.S. has declined, while saturated fat consumption – with twice as many calories per gram of food – has increased (think pizza, cheeseburgers, mac-and-cheese.…).
The list goes on. We live in a fat-promoting, anti-nutrition culture that reinforces fat-acceptance daily with our social interactions with other overweight people.
Two out of three Americans are overweight, after all, so the majority of our social interactions now are with people who are overweight.
Don’t underestimate the power of this social reinforcement in preventing you from achieving weight loss – and keeping it off.
There’s solid evidence to suggest our social networks can undermine even the most determined of weight loss efforts.
“I Want It NOW!”
We also live in a culture of impatience. We demand instant answers to chronic problems.
We want relief and we want it now!
This leads us to seek and fall prey to bogus weight loss pills, fraudulent gimmicks, and high-risk surgical procedures that often pose more risk than
benefit.
We seem to look everywhere but the obvious answer of better nutrition.
What risks could there be, you ask, to weight loss – even if you “cheat” to achieve it?
Glad you asked, because there’s no shortage of these either…
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Loss of bone and muscle;
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Faster weight regain – We’re hard-wired to preserve and protect our body fat in case of famine; with rapid weight loss, your metabolism freezes in starvation mode, protecting every fat cell from further famish;
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Worsened body composition – Any weight you lose is a combination of fat, bone, and muscle, while the weight you regain is largely fat – leaving you with a worse fat-to-muscle ratio of body composition;
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Increased disease risk –Increased fat composition leaves you vulnerable to many cancers, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and a host of other diseases. Fat is pro-inflammatory – especially visceral belly fat (even in normal weight people with excess belly fat) – and chronic inflammation is a disease-inducing state.
This list goes on as well, but you get the idea.
Plot Bellies?
No, that’s not a typo…
Many of us think we’re safe because our BMI (Body Mass Index) is under the (not-so)-magical threshold of 25.
The shortcomings of the BMI measure are dissected in our MedSmart Diet book, but one of its biggest flaws is it fails to consider body composition and distribution. Nor does it consider the actual nutrition you receive from your diet that’s essential for healthy growth and tissue repair and replacement.
You may have a BMI of 25 or less and still have a “pot belly” – and it’s that pot belly that increases your disease risk because it’s located in your body’s most vulnerable, organ-dense area.
The early part of our MedSmart Diet is devoted to exploring the dangers from toxic-producing visceral fat cells in the belly, which is why we’ve dubbed excess belly fat a “plot belly” – as in bringing you ever closer to a cemetery plot.
Too graphic? Maybe.
Or maybe – given projections that 3 of 4 Americans will be overweight or obese by 2015 – it’s not graphic enough.
Be MedSMART
Learn to lose not just excess weight – but dangerous excess belly fat – the only way likely to keep it off permanently: with comprehensive lifestyle measures that produce gradual and permanent weight loss.
Perhaps even more important than weight loss, fat loss will improve your body composition and disease risk profile with a muscle mindset and better quality nutrients.
It’s about much more than eating less, because you’ll need to compensate for any weight you lose with strength-building activities that preserve your bone and muscle strength. These naturally decline with age anyway, and that process is accelerated with weight loss – unless you take measures to prevent it.
A MedSmart Diet – and our nutrition and diet blog posts – can help you do just that.
This article is provided for educational and informational purposes only.
It does not constitute medical advice, and should not be construed as such.
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Or maybe you’re ready to buckle down and read the full book. If so, here’s your chance…