How to manage obesity effortlessly with 5 lifestyle choices.

Obesity is the abnormal stockpile of excess fat in your body. It occurs when your body takes in extra calories and burning fewer fats.

Excess calories cause a medical problem that harms your health, but simple lifestyle changes can help you manage the condition.

To improve your health, you can make important choices like drinking less alcohol, exercising more, and eating less processed food.

In this article, some of the key points covered include:

• What is obesity and the factors causing it?

• Routine lifestyle choices to manage obesity.

• Consequences and health implications of excess weight.

How to Manage Obesity Symptoms and Causes

The Body Mass Index (BMI) measures obesity levels where you are obese by having a BMI above 30.

The BMI approximates your body fat depending on your height and weight.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), obesity levels in America continue to spike.

The condition is an everyday health concern among both adults and young people.

Children can also have obesity when their BMI is above the 95% Percentile range.

Several factors can cause obesity. The common causes include:

1. Excess Calorie-Intake

Consuming too many calories without proper exercise routine leads to surplus weight gain. You store the extra calories not burned as fat in the body.

A high-calorie diet such as processed food and beverages is a risk factor for weight gain.

This food often contains added sugar and fats, which remain deposited in your body.

2. Genetic Factors Leading to Obesity

Your genetic history predisposes you to obesity.

The genes from family members and relatives with a history of obesity affect how your body stores fat and processes calories.

Genetics also influence your lifestyle and eating habits. Adopting an unhealthy diet plan can come from your family history.

According to the National Institute of Health, chromosomal mutation can also lead to obesity.

The mutation can cause hormonal imbalance, which affects your body’s metabolism, making it harder to burn calories.

3. Lack of a Proper Exercise Routine

Exercise helps you burn exercise excess calories from the body. A proper exercise routine, for example, 30 mins a day of intense physical activity, breaks excess fat deposits.

Exercise also controls your blood sugar levels and minimizes the risk of cardiovascular infections.

High blood sugar levels are a risk factor for obesity.

4. Excess Alcohol Consumption

Alcohol contains high amounts of calories. Excess alcohol intake lacks any nutritional benefit. It only leads to making you overweight.

Binge drinking increases the amount of fat in your body.

Alcohol also interferes with the hormonal secretion. It can cause an increase in cortisol hormones, which affect the rate of burning the excess fats in your body.

Alcohol can also lead to poor decision-making. You might consume a poor diet with more fats and calories.

5. Environmental Factors Causing Obesity

Environmental factors can lead to obesity. The community/environment you are in can play specific roles, like:

• Growing up in a neighborhood with many fast-food restaurants often leads to unhealthy diets with many calories.

• The lack of an exercise area could prevent you from burning excess calories through a proper physical routine.

• Not knowing to prepare a healthy meal drives you to buy easily available processed foods with high-calorie intake.

6. Depression and Anxiety

Depression and anxiety can lead to putting on excess weight. While depressed, you can adopt unhealthy eating habits and use food for comfort.

This emotional eating can increase your intake of a high-calorie diet, making you prone to obesity.

Anxiety and depression cause an increase in stress hormones like cortisol to increase your appetite.

Stress can also cause an increase in insulin hormone to increase the storage of extra fat in your body.

According to Roger McIntyre, MD, at the University of Toronto, there is a link between the environmental factors and depression and anxiety that causes excess weight gain.

He suggests that proximity to fast-food restaurants makes healthy eating unlikely for most people, thus increasing their likelihood of depression and excess weight.

Some medications can also cause anxiety, making you gain more weight. Some drugs may slow your metabolism, reducing the capacity to burn excess calories.

Some drugs can also increase your appetite and affect your mood, making you to eat more.

7. Lacking Proper Sleep

Sleep is essential for the proper functioning of the body. Lacking enough sleep interferes with the hormonal production process.

Hormones help in processing excess fats from your body.

Inadequate sleep can alter the production of hormones which regulate appetite. For example, reducing the production of leptin hormone to make you hungrier and increase your food intake.

Lacking enough sleep also makes you unmotivated, preventing you from exercising. Being inactive makes you build excess weight.

Sleep deprivation can affect your decision to making and the functionality of your brain.

You can adopt a poor eating habit, increasing your intake of highly processed foods that can lead to obesity.

      Health Implications of Obesity

Obesity has several consequences. When left unchecked, it may have severe health complications. Some effects of obesity include:

1. High Blood Pressure

Excess weight gain can lead to high blood pressure/ hypertension. The surplus fat deposits reduce the sizes of arteries, allowing blood to flow at very high pressure.

The National Library of Medicine review in 2020 suggests that obesity accounts for 65-78% of primary hypertension cases.

Obesity -Induced hypertension often requires medication and surgery to treat.

2. Cardiovascular diseases

High blood pressure from excess calories is a risk factor for heart disease. Excess fat deposits lead to inflammation in the heart. The fat deposits harden your arteries, causing atherosclerosis.

The hardening can be from fat, cholesterol, and calcium substances building up sticky substances called plaque.

3. Type 2 diabetes

Obesity causes insulin resistance, which affects the regulation of blood sugar levels. Excess calories elevate your blood sugar levels. Obesity affects insulin production, leaving increased blood sugar in your system.

4. Obesity and Cancer

Studies from the CDC reveal a close relationship between obesity and cancer. Obesity causes inflammation and affects the production of vital hormones that regulate the functions of cells.

Abnormal cell functioning can lead to the development of cancerous cells and the growth of tumors.

Healthy Lifestyle Changes to Manage Obesity

There are several medical procedures to manage your obesity. But despite that, lifestyle changes are vital in handling excess weight.

Some of the behavioral choices you can make include:

1. A proper Exercise Routine

Having a proper exercise routine helps you break excess fat from your body. Exercise can burn calories and decrease the risk of heart disease and low blood pressure.

Vigorous exercising speeds up the metabolism process. It also reduces your anxiety and depression levels.

2. Switching to a Low -Calorie Diet

Excess calories are a major source of obesity. Switching to a low-calorie diet helps you maintain a lean body mass.

To cut down calories, stay away from processed food and drinks, as they have added sugars that are not healthy and can cause obesity.

3. Reduce Your Alcohol Consumption

Excessive alcohol consumption introduces more calories to your body.

Limit your consumption to only a few drinks, specifically, only a drink a day for women and two for men.

Staying sober can help improve your diet and manage the extra calories.

4. Adequate Sleeping Patterns

Adequate sleeps maintain your metabolism. A good metabolism processes the excess fats and calories from your system.

Metabolism is important for producing hormones like insulin, which controls blood sugar levels. A good sleep reduces your stress and anxiety levels to manage the extra calories.

With adequate sleep, your body feels well rested. You are likely to work out more after having enough rest.

 This will help you burn calories faster and shed off the excess weight.

5. Stress Management

Managing stress and anxiety is important in losing the excess calories. Seek a professional advice to address your mental well-being.

Stress management maintains your body’s metabolism and the hormonal balance required to suppress hunger and burn calories is ok.

With less stress, you can also get adequate sleep as your mind remains less worked up.

Having enough rest allows you to focus on a proper exercise routine to lose weight.

Final Thoughts

Obesity is a health threatening condition that occurs from having excess calories and fats deposited on your system.

Major health implications like high blood pressure, diabetes, and cancer result from the excessive fats and calories in your body.

Several factors ranging from environmental, genetical, excessive alcohol consumption, lack of a proper exercise routine and insufficient sleep are major contributors to obesity

To manage extra calories, eat healthy, exercise regularly, reduce your alcohol consumption and have enough sleep.

Take care of your mental health to prevent depression and anxiety, which are contributors to obesity.

Making lifestyle changes and choosing to eat healthy are significant steps to manage obesity and prevent any health complications from excess weight.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is obesity related to being overweight

There is a close relationship between obesity and excess weight. Obesity is having a BMI of above 30 and results from having surplus fats deposited in your body.

2. Can You Manage Excess weight through Lifestyle Changes?

While obesity is a medical condition, making significant lifestyle choices like exercising and lowering your calorie intake is effective in managing the condition.

3. What are the Long -term Consequences of Obesity?

Some of the medical implications of obesity are high blood pressure, risk of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and cancer.

4. How does sleep deprivation cause obesity?

Lack of enough sleep triggers hormonal imbalance, such as an increase in leptin hormone, which increases your appetite to eat more.

 Insufficient sleep also increases your stress and anxiety levels, which may cause emotional eating, making you increase calories as a copying mechanism.