Obesity does not happen overnight. It
develops gradually over time, as a result of poor diet and lifestyle
choices, such as: eating large amounts of processed or fast food
that is high in fat and sugar. drinking too much alcohol – alcohol
contains a lot of calories, and people who drink heavily are often
overweight.
Components of a healthy diet
-
A healthy diet is low in saturated fats, salts and refined
carbohydrates and high in fruit and vegetables. As well as this, eating
whole grains, at least two servings of fish a week, and nuts can reduce
the risk of CVD
- The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends individuals to:
- Limit
energy intake from total fats and shift fat consumption away from
saturated fats to unsaturated fats and towards the elimination of
transfatty acids
- Increase consumption of fruits and
vegetables, and whole grains and nuts. Adults should consume at least
500g of fresh fruit and vegetables a day.
- Limit the intake of
free sugars and salt (sodium) consumption from all sources . Recent
guidance recommends eating less than 1,500 mg of sodium per day
But reducing calorie intake through
diet is only half of the equation. The other half is increasing calorie burn by
exercising, or at least staying moderately physically active. A contributor to
OmniNerd wore a heart rate monitor and measured exactly
how many calories he burned during
typical daily activities:
100 calories burned per hour sitting in a chair
"working"
5 calories burned riding an elevator up twenty-seven
flights
100 calories burned per hour watching TV or surfing the
Internet at home
750 calories burned for eight hours of sleeping
220 calories burned in twenty minutes walking 11/4
miles downhill to my bus (+50 calories burned "cooling")
60 calories burned walking one New York City block
(west-east) (+10 calories "cooling")
25 calories burned walking up five flights of stairs
(+35 calories burned "cooling")
315 calories burned walking 11/4 miles uphill from my
bus (+75 calories burned "cooling")
150 calories burned walking a dog for twenty minutes
(Note: It was a slow walk, the dog is very old.)
660 calories burned in forty minutes of weightlifting
900+ calories burned in fifty minutes on an elliptical
trainer
It's a reasonable set of advice: eat less,
exercise more. We may do it more analytically than the average joe, but
it's nothing you haven't heard a dozen times before. The problem is getting off
our collective butts to do it. It's difficult to get motivated, particularly
when exercise almost by definition draws you away from your obsession
