MANILA, Philippines – Trying to get rid of the extra pounds that just won’t seem to go away? Finding yourself feeling ragged, sluggish or simply not at your best? Before following another fad diet or workout routine, know that your body weight is not only shaped by diet and exercise.
According to the Cohen’s Lifestyle Centre, gaining or losing weight is affected by multiple factors, including nutrition, genetics, psychology, behavior, and environment. While food choices and physical activity significantly affect your weight gain, achieving and maintaining a healthy weight is most likely successful by following a healthy lifestyle throughout your lifetime.
This was what housewife Edgina Ty discovered when she began gaining weight due to having polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and endometriosis, and the side-effects of the medication for these illnesses.
Here are some lifestyle tips for weight-related problems, which Edgina has followed:
• Be a mindful eater. Manage your food appetite and cut down excessive food cravings. Eat at least three times a day at the same schedule to keep your metabolism balanced. Avoid skipping meals because you may end up starving and overeating later. Also, take into consideration the amount and the nutrient content of the foods that you are eating. A well-balanced diet of fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins can give you energy, keep your blood sugar stable and keep you feeling full longer. “Treat food as a medicine that will help your body heal, make the commitment to a better eating lifestyle,” says Ty.
• Drink plenty of water. Always drink lots of water to rehydrate, regulate your body’s temperature and cleanse your body of toxic wastes. Water also keeps your metabolism burning and acts as an appetite suppressant, which can reduce your food intake. Drinking plenty of water also leads to frequent urination, which helps you lose extra pounds of water weight.
• Get enough sleep. When you’re short on sleep, you may feel too tired to prepare healthy meals, exercise, and perform other physical activities that can make you sweat and burn fats. Your body also makes less insulin, a hormone that converts sugar and other food into energy, and produces more grelin, a hormone which signals your brain to eat more food. The hormone cortisol also spikes up, causing you to feel more stressed and craving comfort foods.
• Get yourself moving. Regular exercise and active lifestyle are effective ways to keep your body fit and strong. Physical activity helps you feel energized throughout the day, prevents and reduces high blood pressure and improves your libido. It also helps lower your stress hormone level, which in turn relieves tension and reduces anxiety. However, do not break your body with intensive workouts, especially if your metabolism is not working well. Brisk walking done five times a week can be sufficient.
• Consult with your doctor. Weight changes and obesity can sometimes be the result of an underlying sickness, which may range from hormonal imbalance to a possible malfunction in the digestive system. Hormone-caused obesity can be difficult to treat. Ty shares, “Keeping a healthy weight through diet and exercise was effective then. But when I started my medications for PCOS and endometriosis, I started gaining weight. I got depressed and turned to overeating for a year so I ballooned to 156 lbs.”
Meanwhile, weight loss greatly improves obesity-related conditions like hypertension, diabetes, arthritis and infertility, among others. It is best to assess your overall health and fitness by consulting a medical professional. Your doctor can treat illnesses that indirectly affect your weight and can also recommend healthy ways to manage your body weight and overall health.
• Follow a safe and successful weight-loss program. If you need a professional intervention for your weight problems, go for a program that is medically proven to be safe and effective. One such intervention is the Cohen’s Lifestyle Program, a rapid weight loss and wellness program based on the international medical research by Dr. Rami Cohen. It is also the program that Ty follows.
The Cohen’s Lifestyle Program is a highly personalized program which recommends eating plans to clients based on the unique bio-chemical profile of their blood. The doctors will recommend food that will correct the imbalance of hormones that causes weight gain and kick-start the body’s natural ability to burn fat rapidly and safely.
The program has taught Edgina discipline in eating, drinking, sleeping better, and becoming more active. In her own words, “What I appreciate about Cohen’s Lifestyle Program is that it teaches you the simplicity of food preparation and the discipline of eating properly at the right time. And you see the results right away. It’s like seeing the evidence of the phrase, ‘You are what you eat.’ Working out is also more effective now because it balances my diet.”
After five months on the program, she is currently 122.9 pounds (55.9 kilos) down from her starting point of 155.5 pounds (70.7 kilos). With its principle of using food as medicine, she has also become less dependent on specialized medication for her condition, adding, “Some of my physical pains are gone. It has regulated, if not totally eradicated my PCOS.”
To know more about Cohen’s Lifestyle Program, visit www.CohenLifestyle.com.ph, or visit http://www.facebook.com/CohenLifestylePhil on Facebook and http://instagram.com/cohenlifestyleph on Instagram.