A healthy weight is not necessarily the lowest weight you can be, but in fact, is unique to each individual. It is the weight that is suited for your body type and at which you function best, without compromising your health and increasing your risk for any weight-related diseases.

Your body weight is not only determined by gender, age, height and weight, but is also dependent on the following:

• Genetic predisposition
• Muscle and fat distribution
• Body shape
• Level of physical activity

Ensuring A healthy Body Weight
To judge if you have a healthy body weight takes more than just looking in the mirror or standing on a scale. It is a combination of everything including reviewing and monitoring the following:

• Your muscle-to-fat ratio. Pinch your abdominal area, thighs and arms. Less than an inch of fat means you are okay; more than an inch means it’s time to do something about it.

• Your body’s fat distribution, e.g. pear shape or apple shape. Be active. Get in at least 30-45 minutes exercise daily.

• Your cholesterol. Make sure that your triglycerides and saturated fat levels fall within normal values. Try foods low in cholesterol, such as, Nestle Cheerios breakfast cereals with whole grain.

• Your diet. Reduce your intake of calories from fat and include calcium-rich foods such as Nestle Svelty Skimmed Milk. Remember, control portions.

You can achieve and maintain your ideal healthy body weight through healthy eating, and by making daily exercise an important part of your life.

So you want to lose weight? First, lose the idea of being on a diet – your diet is what you eat everyday. If you need to lose weight, then you need to change your lifestyle i.e., a weight-loss diet to reduce your calorie intake; burn some extra calories by increasing your activity; and gradually change some behaviors that sabotage your weight loss.

Focus on healthy eating – not a ‘diet’, which begins and ends. Aim to make changes which become long-term habits. Persons, who win at weight loss long term, continue to eat the same way even after they have reached their goal. Here are some secrets of those who have won the battle of the bulge:

1. Have regular, scheduled meals. Do not skip meals, especially breakfast, and don’t go more than five hours without eating.
2. Keep tempting, high calorie (sugar and fat) foods out of sight. You should be able to have an occasional treat.
3. Control portions.
4. Keep variety in your diet. Do not regularly exclude food groups.
5. Pay attention to what you drink as well as what you eat, also, to the way that foods are prepared.
6. Stay connected (friends/family/pet) and have some fun. Boredom and loneliness often lead to mindless eating.
7. Don’t drastically cut calories (below 1,000 calories per day). You may lose tissue (muscle) which can slow your metabolism.
8. Learn to eat slowly. Goal: chew each bite at least 15 times. This is much easier if you are not ‘starving’. Of course, feeling a little hungry is okay.
9. Be active. Get up and move more, whether a structured exercise program, or begin by just increasing you daily activity.
10. Learn to manage stress and get enough sleep.

A course of Generic Phentermine is not the only sure shot way to lose weight. Here’s the 411 on losing weight, the ins and outs and more:

• Weight loss products are effective but expensive. There are numerous prescription medications (including Generic Phentermine) drugs, weight-loss supplements, meal replacement protein shakes, and herbal products but it’s almost guaranteed that they won’t be cheap. If you can afford it then go for it.
• Exercise and portion control are a critical component to losing weight and keeping it off. You can’t simply take a few pills or supplements and expect them to do the work for you. A strict, sensible diet as well as a daily exercise routine are critical.
• Consider trying weight control products. Different ones work in different ways … some suppress the appetite, others block chemical messages in the brain to give a feeling of fullness while others act in the stomach to decrease the amount of fat which the body absorbs. See if any work well for you.

Other products to consider on your weight loss quest – meal-replacement protein shakes, green tea extract and of course prescription medication. Good luck!

Weight maintenance can best be defined as ‘losing at least 10% of initial weight and maintaining this new weight for more than one year‘. Have you been successful at weight maintenance? Chances are, the answer is NO, as this is the area where most people fail. Yes, you can work hard to lose weight, but can you keep it off – for a year. Here are some weight maintenance tips for you:

• Eat breakfast – individuals who successfully maintain weight loss almost always eat breakfast.
• Control your meal portions – monitor portion sizes no matter the occasion.
• Eat from all food groups.
• Try to eat a low-fat, low-calorie diet every day.
• Set your meal times – to prevent binging.
• Keep a diary to monitor what you eat.
• Monitor your weight by weighing regularly.
• Engage in regular physical activity – progressively increase exercise to five hours per week or more.
• Include strength training in your regular exercise routine.
• Include significant amounts of physical activity in your recreation time.
• Maintain some sort of support with one or more professionals or a support team of friends or family who have goals similar to yours or who will encourage / motivate you.
• Try to fight off depression and disinhibition – do not use food as comfort / solace.

Hope you find these weight maintenance tips useful. Keep at it!

One of the first steps to real / effective weight loss, is managing and watching what you eat. With this in mind, you need to understand the different types of food that you ingest, and how they may impact your weight loss efforts. Today we focus on trans fats.

Trans fats are manufactured fats. How / why? Manufacturers change natural fat to trans fats in order to prolong the shelf life of bread, milk substitutes and desserts. A tiny amount exists in nature, but the problem dosage comes from food that is produced in factories.

The 411:

Source – manufactured food, especially baked goods. Imitation dairy products, hard margarines and some cheeses in particular. Also note, trans fats make shortening harder.

Benefits – none really .. so stay away from them

Caution – read food labels carefully to see which products contain trans fats. The U.S. Government now requires that trans fats used be listed on product labels.

Danger – Trans fats are associated with increased bad cholesterol, and can float around in your system – getting in the way of nutrients. Additionally, the residue can be solid at body temperature, thus it’s like wax floating around in your blood stream.

The bottom line is that you should avoid trans fats – eat as little products as possible that contain trans fats.

One of the first steps to real / effective weight loss, is managing and watching what you eat. With this in mind, you need to understand the different types of food that you ingest, and how they may impact your weight loss efforts. Today we focus on saturated fats.

Saturated fats are the really bad fats that are blamed for clogging arteries, causing heart attacks and strokes, and also occasionally associated with cancer (particularly colon and breast cancer).

Saturated fats can be found in red meat, poultry, whole dairy products (milk, yogurt, lard and butter). Saturated fats can be good in that it’s a powerful source of fuel. If you’re dieting, some saturated fats can also help to suppress your appetite for hours longer than other fats (hence why the Atkins diet has worked for some people). Food that’s fried in saturated fat tend to have a vastly superior, but this can obviously be deceptive.

By and large however, saturated fats are bad for you. Eat lots of saturated fats for several years and it will likely result in clogged blood vessels. Additionally, the more saturated fat you eat, the higher your bad cholesterol, and it also seems to lower your good cholesterol. If you think exercising can work off saturated fat, yes it’s possible, but you’ll need to do a LOT of exercising to reverse its effects.

Stay away from saturated fats as much as you can possibly can. If you want to lose weight or maintain your shape, staying away from saturated fat will need to be a key component of your overall plan.

One of the first steps to real / effective weight loss, is managing and watching what you eat. With this in mind, you need to understand the different types of food that you ingest, and how they may impact your weight loss efforts. Today we focus on Monounsaturated & Omega-3 Fats.

Monounsaturated & Omega-3 Fats are considered good fats because they move through the bloodstream without clogging it. They also do some cleaning in the process.

Monounsaturated fatty acids are found mostly in certain plants such as olives. Olive oil is the most popular source of monounsaturated fat. Omega-3 fats come from fish oil or canola oil which can be purchased in pill and liquid forms.

The main benefits – they appear to reduce bad cholesterol and raise good cholesterol. Olive oil in particular is valued because it replaces the use of butter and margerine. Omega-3 doesn’t allow sticky fats and platelets to accumulate in the blood vessels, and it helps move cholesterol back to the liver for processing.

Word of caution – olive oil and fish oil have the same calorie content as any other fat (9 calories per gram). Olive oil is also 13% saturated fat (the evil fat). Note also, too much Omega-3 fat in the blood can cause the body’s natural blood clotting process to slow a bit. If you’re taking prescription blood thinner or aspirin, be very careful with taking fish oil pills simultaneously (consult your doctor).

Last word on Monounsaturated & Omega-3 Fats – you can get all the Omega three fats that you need by eating 6-8 ounces of fatty fish three times a week. When cooking with olive oil, you should use just enough to lubricate the pan, don’t submerge or immerse your food in the oil.

Yeah, I’m asking loud & clear, so what if I’m fat?? Sure I could lose a few pounds, but I’m happy. I don’t want to be skinny, I don’t want to be obese, I want to be happy. In my book, fat is not obese, so if you’re obese I definitely recommend Generic Phentermine along with a smart diet and weightloss plan.

We all need a certain percentage of essential fat in order to ensure a healthy life. Women actually need to have a higher percentage than men. This higher fat percentage enables hormonal function, reproduction, lactation, among other important life-cycle items that just don’t cross the male radar. Again, fat is not obese.

I often used to ask, ‘at my age and height, what should my ideal weight be?‘ The correct answer is that every one is different and unique, and the key in all cases is to maintain a healthy lifestyle – which includes what you eat and your activity level. Don’t sweat it … unless you’re obese.

If you’re all caught up with weight and measurements, I implore you to change the focus a bit. Focus more on healthy eating, and active living and your body will handle the rest. Most people know exactly what they need to do, but prefer the ‘quick fix’ (pills maybe?). The reality is that there is no perfect quick fix. If healthy eating and the enjoyment of a variety of physical activities become your main focus, then the body will take care of your healthy weight and fat percentage. Healthy weight is an individual measure and is tied up in a whole host of factors including your genetics, gender, age and health status.

Until next time .. stay healthy.

Over 50 and finding that it’s now even more challenging to keep that weight off? Here are some tips to lose weight – for over 50s.

1. Reduce your calorie intake – try to consume less fat, especially from animal sources. Choose healthy fat alternatives such as nuts and avocado / pear.
2. Avoid trans fats – these tend to be abundant in commercially baked products (as partially hydrogenated fats). Trans fats will increase your bad cholesterols.
3. Consume more calcium-rich foods – as you age, it’s now even more important to maintain the integrity of our bones.
4. Consume more fibre-rich foods – this will help to reduce the likelihood of constipation. Additional benefits include helping blood-sugar control, cholesterol control and the fullness signal in the stomach which will lead to a reduction in overall food intake.
5. Consume more foods that are rich in iron – at this time in our lives, some women experience more than normal heavy periods which can lead to anaemia.
6. Plan your meal times and stick to them – this to avoid eating too little or too much.
7. Increase your water intake – this to keep hydrated and to reduce sugary alternatives that just aren’t good for you.
8. Take care of yourself – try to manage any existing chronic diseases (to avoid life-altering and threatening complications); learn coping strategies to help deal with stress; have regular mental health breaks in order to keep both mind and body healthy.

Stop procrastinating and make plans to improve your lifestyle today! Losing weight is not all about simply popping generic Phentermine and other weightloss pills. It’s a lifestyle. Go for it!

Did you know that swimming is an excellent form of aerobic exercise that uses almost all of your body’s major muscle groups? Also, compared with other popular activities (weight training, running etc.), the risk of injuries from swimming is quite low. Why? Well, to start off, the aquatic environment (water) helps to support your body by taking the pressure off your bones and joints. Compare that to what running can do to your knees or what weight training can do to your back.

If you’re seriously looking to lose weight … weight loss pills such as Phentermine-aside, you should definitely look at swimming to lose weight because it actually works and its not strenuous on the body. Swimming is also a good therapeutic way to massage the muscles after the rigor of an intense weight training workout or otherwise.