Yes. You can have a normal weight, but if your body fat percentage is high enough, you may be considered obese — a situation known as normal weight obesity. Normal weight obesity means you may have the same serious health risks as does someone who’s obese. Obesity is defined as having an excessive amount of body fat — not as weighing too much.

A formula called body mass index (BMI) is used to determine whether you’re at a healthy weight for your height. But BMI doesn’t tell the whole story because it doesn’t measure body fat. So you may have a normal BMI while your body fat percentage is high enough to increase health risks.

Researchers are still trying to determine what percentage of body fat counts as obesity when your weight is normal, and whether guidelines should be different depending on your age and sex.

Like obesity, normal weight obesity may increase your risk of serious health problems, including:

Heart disease
Diabetes
Abnormal cholesterol level, in which your triglyceride level is high, but your HDL (“good”) cholesterol level is low
High blood pressure
Metabolic syndrome

If you’re concerned about your body fat percentage, talk to your doctor. Your doctor may want to measure your body fat and recommend additional tests to see if you’re at risk of obesity-related conditions. Your doctor may also encourage you to start eating healthier and increase your activity level.

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Body Image Loving Your Body Inside and Out

With a positive or healthy body image, a woman has a real perception of her size and shape. She also feels comfortable with her body. With a negative body image, a woman has a distorted perception of her shape and size, compares her body to others, and feels shame and anxiety about her body. Being unhappy with your body can affect how you think and feel about yourself as a person. A poor body image can lead to emotional distress, low self-esteem, unhealthy dieting habits, anxiety, depression, and eating disorders. Developing a positive body image and a healthy mental attitude is crucial to a woman’s happiness and wellness.

When you Look in the Mirror, do you Like What you See?

Is your body image positive or negative? If your answer is negative, you are not alone. Women in the U.S. are under pressure to measure up to a certain social and cultural ideal of beauty, which can lead to poor body image. Women are constantly bombarded with “Barbie Doll-like” images. By presenting an ideal that is so difficult to achieve and maintain, the cosmetic and diet product industries are assured of growth and profits. It’s no accident that youth is increasingly promoted, along with thinness, as an essential criterion of beauty. The message we’re hearing is either “all women need to lose weight” or that the natural aging process is a “disastrous” fate.

Other pressures can come from the people in our lives.

• Family and friends can influence your body image with positive and negative comments.
• A doctor’s health advice can be misinterpreted and affect how a woman sees herself and feels about her body.

Learning to Love What You See in the Mirror

We all want to look our best, but a healthy body is not always linked to appearance. In fact, healthy bodies come in all shapes and sizes! Changing your body image means changing the way you think about your body. At the same time, healthy lifestyle choices are also key to improving body image.

• Healthy eating can promote healthy skin and hair, along with strong bones.
• Regular exercise has been shown to boost self-esteem, self-image, and energy levels.
• Plenty of rest is key to stress management.

www.womenshealth.gov/bodyimage/index.cfm

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Starting the day with a cup of coffee, a breakfast meal for you and your children, running out the door to work, only to end your day watching TV at home, quickly talking to your spouse and trying to unwind….WHEW!! Trying to accomplish things in the day simultaneously can often feel stressful and a constant catch up. All that we do may actually be making us more stressed and less happy! “A study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that when we try to accomplish too many tasks at once, our bodies release adrenaline and stress hormones, which create an anxious cycle: The more frenzied we feel, the more we take on, making us even more stressed and less happy.”

“A man is an architect of his own fate and it requires proper planning, to make things easy and joyful. All are in search of happiness and still the world is full of miseries.” (articlebase.com)

Some of the effects of prolonged stress on the body are; difficulty in sleeping, indigestion, erectile dysfunction, low libido, back pain, headache, heart disease, hypertension, low immunity and unhealthy skin! (Just to name a few) There is a connection between the way one handles stress/anxiety and your overall health. Understand that your mind and body work together and trying to avoid getting worked up over minor things will help reduce the stress hormone cortisol. “The principal steroid hormone produced by the adrenal cortex. It regulates carbohydrate metabolism and the immune system and maintains blood pressure.” (dictionary.com)

Remember that you have a voice as well, so if something is truly wrong ask for some help! Everyone cannot be happy all the time, but putting your best foot forward and attempting to seek a positive and healthful mindset will really start to change your attitude. Wake up every morning with a goal in mind and take it from there. Every morning is new, every morning is fresh and every morning is a gift. Although you may not get dealt a great hand, understanding yourself is what usually works best, all from past research.

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“Our immune system protects us against bacteria, viruses, and other disease-causing organisms. It is an efficient, complex defence system.” (Medical News Today) With this years flu season happening now, it is important to not only understand what type of virus it is, but to understand how we (as humans) can help to fight it off.  Undernourished people are at greater risk to fight off invaders like viruses, bacteria, etc. Over nourished people are also at greater risk but in a completely different way! Their body is working hard to bring blood to every part in their body, making the immune system work in overtime.  Reducing fat in your diet can increase your immune system!

Research suggest that regular consumption of pro biotic dairy (like yogurt) can enhance immunity in the gut! This may help many with Gastrointestinal problems and help with slowing the process of food poisoning down. “Immune system maintenace requires a well balanced diet with many vitamins and minerals.” (Medical News Today)

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A ‘Shock Diet’ is a recipe for failure

Experts say losing weight rapidly is disastrous and that the safest rate at which one should lose weight is 1 to 2 pounds a week.

Gigliotti says people who are very obese can lose weight at a rapid pace and do it safely. In the UCI program, people who want to lose a lot quickly are put under medical supervision, as was the case with the diner owner I wrote about last month, who went from 305 pounds to 200 in only nine months, jump-starting his regimen with “meal-replacement” shakes.

For most of us, though, we must simply burn more calories than we consume. The number of calories we need depends on gender, age, weight and activity level. Clinical exercise specialist Kandace McMenomy says women generally shouldn’t dip below 1,200 calories a day, and men should consume at least 1,800. How many should you burn a day to maintain current weight? It depends on many factors.

It takes three to seven days for the body’s metabolism to change, so if you want to drop pounds in a hurry, you may think you’re doing great when really it’s just water loss those first few days, Gigliotti says. Abandon a program too quickly after shedding pounds, and the water comes back, and people get discouraged.

“That’s why we’ve got to stick with things for a longer period of time to keep on burning that fat tissue,” she said.

McMenomy says different weight-loss programs work for different people, but for most, losing 1 to 2 pounds a week is “absolutely safe.”

“What works for me might not necessarily work for you, or for Jessica Simpson. … For somebody who wants to shock the body and crash-diet or go on a vegan diet, is this going to show a different number? Absolutely. But I guarantee you the moment they try to incorporate a sensible diet, [the weight] will go up again.”

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/health/fitness/sns-health-fitness-shock-diet,0,4793803.story

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