Real Life Biggest Loser

We all know that being in shape has lots of health benefits.  The issues of being overweight drive healthcare costs through the roof.  There is plenty of data out there about the obesity trends in the US.  The reality is that losing weight is hard.

The show The Biggest Loser does a great job of showing what exercise and diet can do.  The challenge of course is that most of us don’t live in a controlled environment with a personal trainer and 3 hours to workout per day.  So, a good friend of mine who has done it all on his own provides a great story.  He was just featured in our local paper here, but he has gone from 270 pounds to almost 200 pounds and from not exercising to running half-marathons.

In the end, it is basic…take in less calories than you burn per day.  Good luck.

From the World Health Organization (WHO):

Overweight and obesity lead to adverse metabolic effects on blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides and insulin resistance. Some confusion of the consequences of obesity arise because researchers have used different BMI cut-offs, and because the presence of many medical conditions involved in the development of obesity may confuse the effects of obesity itself.

The non-fatal, but debilitating health problems associated with obesity include respiratory difficulties, chronic musculoskeletal problems, skin problems and infertility. The more life-threatening problems fall into four main areas: CVD problems; conditions associated with insulin resistance such as type 2 diabetes; certain types of cancers, especially the hormonally related and large-bowel cancers; and gallbladder disease.

The likelihood of developing Type 2 diabetes and hypertension rises steeply with increasing body fatness. Confined to older adults for most of the 20th century, this disease now affects obese children even before puberty. Approximately 85% of people with diabetes are type 2, and of these, 90% are obese or overweight. And this is increasingly becoming a developing world problem. In 1995, the Emerging Market Economies had the highest number of diabetics. If current trends continue, India and the Middle Eastern crescent will have taken over by 2025.Large increases would also be observed in China, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the rest of Asia.

Raised BMI also increases the risks of cancer of the breast, colon, prostate, endometroium, kidney and gallbladder. Chronic overweight and obesity contribute significantly to osteoarthritis, a major cause of disability in adults. Although obesity should be considered a disease in its own right, it is also one of the key risk factors for other chronic diseases together with smoking, high blood pressure and high blood cholesterol. In the analyses carried out for World Health Report 2002, approximately 58% of diabetes and 21% of ischaemic heart disease and 8-42% of certain cancers globally were attributable to a BMI above 21 kg/m2.