“I’m so psyched and upset by remarks from people” lamented Mrs. Renu Jain “that it has become impossible for me to keep up my lost weight. My friends and well-wishers say that my body has sagged, I look older than my age. They say that I look pale and sick and that I have lost the beauty and charm I had when I used to weight seventy-six kilos. They insist that I should gain back my lost weight.”
Continue reading How to Lose Weight: Can I eat my normal food now that I’ve lost weight?
Heart disease is a major killer in India to-day. Persons who are obese have a higher incidence of the diseases of the heart and blood vessels as compared to persons with normal weight. In any case, whether you are over weight or not, the foods you eat have a great deal to do with heart disease and disease of blood vessels, and therefore you obviously cannot afford to ignore it. Dr. J.R. Moreton, 1947,published his work, showing that the arteries could become hard in individuals whose blood shows a high fat content, derived from the fat in the food.
Continue reading How to Lose Weight: Disease of Heart and Blood Vessels
INDIGESTION –
A common problem characterized by gas pains and distension, bloated feeling of the stomach, heaviness after meals together with various forms of indigestion, takes the toll of misery yet in majority of the cases they could have been avoided in the first place. The hectic pace of a modern style of living, hustle of city life, no time to eat and so on leads to the habit of “bolting” or gulping food which is the main reason of so called gas pains. This is particularly common in obese people in whom the greater part of food eaten consists of chapatties, khakras or bread made of refined white flour.
Hippocrates , the father of medicine in the fifty century B.C. wrote :
‘Leave your drugs in the chemist’s pot if you can heal the patient with food.”
Diet is being recognized as the most important single factor for promoting either health or disease. Sir Robert Mc Carrison, the greatest of food scientists, who has conducted research on the problem of nutrition in India says “the right kind of food is the most important single factor in promotion of health ; and the wrong kind of food is the most important single factor in the promotion of disease.”
Continue reading How to Lose Weight: Eating Can Save Your Life
ARTHRITIS
In simple language arthritis is an inflammation deformity, and stiffening of joints, often causing considerable pain. As the joints stiffen they become more and more painful to move, thus crippling the affected person. There are various types of arthritis but rheumatoid arthritis, gouty arthritis, and osteo arthritis are the most common. Gouty arthritis is due to an inherited metabolic disorder, discussed earlier in this chapter.
Continue reading How to Lose Weight: Arthritis, Anemia and Cancer
VARICOSE VEINS
A problem which can be extremely annoying is that of varicose veins. It is common in young people as well as older ones and is particularly aggravated by the problem of obesity in an individual. These unsightly veins occur, usually on legs and thighs and are a result of failure of blood to return to the heart normally, due to poor muscle tone. The heart pumps pure oxygenated blood to all parts of the body through arteries. Arteries end into capillaries and capillaries from veins.
DIABETES MELLITUS is frequently associated with obesity. Eight out of ten adult diabetics are obese when symptoms first appear. This is a condition arising out of the body’s failure on one hand to burn sugar (glucose) for energy and on the other hand failure to convert glucose to glycogen for storage in liver and muscles.
Continue reading How to Lose Weight: Diabetes Mellitus and Ulcer