Weight Watching Tips:
Loose Weight For a Healthier You

Whether you eat African foods or not, you can benefit from the weight watching tips provided here to help you maintain your weight, or indeed loose weight for a healthier you.

Research have consistently shown that deliberate attempts to loose weight in individuals can dramatically improve one's chances of good health and long life by up to 30 percent (American Annals of Internal Medicine).

We have invited our in-house weight lose medical doctor for professional advise. Follow these top tips to lose weight! Get ready to improve your health even as you enjoy the delicious goodness of African foods.

About 1 out of every 3 persons in the UK are either over weight or obese. For some reasons, women are often thought to have problems with their weight than men. That is not true. According to the Office of National Statistics in England, more than 45% of men in the UK are overweight compared to about 33 percent of women. So the problem with weight here concerns both males and females.

While eating too much and doing too little or no exercise is just the right recipe for weight gain, there are quite a few persons who are over weighed or obese due to no fault of theirs. This may be genetic.

With the right type of food and exercise, you can still enjoy life to the full without adding a stone or pound to your weight. If your weight is more than the expected for your height, you are overweight, or may even be obese.

Whatever is the cause of your weight problem, there is solution. All can work towards losing weight. See how these weight watching tips will help prevent gaining weight, and even loose weight.

But before we dwell on these weight watching tips, how can you tell if you are overweight or obese in practical measurable terms? What are the effects of putting on too much weight? And what are the causes of weight gain we often do not give attention to?

How To Know If You Are Over Weight

Being overweight or obese should not just be measured based on what others say, or what you think. Every one have a right range of weight bracket that he or she should be in. It is dependent on how tall you are.

In medicine, doctors call this your BMI or Body Mass Index. It is defined as the body weight in kilograms (Kg) divided by the square of your height in meters (m).

You can calculate your BMI by thus taking your weight in Kg and then your height. Multiply your height by your height (for example 1.8m X 1.8m = 3.24m) and then divide your weight (for example 80Kg) by the result (i.e. 80Kg ÷ 3.24 = 24.69).

Normal weigh should be within normal BMI range should be 20- 25Kg/m2.

Overweight is said to occur when your BMI is within 25 – 29.9Kg/m2,

and

Obesity exists when BMI is greater than 30kg/m2.

Most people realize they start gaining weight after the age of 20. This is because maximum body weight is achieved between the ages of 20 -40 years. In men, the body mass starts to rapidly decrease there after, but may remain stagnant in women till 55 years of age.

After the age of 40 then, the amount of food eaten needs to be reduced, or activity increased or both combined to maintain or reduce your weight.

If you notice you are loosing weight rapidly without decreasing your food intake, altering your diet, or increasing your exercise levels after the age of 50, please see your doctor. An unexplainable weight loss is extremely suspicious of an underlying illness.

Causes Of Weight Gain And Obesity

As said earlier, some people gain weight for no fault of theirs. But for the majority, the following are reasons why they may be piling on weight. So please watch out and do not become a victim of these counters to weight watching tips. They include:

  • Eating much. For some, their weight gain is due to eating disorders, where they just can not stop eating. Eating is a compulsion. Seeking medical help could help here. For some others, they eat a lot due to lack of self control. No one can help you here. You need to be determined and reduce the quantity of food you eat.

  • Eating the right kind of food. Some eat any thing thrown at them. A practical weight watching tip is to eat less of fatty food. Fatty foods, apart from containing too much fat which is deposited as fat under the skin and in the heart and blood vessels, it does not switch off the desire to eat more in the brain, as other foods like carbohydrates and proteins does.

    Large amount of the fat is stored, and not burned.

  • Irregular Meals. Never under estimate this. Some are so accustomed to eating snacks and eating irregularly that their brain forgets to recognize or does not simply recognize any pattern of food in take. It looses control of satiety control, and you find yourself eating at all times.

  • Alcohol Consumption. Alcohol releases energy, stimulates appetite, and could make you loose control of restraining signal to eating from the brain.

  • Little or No Exercise. You need to use up more energy than you take in with food if you want abide with a practical weight watching tip and get results.

Problems Of Excessive Weight Gain

The human and material cost of overweight and obesity are staggering. It also impacts greatly on the government and public services. The UK government estimates are that over £4.2 billion is spent yearly in the National Health Service (NHS) alone, to deal with problems of obesity. This does not take into cognizance losses from unemployment, days off from work due to obesity related illnesses, family and relationship break down, accidents, e.t.c, e.t.c, from this malady.

In terms of direct personal cost, the following can be said to be true problems one can experience due to being excessively overweight or obese, thus need to apply the weight watching tips here prescribed. They include:

  • Loss of shape, thus making one less attractive to one's mate or prospective partner.

  • Having to buy new clothes as old ones becomes too small

  • Psychological problems with school mates, work mates or spouse

  • Joint pains

  • Arthritis and back problems

  • High blood pressure

  • Diabetes

  • Heart attack

  • Blood clot in the lungs

  • Obstructive sleep apnoea, which is a very serious health problem, and has lead to many divorces due to un-bearable snoring at night

  • Stroke and ultimately paralysis

  • Problems with operations. If you are obese and have a gallstone operation, many doctors will not operate on you. Another reason to take these weight watching tips seriously

  • Gallstones. You are more likely to suffer with gallstones if you are obese

  • Pregnancy complications

  • Predisposition to developing various kinds of cancers

  • Inability to control out flow of urine (stress incontinence)

The list is almost endless. Believe me, what ever you can do to avoid becoming obese is worth it. It you are already over weight or obese, do not despair. You can overcome this with determination, hard work and persistence. Do not allow a few relapses to discourage you. It is a battle you can win. Yes we can! Take up and implement our weight watching tips.

How To Loose Weight

Or rather, we should start with how not to loss weight. Some who want to loose weight start by starving themselves. After, they go back and eat as much as they have missed eating before now.

Going on a short term diet is certainly not an effective way to losing weight in the long term.

Use of weight losing drugs and drinks are also not proven to be effective means of losing weight in the long run.

Time tested and honored weight watching tips as well as weight loosing techniques basically involve no more than the following:

  • Watch What You Eat
    Avoid Refined Foods. Eating more of complex carbohydrates like starch food in yam, plantain, cassava. These food are the so called Low GI food. They contain complex carbohydrate and high dietary fibre.

    They help to maintain what doctors call the glycaemic index of your blood, thus helping to maintain near constant, your sugar level, thereby your brain does not start requesting for food sooner than you finished eating. Avoiding processed or refined foods like sugary foods, chocolates, biscuits is good idea.

    Also eat food with lean protein like dried fish and beans cooked with very minimal oil. These also help maintain your sense of satisfaction for a longer time.

  • Increase Your Activity Levels - Exercise
    Taking brisk walk for 10 – 30 minutes per day. Use the stairs. Register with a dancing class, or regular sit ups and push ups in the morning and evening until you start sweating or really sweat for 5 to 15 minutes is great yet cost effective.


  • Change Your Eating Habit
    Eat small but regular meals daily. Fibre rich diet will give you bulk and make you feel filled. Avoid eating at randoms. Your body when well trained, will get used to meals only at certain times of the day and will be better utilized. Food will become unattractive to you outside those times too.


  • Fruits and Vegetables As Snacks
    If you must eat in-between meals, then eat fruits and vegetables instead of snacks and drink clear fluids like water.

  • Keep A Food Diary
    Yes. Keeping a food diary has been shown to be a very powerful way to curb our weight. Research shows that if one can consistently keep a diary of every meal, snack, sweets, ...any thing that went into the mouth for a one month period, you will be surprised to see how effect this helps in trimming down your weight!



    • In summary, your weight watching tips are: eat complex carbohydrate, eat regularly, reduce fat in your meals, exercise weekly, keep a food diary and see your doctor for any further concern.


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    We hope this expert weight watching tips from our doctor helps. Please get back to us if you have comments, concerns or contribution on this topic. You can read even more tips on how to loose weight and conquer obesity.


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