How losing weight will improve your overall health

How losing weight will improve your overall health

Posted 2015-08-04 by Alex Wfollow
Most people recognize the importance of eating well and exercising to stay healthy or lose weight. However, all too often, people end up morbidly obese and having to turn to surgical procedures such as Gastric Sleeve to get their life back on track. If you're on the verge, but not quite there yet, of needing surgery to kickstart a healthy lifestyle, consider this. Being overweight is linked to a multitude of health problems with staggering costs for the patient and the healthcare industry. Many unhealthy and costly medical conditions are preventable with diet and exercise that leads to weight loss.


Complications of Obesity - via Wikipedia

Benefits of Losing Weight

Weight loss will lower your cholesterol level. High levels of cholesterol circulating through your blood stream deposits plaque in your arteries. Plaque hardens the arteries impeding blood flow which leads to high blood pressure. Sometimes plaque particles loosen from one spot to find its way to a more narrow area and cuts off blood flow completely. The more extra weight a person carries the more likely plaque will have found its way to multiple sections of arteries, creating hypertension. Hypertension leads to heart failure, heart attack or stroke. Once your coronary artery is completely blocked, oxygen flow is cut off to the heart muscle with fatal results most of the time. Losing weight will not only lower your cholesterol level, it will decrease the chances of heart problems caused by hypertension.


Blood Pressure and Hypertension - via jasleen_kaur, Flickr

Many overweight people suffer from Sleep Apnea , a disorder characterized by pauses in breathing or very shallow and infrequent breathing patterns during sleep. With extra pounds, comes extra thick tissue around the windpipe wall, narrowing the airway. This results in dangerously low oxygen levels while sleeping with frequent spells of waking suddenly, sometimes gasping for air. Your brain, even while sleeping, will shock your body awake so it can take in adequate oxygen. Severe sleep apnea means a person can be woken up hundreds of times during the course of one night. This near constant interruption of sleep leads to brain fog, sluggishness, irritability and depression, all of which can be prevented or greatly decreased with weight loss and exercise.


Sleep Apnea - via Wikipedia

Carrying extra pounds puts great pressure on joints. For each extra pound of upper body weight, 3 times that amount of pressure is added to knees. That means 10 extra pounds of weight is creating 30 pounds of pressure on joints. All this extra pressure wears away cartilage, causing arthritis and joint pain. Is it any wonder most heavy people find it difficult to walk or bend with ease and often suffer broken bones in their feet and ankles as well as injured knees? Just think, weight loss alone will decrease joint pain, ease the symptoms of arthritis and increase mobility.

Losing weight will lower the risk of diabetes. More body weight leads to decreased sensitivity to insulin, the hormone that manages the movement of sugar into cells. Type 2 diabetics are very resistant to insulin and their pituitary glands and thyroids no longer function properly. The good news for some is that with weight loss and increased activity, you can increase the body's correct response to insulin.

Weight loss will help ensure overall mental health as well. The 'fat and happy' description doesn't apply in today's society as it once did. It used to mean that a person was doing well in life and had food on the table, looking fit and healthy as opposed to emaciated and starving like the poor. Extremely overweight people are far beyond that type of description. Morbid obesity is nothing to be happy about. Morbidly obese people suffer inordinately from depression, low self-esteem, low energy levels, a myriad of health problems such as those mentioned here and more.

If you're morbidly obese or headed in that direction and all other weight loss measures have failed, the Gastric Sleeve may be an option for you, while you address any underlying issues. The best option though, is to get a handle on your weight before it becomes so dire. Consult with your health practitioner for safe weight loss recommendations based on your age, body type and mobility level. You'll not only look better, you'll feel better, live longer and experience greater pleasure in simply waking up each day.

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