Save your money. Just change what you eat. More fruit.
One girl's success story...
Blogging Keeps Her Motivated
Krista Berg loved reading healthy living blogs so much, she started her own to document her weight loss journey. She’s lost 112 pounds and has no plans to slow down anytime soon
Image: Courtesy of Krista Berg
Before: 281 pounds After: 169 pounds
Height: 5'6" Age: 22
Height: 5'6" Age: 22
Krista Berg, a pharmacy student from Traverse City, MI, battled weight problems throughout her adolescent and teen years. She led a sedentary lifestyle, avoided the scale, and ate anything she wanted. “My favorite foods were loaded with calories and fat. I was aware of it, but I didn’t care,” she says.
The Turning Point
Fed up with a frumpy clothes selection and tired of going unnoticed by boys, Krista decided to take control of her life at age 20. Once the pounds started coming off, she realized how much better she felt. That’s when health and well-being became her motivation to continue losing weight.
The Lifestyle
Krista started doing 30 to 60 minutes of cardio 5 days a week and eventually incorporated weight training into her regimen. About a year into her weight loss plan, she thought she was reaching a plateau. A friend convinced her to give running a try, since she was looking for a way to increase her cardio intensity. With him by her side, she ran her first mile at her university’s rec center. Since then, she’s completed six 5-Ks and recently finished a 10-K. Exercise helped her lose 112 pounds, but her diet plays a bigger role in effectively slimming down. “It’s possible for me to skip the gym but still lose weight if I stay within my calorie budget [typically around 1,500]. But I can—and do—easily gain weight when I start eating too much, despite how much I am working out,” she says.
She used to monitor her food intake with Weight Watchers points but switched to Tap & Track, a mobile application, because it was more convenient to use on her iPod. It’s difficult for her to eliminate foods because she feels deprived, so instead she focuses on scaling back portions. She makes an effort to eat lots of fruits, whole grains, yogurt, and organic foods. And though she’s not a huge fan of vegetables, she makes herself a spinach salad almost every day. She doesn’t eat out as much anymore, and when she does she’s more conscious of what she orders.
The MotivationKrista has weighed about 170 pounds for 6 months, and she plans to lose 35 more pounds. She shares her struggles through her blog “My Journey to a Healthy Berg” and considers it a success if she can motivate just one person to make a healthy change. Several readers have sent Krista emails telling her how much she inspires them. What her readers may not know is the impact their positive feedback has on her. “Sometimes I'll be feeling really bad about myself after eating too much dessert or skipping a workout. Then I'll get a comment, and it makes me feel so good and completely turns my attitude around,” she says.
The Reward
Fitting into every roller coaster seat at Cedar Point was one of the happiest days of her life.
Krista’s Tips
Shake it off. “Make a promise to yourself that when the initial motivation starts to fade and those bad days happen, you’re going to shrug it off and keep going.”
Spread the word. “It’s really easy to start a ‘secret diet.’ When you do that, nobody knows when you screw up. If you start gaining weight again, it’s not a big deal because no one is asking about your progress,” she says. Share your progress to help solidify your commitment to weight loss.
U.S. Obesity Epidemic Continues to Spread
Report finds South with highest rates, but no state showed a decline over the last year
By Steven ReinbergHealthDay Reporter
THURSDAY, July 7 (HealthDay News) -- A new report outlining how obesity threatens America's future reveals that obesity rates climbed over the past year in 16 states, and not a single state reported a decline in the proportion of excessively overweight residents.
The report, released Thursday, also found that more than 30 percent of the people in 12 states are obese. Four years ago, only one state could make that claim.
Twenty years ago, "there wasn't a single state that had an obesity rate above 15 percent, and now every state is above that," said Jeff Levi, executive director of Trust for America's Health, which compiled the report.
"We have seen a dramatic shift over a generation," he added. "This isn't just about how much people weigh, but it has to do with serious health problems like diabetes and hypertension. These are the things that are driving health care costs."
With the exception of Michigan, the 10 most obese states are in the South. The Northeast and West reported the lowest obesity rates. In addition, in eight states, more than 10 percent of adults suffer from type 2 diabetes, according to the report.
Mississippi, where 34.4 percent of the people are obese, has the highest obesity rate. Other states with obesity rates above 30 percent include: Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. Thirty-eight other states have obesity rates above 25 percent.
For the second year in a row, obesity rates rose in Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Missouri, Rhode Island and Texas.
And, for the third year straight, more residents of Florida, Kansas, Maine, Oklahoma and Vermont tipped the scale toward obesity.
Colorado, with an obesity rate of 19.8 percent, is the only state where the rate is less than 20 percent, the investigators found.
Other highlights of the report include:
- The number of adults who do not exercise rose across 14 states.
- Obesity among men is up in nine states, but dropped for women in Nevada.
- Obesity prevalence varies with education and income. The least educated and the poorest had the highest rates of obesity; college graduates had the lowest.
More than one-third of children and adolescents are obese or overweight, with the highest prevalence in the South. However, the new data indicate that obesity among children and adolescents may have leveled off, except among the heaviest boys.
"This generation of kids could have shorter life spans, because people are getting diabetes and hypertension much earlier," Levi said.
The solution is simple, he added: Eat less, exercise more. "We have reconstructed our lives so that we don't build in physical activity. We have neighborhoods and communities that are food deserts, where the only food you can find is unhealthy fast food," he said.
Samantha Heller, a dietitian in Fairfield, Conn., called childhood obesity "a complex, multi-faceted problem that needs to be tackled from many different angles." She said she wished the report offered ways to educate parents and caregivers about healthy eating for children.
Parents and caregivers make approximately 75 percent of the food decisions for children, Heller said, so it is essential that they learn about healthy, affordable foods and meals for children that make sense to them.
"Overall, I am hopeful that the report will help motivate food companies, local and state governments, schools and communities to generate a good head of steam to help stem the tide of childhood obesity," she added.
Obesity expert Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn., called the report "a reminder that obesity ranks among the most urgent public health problems of our time. While efforts to reverse obesity trends are proliferating, the tide has not yet turned, and more needs to be done."
The report makes it clear that interventions need to be tailored to diverse settings, Katz added. "I support the view that the root cause of epidemic obesity is everything about modern living, and that it will take the aggregation of a lot of effective programming to change our course," he said.
Levi noted that the federal government was introducing programs to stem the obesity crisis, but "we need to fund these programs adequately," he said.
"We now know the pieces that need to be put into place [to reduce obesity]," he added. "Some of them are about what we as individuals do, but a lot of it is also about what we as a community come together to do," Levi stated.
More information
For more information on obesity, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
The list below, from the Report F as in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America's Future, shows the percentage of obese adults in all 50 states:
State | % | State | % | |
Mississippi | 34.4 | Maine | 26.5 | |
Alabama | 32.3 | Washington | 26.4 | |
West Virginia | 32.2 | Florida | 26.1 | |
Tennessee | 31.9 | Alaska | 25.9 | |
Louisiana | 31.6 | Virginia | 25.9 | |
Kentucky | 31.5 | Idaho | 25.7 | |
Oklahoma | 31.4 | New Hampshire | 25.6 | |
South Carolina | 30.9 | New Mexico | 25.6 | |
Arkansas | 30.6 | Arizona | 25.4 | |
Michigan | 30.5 | Oregon | 25.4 | |
Missouri | 30.3 | Wyoming | 25.4 | |
Texas | 30.1 | Minnesota | 25.3 | |
Ohio | 29.6 | Nevada | 25.0 | |
North Carolina | 29.4 | California | 24.8 | |
Indiana | 29.1 | New York | 24.7 | |
Kansas | 29.0 | Rhode Island | 24.3 | |
Georgia | 28.7 | New Jersey | 24.1 | |
South Dakota | 28.7 | Montana | 23.8 | |
Pennsylvania | 28.5 | Vermont | 23.5 | |
Iowa | 28.1 | Utah | 23.4 | |
Delaware | 28.0 | Hawaii | 23.1 | |
North Dakota | 28.0 | Massachusetts | 22.3 | |
Illinois | 27.7 | Connecticut | 21.8 | |
Nebraska | 27.6 | District of Columbia | 21.7 | |
Wisconsin | 27.4 | Colorado | 19.8 | |
Maryland | 27.1 |
Just say no to fast food, the reason we are nutritionally starving. Eat more fruits and vegetables. You will lose weight without any expensive diet program.
Pictures from: tumblr_lkveyhQsrh1qibd79o1, tumblr Summer, Summer+11+1833
No comments:
Post a Comment