Health is like freedeom

Health is important to live life to the fullest. When a person leads a healthy lifestyle, the body remains healthy, and the mind is active and fresh. 

Living a healthy life would extend longevity and also regenerate the body and mind. Having good health is of core importance to human happiness.

Health, like freedom lasts as long as we exert ourselves to maintain it. 

You must make your choice! It is almost exclusively in your hands whether you enjoy a healthy, vigorous life or live out a half-life. You can decide to travel the average (unhealthy) road. No one will stop you and you will have lots of company.

You should care deeply about getting healthy and staying healthy. Dropping a few pounds can make a big difference. 

Looking at the big picture, the researchers say losing 10 percent of your body weight may be enough to do the trick. But even those who can’t lose that much weight can still benefit from smaller amounts of sustained weight loss.

While modest amounts of weight loss can improve your health, for certain conditions, greater weight loss may be associated with greater improvements.

Being obese or overweight makes you more likely to have conditions including:

• Heart disease and stroke
• High blood pressure
• Diabetes
• Some cancers
• Gallbladder disease and gallstones
• Osteoarthritis
• Gout
• Breathing problems, such as sleep apnea (when a person stops breathing for short episodes during sleep) and asthma

Not everyone who is obese has these problems. The risk rises if you have a family history of one of those conditions.

Decide daily that you want to feel strong. It is up to you! If you need more motivation, you can explore further the weight-related complications that are associated with obesity.

Why do we regain weight so easily?

Some people can lose weight relatively quickly. However, as you may have personally found out the hard way, the story rarely ends there. 

Anyone who has tried to lose weight and keep it off knows how difficult the task can be. Regaining lost weight is a common occurrence for many people who lost weight and almost everyone who struggles with weight has been there.

Why do so many people regain weight after successful dieting? The simple answer is that people regain weight because they aren’t following the diet as strictly as they did in the beginning. Easier said than done, I know. 

Why is that? Why are people who lose weight faced with the fact that the odds are stacked against them for long-term success?

I read that after we lose weight, our body responds with a variety of mechanisms. When you lose a significant amount of weight, your metabolism actually slows down because of a mechanism known as "metabolic adaptation." Less energy is needed to “run” the smaller body.

Our hormones also change, which affects our appetite. Ghrelin levels (the “hungry hormone”) increases and the hormones that make you feel full and satiated after a meal decrease.

Persistent weight maintenance is so difficult to me, because when I eat food that does not support weight loss, I usually overeat. Consuming these foods makes it hard to control weight and I know that when I eat them for a day or two, I derail my weight loss/maintenance efforts.

Ultra-processed foods are designed to be irresistible, and to prompt overconsumption. Once we start eating them, it is very difficult to stop. We absorb them quickly and as a result, our bodies do not release the hormones that trigger fullness – and we keep eating. It is a vicious circle. This is my key eating “bad” behavior that leads to weight gain. 

What can we do to counter this? 

Here is what I need to focus on more and do that every single day.

• Maintain changes that have resulted in your weight loss.
• Be vigilant, watch your weight, keep a scale in your bathroom and use it once a day. 
• Take action when you have gained 5 pound or more. 
• Avoid empty calories (alcohol).
• Understand of the danger posed by ultra-processed food.
• Identify your triggers to overeat. Watching movies is my main trigger, but it could be anything like stress, fatigue, boredom, skipping meals.
• Get needed sleep and reduce stress in order to focus on healthy choices and avoid the weight gains associated with too little sleep and too much stress.

I believe we can break the cycle of weight loss and gain.