Obesity

As we are eating our food, when our stomach gets full, it sends out a message to our brain that it is full. Then the mind tells our hands to stop picking up more food and putting into our mouth. Thus we stop eating.

It is the scientific discovery that in an obese person, the stomach takes more than ten minutes after it is full, to send the above message to the brain. And thus the hands and mouth continue to overfeed the stomach for that ten minutes period. The result is the obese person continues to become more and more fat. Thus obesity feeds itself.

Most of us look at food from the angle of our entertainment rather than for nutrition. When we become slaves to our tongue, we naturally tend to eat more because it becomes a compulsory habit. And interestingly, people who overeat are under nourished. Because such people eat more for the tongue than for health. They need eat foods as close to natural state as possible.

We need to realize that the food choices we make, influence how we look and how healthy we are. When you are obese, you are considered to be a person out of control.

It pays to remain slim. Being overweight is a matter of life and death. Overweight shortens our lives. Normally a man can live another twenty years after the age of fifty. But a fat man’s chances of getting this 20 years of bonus gets heavily reduced because he puts more pressure on his heart. He is also more susceptible to blood pressure, heart diseases, gallbladder diseases and surgeries.

Obesity also increases the chances of getting diabetes because the fats that are present in the body steal insulin. When the insulin shortage occurs in the body, you develop diabetes. Subsequently, the body starts tapping on the insulin present in the fats. Then the fat stores are broken and the fats are burnt off. That is why a diabetic patient subsequently starts thing down.

Obesity is one of the leading causes of accelerated ageing.

Ways to reduce your weight

Often obese people start their weight reduction program with a focus on weight rather than changing their life style. If they for example, start with a target to reduce your weight, say reduction of 20 Kgs. in two months, such a start would be with sudden and can cause tension and blood pressure. Weight is to be reduced slowly. Hence start small and move step by step.

Since overeating is the cause of obesity, first find out why you over eat. Change your eating habits in association with your family members. And it is not a one day or one week or one month affair. It should be a life long principle. Your plans could be

· Decrease the size of whatever you take. Similarly reduce the number of spoonfuls you take. But decrease them all less sharply.
· Eat them slowly
· Leave a little on your plate when you get up
· Reduce the number of items in any given meal
· Cut down on fried food and take fat free food. Possibly you can take them only twice a week
· Give the place of fat to fibre and add more fibre food.
· Opt for fruits instead of sweets

These measures would themselves help you reduce your weight by one or two kilos in a months time. If you can make some life style change beyond the above, it would be very good. For example,

· Change your break fast and move over to fruits. Take only and only fruits or fruit juice in the morning as break fast. Don’t mix sweet fruits and sour fruits together. One day one variety.

· For lunch, take some raw vegetables which you can cut and use fresh along with your normal food. May be you can take cucumber, beet, carrot or tomato. Have a pen knife in your table drawer in your office for this purpose.

Fighting obesity with diet alone is like fighting with one hand; Take to exercises also. Physical exercises help to maintain weight. Your body is like a bank. By intake of food, you increase the deposits. You need also withdraw by your activities. You need to make your deposits and withdrawals are even.

Take to morning brisk walk and evening stroll. Brisk walk is advised before meals and slow walk is advised after meals. Forty minutes of walking at 5 Km per hour speed is suggested. And stop sitting before TV.

Add to this some minimum exercises. Never opt for those exercises which could tire you. Let the exercises be comfortable so that you don’t lose interest in them and tend to stop the same.

All that others do for you, do them yourself. Walk to places for which you use a vehicle. Use stairs than lifts, to the extent possible. Take to cycling. Why not start playing with your children outdoors? May be you can also do some work at home. May be you can physically floor clean one room per day.

One thing you need know when you opt for reducing your weight. When your weight increases, your skin stretches to accommodate your accumulating fat. But when you like to reduce yourself, your skin would not shrink back to your original size, but would sag and you could look older and people may even wonder you are becoming sick. But that is the price you pay for your having increased your weight.

To avoid obesity, you may also consider following home medicines

1 Avoid ice cream, fatty foods, sweets and alcohol.

2 Eat 10 fresh curry leaves every morning for 3 to 4 months

3 Roast saunf slightly on an already heated ladle
Powder and bottle
Take ½ tsp of this powder along with warm water twice a day

4 Mix lime juice with honey and water and drink a glass of this every
morning

5 Mix 3 tsp lime juice with ¼ tsp powdered black pepper
add 1 tsp honey in 1 cup water and drink for three months

5 Drink any fruit juice 30 minutes before meals

6 Crush pirandai thoroughly. Mix with common salt 3:1 ratio. Place it between two small earthen new earthen pots. Seal the joint of the two pots with wet wheat flour. Fire the cowdung cakes and place the pot over it and kiln. The inner mixture paste would turn into ash. Take 2 or 3 pinches of this ash along with butter milk or coconut water daily.

7 Take a glass of carrot juice along with ten powdered black pepper corns every morning


Note: To become obese, soak dates in honey and eat daily