One diet pill that really works

A family member was having a very hard time losing weight. He weighed 325 pounds and for 2 years was trying desperately to get down to 240 pounds but couldn't get past 270 pounds. He was exercising 3 times a week at a gym and was on a 2000 calories a day diet. Finally he convinced his doctor he needed something else to help him so he put him on these diet pills that were not meant to be actually diet pills, but what us lay people call, "uppers." He was on them for one month and lost 30 pounds. The doctor took him off of the pills for a month then put him back on them for 2 more months. He got down to 220 pounds and stayed there for several months. I have been waiting for an update to find out if he is back on the pills or not, or if he is finally managing to maintain his weight without pills.

I just met the rudest overweight person today

Before you go jumping down my throat about making generalizations about fat people, let me say that I weighted as much as 190 pounds at my heaviest and I am a 5'2" woman who should be weighing around 120 pounds. Yes I was obese but I was never rude or inconsiderate of others as much as the fat pig I had the unfortunate pleasure to meet today.

We were both at Walmart, near the vending machines in the front of the store. He was driving one of the Walmart handicapped chairs. I was behind him and he knew I was there. Without warning he starts to back that thing up and I had no where to move to since there were carts on both sides of me (I was walking and had no cart with me). He damn nearly run over me. I did manage to get out of his way and all he did was give me a nasty glare, never speaking a word to me. I managed to get around him and was at the vending machine when he decides to move forward. This time I got my item and got out of his way.

It was a few minutes later that I saw him again and this time I was walking to my car and he was walking to his car. His car was not in the handicapped parking spot, nor did it have any handicapped stickers on it. That damn fool was using the handicapped cart for shear laziness.

When I got to my car, I sat and sorted through few things and then looked up, expecting him to be gone. Nope, he was still there, trying to start his car - it wouldn't start!! I had a big smile on my face as I drove out of the parking lot as he was on his cell phone. I bet he was calling his roadside assistance plan. I guess that is what you get when you try to run someone down in a store.

Interesting studies on obesity

I just saw on TV a few news stories about obesity. The first one claimed to have found the major reason why people in the USA are becoming more and more obese. It was not due to eating habits but the fact that their bodies are not needing as much food as it use to. You see they claim that the human body uses "X" amount of calories a day to regulate its body temperature. More and more people are now living in temperature controlled environments and don't use those calories for temperature regulation anymore. Your body use to work hard to keep you cool and hard again to warm you up. If your body doesn't have to do that then it doesn't need those calories anymore. That was an interesting news story.

The next one was about how obese women thought that they were being picked on at a local clothing store by being "spied" on by the store's security cameras. Not sure where that story was heading.

The last story I saw was one on childhood obesity and the strange part about the story was not the actual story but the one that followed it, it was about how PE was being removed from school curriculum. Now if only they figured out that those 2 stories were linked then they would have cause and effect right there.

Obesity and weight sure is in the news almost everyday now. It use to be just fad diet news but now it has become a national health crisis.

How losing weight can save you money

Did you know that overweight people pay more for lots of things? Health care is one. I bet you didn't know that many medical insurance policies did not cover doctors visits if obesity is discussed. Life insurance is another one that overweight people will pay more for. Many life insurance quotes require a physical to be done prior to issuing the policy and often that policy costs more if you are overweight.

Of course there is also those issues with airline seats that pop up in the news every once and awhile but they are often aimed at the severely obese people and not just those who are overweight. While the medical and insurance industry tend to penalize those who are just overweight.

Midnight snackers

I have a dear friend that always seems to be on a diet of some sort. I have known her long enough to see her go through the very obese times to the very slim days. She is currently back to her overweight time and until recently I was unaware that she was a closet midnight snacker. Her husband told me that he would be getting ready for work one day and found all kinds of food left out in the kitchen. He put it away and thought nothing more about it. Then a week later it happened again. He thought it was one of his teenage sons and confronted him. It was then he found out that his wife was the sneaky snacker.

My friend and her husband had a huge argument over the issue. She refused to admit that eating 2 sandwiches at 1am in the morning was contributing to her almost 280 pound problem. At one point he threatened to put a lock on the refrigerator or figure out a way to keep her out of it during certain hours. He even wondered if any company made such a thing like refrigerator filters that detected who was opening the door and what they were getting out or putting in.

What he finally did in the end was make an appointment for her at the doctor and not tell her about it. The appointment was around lunch time and he made arraignments that it looked like he would be taking her out to lunch and instead they ended up at the doctors office. After the appointment her midnight snacking stopped......at least for now it has. She dropped 30 pounds since not making those midnight runs.

Obesity is now an epidemic

Did you know that in the USA, obesity is now at epidemic rates? That means that heart disease, diabetes, and other weight related health problems will rise right along with it. You will also see an increase in companies trying to cash in on that. More fad diets, exercise equipment and other gizmos will be bombarding us. Next you will see more franchises that encourage home based businesses with herbal supplements to help with weight loss.

All of that instead of people just learning to eat a balanced diet, stay away from fast food and excessive snacking and get out and off of the couch. I wonder when will people learn? Or are they merely sheep that listen to commercials that push food and videos games? I hope not. I hope there is hope for us.......for all of us.

Your skin after a crash diet

The one reason I tell people not to go on crash diets (losing more than 5 pounds a week) is the fact that your skin will look like loose flab after you lose the weight. Your skin needs time to adjust to not being stretched over your fat. Unless you want to pay for cosmetic surgery to remove all that extra skin, do yourself a favor and don't go on any crash diets. You will find that even a wrinkle cream that works will not remove that turkey neck if you lose weight too fast.

By losing weight slowly you skin will have a chance to bounce back to a slimmer you.

Take care of your health

Weight loss to become a healthier you will lengthen your life, lower your medical insurance costs and keep you off of social security disability. Excess weight contributes to bone loss, diabetes and believe it or not increased pain from lack of movement. Did you know that shortness of breath is a sign of heart disease? When your heart becomes weak because of excess weight and lack of exercise then it cannot pump blood to your lungs to get your blood oxygen. That causes shortness of breath.

Weight loss news from the Mayo Clinic

You hear the complaints every year. People groaning about the 5-10 pounds they packed on during the holidays. But for many people, too much weight is an every-day issue. Thousands of people are obese, and that means their health and quality of life can suffer. Surgery may be an option for some people, but for those who don't want surgery or can't have it for medical reasons, there is another option. Doctors at Mayo Clinic developed a liquid meal program geared toward people who need to lose a lot of weight. Video below:

Being disabled and overweight

One of the major causes of being overweight in adults is being unable to exercise due to physical limitations. Another factor is depression. Often those 2 factors go hand in hand in the development of an overweight person.

When an adult becomes disabled they often go on social security disability. If their disability is not apparent to the average observer then they could be the victim of ridicule. That ridicule will often cause the disabled person to become depressed and that depression can lead to overeating, alcoholism or even drug addiction.

Contrary to popular belief, being on disability is not a free ride but only enough of an income to barely get by. Next time you see an overweight disabled person consider that over eating might be their "mental crutch" that they have had to lean on due to depression.

Shopping while fat

I have been overweight for the last 15 years. I sometimes get to the point that I really hate to look at myself in the mirror. It is at those times that I find great relief in going shopping. It is not that I substitute shopping for feeling guilty for being overweight, no it is that I go to Walmart and see huge obese women and say to myself I am not that fat after all.

To me shopping and looking at other people makes it a true reality check. I think I have been comparing myself to those skinny gals on TV and not to real life. Whether I am shopping for pond supplies at the local pet store or just cruising down the grocery aisle it puts my own life in a better perspective. Try it for yourself and see if you feel better about the way you look.

Lose that belly fat

I don't think I know anyone that has a fat belly fetish. In fact most people I know will stare at obese people at Walmart even if they are overweight themselves. For those of us who are constantly battling the fat war, we want to know how to lose belly fat.

I remember when I was younger it was so easy to walk off those extra pounds. In high school I had one of those flatter than a table top tummy. I could do 90 sit-ups in under 60 seconds for those fitness tests each year. As I got older and had an office job those extra pounds started to gather at the waistline.

I found that in order to combat the bulging waistline I have to exercise more vigorously than I did when I was younger. As a person ages their metabolisum does slow down so in order to keep it elevated you should have a high percentage of your body be muscle rather than fat. Muscle will use far greater calories and carbs just at rest than fat does. The only way to get and keep muscle is with exercise.

Creating a spreadsheet to track your diet

When my hubby was diagnosed as borderline diabetic he was so determined to change his diet and lose some weight he tracked his daily food intake on his laptop. He tracked everything from each calorie, carbohydrate, fat content and even the weights of the foods. This went on for a few months, he even had the information backed up on a Custom usb drive that he kept on his key chain.

He was so proud of the information he was keeping track of. Finally he was losing weight and after 9 weeks he got the hang of what to eat and what his limits were. He lost 60 pounds in one year and kept the weight off. He is no longer anywhere near diabetic.

The down side to being overweight

We all know the health affects of being overweight.The increased risks for heart attacks and other health problems but it also affects our pocket book. Did you know that our insurance rates go up? Life insurance is a big one on that. Most insurance policies make you get a physical check-up as part of procedure to get a policy. It is almost a rarity to find life insurance no medical exam nowadays.

Also did you know that any medical information reported to an insurance company goes on your rate information? If you have ever seen the TV show Seinfeld then you might have seen the episode of Elane trying to find a doctor where she had not been "blacklisted" with. It maybe funny but some elements of that show were right on the money - insurance money that is.

One of my most embarrassing moments

About 17 years ago I had one of my most embarrassing moments with my weight. I had, at least what I thought was, a fairly nice figure, that is until the day I was approached by a co-worker who told me that she and several others wanted to know when the "baby" was due. I was not pregnant!

It not only embarrassed me but the co-worker that asked me. I was not only embarrassed but also angry at the lack of tact that the women had. It almost got me to the point of printing out a sign for my office that said " there will not be any birth announcements this year".

If you know someone who is overweight do not mention anything about dress sizes, weight or pregnancies to them. They are well aware of how much they weigh and don't need to be reminded every hour.

Surgery to reduce your size

Losing weight is not that hard. It is simply a matter of putting less food into your body than you body is utilizing. Unfortunately some people want the results fast and that is when people resort to fad diets, pills and lap-band surgery.

Is surgery a realistic option? I have watched people keep the weight off with lap-band surgery and I have also seen them gain weight after a weight loss. You see the lap-band surgeon never explained to those patients that the stomach is very adaptable and will grow to accommodate more food over time. The same is true when patients have part of their stomach removed to make it smaller. If they don't learn to eat less then over time they will go back to where they started, obese again.

Diet update

Here is the latest results of my husband's low carb dieting plan. He now weighs 278. He started out weighing 326 so he has now lost almost 50 pounds. I am so proud that he stuck this diet out. Of course this diet is under doctor's supervision. I am using the same type of diet to see if I can shed a few more pounds and I am finally doing it. 2 years ago I weighed 185 pounds and was very fat to say the least. Now I am down to 160 so I have been losing at least one pound a month on average.

We both have a long way to go to get to our "ideal" healthy weight but we will get there.

Don't eat that!!!!

I just saw one of those in depth news stories on TV of how someone has started a dieting club. Their mission was to start overweight people on the road to eating healthier foods. What they showed on TV was an outdoor picnic type of buffet with lots of fruit and vegetables. There was one woman who was at least 100 lbs over weight and she was chowing down on all the fruit she could find. All I wanted to do was reach through the TV screen and grab that fruit from her and tell her that not all fruit is good when you are trying to lose weight. The carbohydrates found in one piece of fruit can sometimes be as much as a dietitian would allow for a whole meal. Here is a list of fruits to stay away from when trying to lose weight:

• Whole grapefruit - 23 grams of carbs
  
• Slice of melon - 26 grams of carbs
• Banana - 26 grams of carbs
  

Global food shortage

This has got to be the most disgusting fact in today's society. The USA has the largest population of obese humans in the world. While we are trying to loose extra pounds the rest of the world is struggling with a food shortage. Throughout history, obesity has been a sign of wealth for a dominant society. The Romans were fat, the major Kings and Queens of Europe were plump if not down right FAT, this was a sign that they were powerful enough to have food. Being fat might be a sign of wealth but it is not a sign of health. I am calling on all the wealthy societies of the world to knock off the over indulging in food. If food is a sign of wealth then spread that wealth (food) to the less fortunate countries of the world. Obesity and world hunger should not be going on at the same time - let's ban together and stop it.