Karen Gutherless is director
of Health Seekers Technology of North Platte, 402 E. Francis.
Choosing a weightloss program
that's right for YOU
By Karen Gutherless
Whether you need a program to lose weight or to help maintain weight, you
will want to choose a plan that makes good health a priority and is right
for you and your body.
The key to a long and healthy life is diet and exercise. What you eat influences
your health as well as your figure. No matter how skinny you are, if you
aren’t healthy, you won’t look good.
A goal should not be to lose weight, but to gain muscle tissue and lose
fat. The combination of good eating, nutritional supplementation and easy
exercise will keep you toned, trim and, most importantly, healthy.
The less you eat, the less you burn. Therefore, the “binge and purge”
method of dieting will only slow down your metabolism and cause your body
to store extra calories during the “binge” cycle and hold on
to those calories for the “purge” cycle. Skipping meals only
escalates the growth of fat cells by lowering your metabolic rate when you
starve your body.
The diet:
When choosing a diet plan, make sure the plan includes ALL food groups.
Each food group contains vitamins and minerals essential for energy and
the health and repair of body tissues. Cutting out one food group cuts out
the essential vitamins and/or minerals contained in those foods.
Proteins provide our bodies with amino acids, which are essential for building
and repairing the body and enabling vitamins and mineral to properly perform
their jobs. Carbohydrates are the major source of energy for the body. Carbohydrates
include fruits, vegetables, grains and starches. It is recommended that
60 percent of your total daily calories come from carbohydrates.
Your body also needs fat. Fats are essential through out life to provide
energy and support growth. There are good fats and bad fats. The good fats
remove excess glucose, triglycerides and cholesterol from the blood stream.
Water naturally suppresses the
appetite and may be the most important catalyst to increase fat burning.
Drinking plenty of water flushes toxins and keeps the liver from metabolizing
fat. Water serves an important role in all cellular activity. If your water
intake is low, your ability to transport nutrients becomes compromised and
you’ll lose strength and feel sluggish.
The focus of the Weight Loss Program is to supply you with optimum products
and natural foods to achieve you ideal body composition. Your program should
be based on lean muscle tissue to fat ratio with your goal to be to loose
excess body fat. Calorie consumption is based on the amount of lean muscle
tissue you have. Excess calories which are consumed and not converted to
lean body mass or used during exercise will be stored as body fat.
A program should offer enough food to sustain and build your lean muscle
tissue. Lean muscle tissue weighs more than body fat. Body fat takes up
to five times as much space as lean muscle tissue.
Setting goals:
Dreams are different from goals: Dreams are what you wish for and goals
are things you want to accomplish with in a specific time frame. By setting
short-term and long-term goals, you will have a basis to start and the motivation
to continue through with your weight management program. Be realistic in
your goals and monitor your progress with regular weigh-ins. Don’t
torture yourself with daily trips to the scale, but utilize your nutrition
counselor and have someone to be accountable to.
Supplements:
Eating whole foods is certainly best for you so you should look for supplementation
that uses whole foods. Studies show that protein-bonded vitamins and minerals
found in natural whole food supplements are absorbed, utilized and retained
in the tissues better than supplements that are not protein-bonded. Food
supplements can be high in certain nutrients and contain active ingredients
that aid in the digestive process. Taking natural supplements with meals
helps to assure the supply of nutrients needed for better assimilation.
Exercise:
The best time to exercise is before eating. Exercise suppresses the appetite
and increases the body’s ability to burn off calories. It is also
important to wait at least 40 minutes to an hour before exercising after
eating.
Remember to monitor your heart rate and stay within your aerobic training
zone. Exceeding your target zone can lead to potential injury and also cause
your body to burn lean muscle instead of fat. Working out too much actually
takes you further away from you goals. Not only is it hard on the body but
it is also very draining on the mind
NPTSummer 2005 Issue
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