Take Control Of Your Weight

Many of us are experiencing the cycle of gaining and losing weight. Usually, our tendency is to blame the circumstances. Some of the excuses may be: “this is my body type”, “in my age it's very difficult”, “my schedule is very demanding” etc. However, we all have the ability to understand and to control the fluctuations in gaining and losing weight. With determination, patience and discipline we can control our weight. That will happen when we learn to choose food according to its full nutritional value.
Not all calories are alike. A fat calorie is not the same as calorie from protein or carbohydrate, either in the number of calories or in the way it is metabolized by the body. Fat has over twice as many calories as either protein or carbohydrate. In addition, the body easily converts dietary fat calories into fat. One hundred fat calories can be stored as body fat by expending only 2.5 calories, whereas the body must spend twenty-three calories - almost ten times as much - to convert one hundred calories of dietary protein or carbohydrate into body fat.
Only about 1 percent of dietary protein and carbohydrate end up as body fat, because the body would rather use them up right away than waste energy to store them. So, by keeping fat consumption low, the body would consume fewer calories, and also those calories would be less likely to be converted into body fat.
The body only needs about 4 to 6 percent of calories as fat to synthesize the essential fatty acids. Hence, a diet with 10 percent fat can provide more than enough fat without getting more than the body needs. It is the excessive amounts of fat and cholesterol in the diet that lead to excess weight, heart disease, and other illnesses.
The fat cells grow larger when one keeps overeating. The cells begin forming new fat cells and then the person gains weight. The size of the fat cells may decrease when restricting food intake for a while, but the number does not. That explains why it becomes harder to lose weight each time one goes through a diet cycle (losing weight and regaining it). When a person first loses weight by restricting the amount of food he eats, he loses both muscle and fat tissue. But when he gains weight back, he regains proportionately more fat than he lost.
Because of homeostasis, (the body's tendency for equilibrium) the body tries to maintain its weight even when the person goes on a calorie–restricted diet. As the body starts loosing weight, it tries to compensate on the supply side by increasing the appetite to make the person eat more calories and on the demand side by causing the metabolic rate to drop. When the metabolic rate is lowered, calories are burnt more slowly. Because of this, even when the person stays on a calorie – restricted diet, he may stop losing weight. Eventually, even if the person eats less the weight stays the same. Worse still, since repeated dieting leads to greater and greater lowering of the metabolic rate, when a person gets tired of feeling hungry and goes off the diet, he may gain back even more than he lost- even if he will eat the same amount of food as he did before starting the diet.
Being overweight is primarily due to how much fat the person eats. Most of the fat comes from animals. Foods from animals are very high in fat, cholesterol, and in saturated fat, very low in complex carbohydrate, and very low in fiber.
When the diet includes low fat, high fiber, complex carbohydrate, whole grains and vegetables something new happens. The metabolism stays the same or even increases, so the person burns off calories more quickly. The energy level increases. The person can eat the same amount of food or even more, yet consume fewer calories. In addition to having an increased metabolic rate, the person might feel full before consuming too many calories. This diet is high on fiber, which slows down the absorption of food, so the feeling of fullness stays longer than when eating small portions on a calorie restricted diet. And since these foods are high both in fiber and in complex carbohydrates, the blood sugar level remains more stable, helping to give a greater sense of equanimity and well – being.
Complex carbohydrates are starches in their natural unrefined form, such as potatoes, brown rice, whole wheat bread, vegetables and so on are low in calories, high in fiber, and they are bulky, so the person fills up before eating too much. Also they send a biochemical signal to the brain that the person had enough to eat. When you eat fat on the other hand, it is very easy to consume too many calories before you feel full.