Weight Management: Beyond Balancing Calories:
LectureWelcome to the Course
Course Outline & Grading Information
Course Outline
At the end of the course, you will be able to:
1. Understand obesity, appetite hormones, and weight set point.
2. Identify the main dietary factors that affect weight.
3. Recognize underemphasized barriers to weight loss, such as stress and inadequate sleep.
4. Design a weight management plan you can follow for life.
5 peer review assignments [graded], each taking ~30 minutes to complete
5 practice quizzes [optional], each taking ~20 minutes to complete
In this course, you will complete:
Practice Quizzes
At the end of each week, you are invited to exercise your knowledge of the video lectures in a practice quiz. Your attempts at these practice assessments do not count towards the final grade and do not contribute to achieving the course certificate.
Certificate
In order to achieve the course certificate, you must complete all graded assignments, which count towards your overall grade for the course. Per Coursera policy, you will need to upgrade to a paid plan to receive marks for graded assignments.
The passing grade for this course is 80%.
Next Item
In 1985, less than 15 percent of Americans were obese. By 2014, that number more than doubled to 38 percent of adults. What is happening in the US is happening worldwide, and it's affecting children as well as adults.
These trends threaten our health and our well-being. They increase the risk of diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, and take away our ability to do the activities we enjoy most.
If trends continue, children today could be the first generation in two centuries to live shorter, less healthy lives than their parents.
What accounts for these trends?
How can we take back control over our weight and our health?
Solutions to the obesity epidemic have focused on balancing calories and on finding the optimal proportion of carbs, fat, and protein that best support weight loss. These are solutions that at best lead to short-term success.
However, over the last three decades, scientists have made exponential progress in unraveling the root causes of obesity. The picture that is emerging, is that obesity is a complex whole body disease. One that involves our brain, gut, hormones, and emotions.
Our solution needs to be equally comprehensive and needs to move beyond calories, macro nutrients, or exercise in isolation. For the first time, we're able to make unprecedented progress in finding sustainable and health promoting solutions to weight loss.
At the forefront, where discovery answers to longstanding fundamental questions, such as,
how much of obesity is due to a lack of willpower?
How much is genetic?
How much is due to our environment?
Currently, most weight-loss plans focus on willpower. On how you can restrict your diet to lose weight. They fail to take into account the complexity of obesity in decision-making, or how our genes, hormones, and mind, and emotions respond to our environment to make us susceptible সমর্থ to becoming obese.
They overlook the critical fact that many of our food decisions are made before they reach our awareness, and are influenced by emotions.
The reward we anticipate from that food enqueues in our environment, such as seeing and smelling freshly cooked food.
This course offers a weight-loss solution beyond simply restricting calories,blaming different macro nutrients, focusing on individual willpower, and stigmatizing কলঙ্কিত obesity.
I hope to share what we know about obesity. Problem solved together to create individualized weight loss plans and support each other in the challenge.
I hope that you will join us on this journey. So, that you can better understand the biologic challenges to weight loss,
find personal strategies that unlock the root causes of obesity, and find your path to sustainable health.
Dealing with Something Greater than Willpower:
In 2016, researchers at the National Institute of Health shocked the world, when they publish results of what would be dubbed the biggest loser study.
After falling 14 out of 16 contestants from season eight of the popular show for six years, they made a surprising observation. Even though six years had passed since the end of the competition, their bodies were still fighting back to regain the weight they had worked so hard to lose.
By the end of the 30 week contest, the average resting metabolic rate or metabolism of the contestants was 600 calories per day slower than at the start of the competition.
That however was expected. When a person loses weight, he or she loses muscle, as well as fat. As a result, metabolism slows.
Six years later, most of the contestants had regained some of the weight they had lost. So, their metabolism was expected to recover in proportion to their body composition, yet instead, their metabolism slowed even further.
The average resting metabolic rate of the contestants was 500 calories per day slower, than someone who was at their same weight and with the same amount of muscle and fat mass, who had never lost such a massive amount of weight.
This difference between their expected metabolism based on their body composition গঠন and their measured metabolism is called metabolic adaptation.
It represents the degree to which the body fights back against hard-earned weight-loss, কঠোর অর্জিত ওজন-হ্রাসের বিরুদ্ধে শরীর লড়াই করে,even six years later.
If these individuals who had the support of the world's best trainers and nutritionists couldn't succeed at sustained weight loss, what does that mean for other people struggling with weight, who don't have these resources?
A flurry of headlines debate at these questions. Five years prior, another groundbreaking study published in the New England Journal of Medicine had made another peculiar observation that changed the way we view obesity.
Rather than looking at calories we burn after weight loss, these researchers looked at calories we take in, or a hungry level after weight loss.
They placed 50 obese and overweight people on a very low calorie diet of 500 to 550 calories per day for 10 weeks.
They measured each participant's appetite hormones at the start, after the 10-week diet, and then a year later.
Following weight loss from the very low calorie diet, these participants had a higher amount of the appetite hormone that signals hunger called ghrelin, and a lower amount of the appetite hormones that signals to পরিপাটি tidy.
Their brains were getting the signal that they were hungrier and less satisfied after eating, to drive their weight backup, and this lasted a year later.
Like the biggest loser study, what they were seeing is that our bodies somehow fight back against weight loss. The authors concluded, the high-grade of relapse among obese people who have lost weight has a strong physiologic basis, and is not simply the result of the voluntary resumption of old habits.
Understanding how and why, and finding ways to overcome these strong compensatory responses is the reason most people struggle with their weight, it's the reason weight regain or yo-yoing is so common after weight loss.
But rather than viewing this as a failure, we're learning that our bodies are fighting hard to drive us to regain weight.
Our body continues to send signals that are hard, sometimes impossible to fight. Losing weight successfully requires a reprogramming of the signals.
This has become the holy grail of Obesity Research. Over the coming weeks, I want to share with you the things we have learned so far, the take-home is that managing your weight as a balancing act between calories in versus calories out is important, but simply outdated.
Sustained weight loss is far more complicated. What I hope you will learn from this course is a far more comprehensive strategy. ব্যাপক কৌশল।।
How We Regulate Appetite & Food Intake
আমরা কীভাবে ক্ষুধা এবং খাবার গ্রহণের ব্যবস্থা করি
The decision to start eating, what to eat, how much to eat, and when to stop, are all controlled in a tightly regulated system in the brain.
Our brain gets signals from our body, from our stomach, digestive tract and stores of fat, and translates them into action, to eat or stop eating.
It coordinates these commands with our environment. So that when we are hungry, we know where to get food, what types of food are available, and which foods are tasty and satisfying.
You can think of the coordination of sensing when we need to eat and knowing where and with what to satisfy that need, as being controlled by two brains working as one.
Integrated in a tiny part of our brain that acts as command central, the hypothalamus. You can think of the first brain as our metabolic brain. This brain responds to our bodies needs by communicating between our gut and our hindbrain.
The part of the brain that acts without thought as a reflex to the signals it receives from other parts of our body.
For example, our stomach and digestive tract have sensors that detect when our stomach is empty or stretched and the type of nutrients that are or are not available in our digestive tract.
In other words, these receptors sense the quantity and quality of food in our gut and communicate that information via nerves and appetite hormones to the brain.
In response our hindbrain determines when we should start eating and when we are full.
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What we conceptualize as the second brain is a bit more complicated. We can think of this as our emotional and thinking brain that responds to needs beyond calories.
It helps us form memories of food. Which ones we like and which ones taste bitter or rotten. Which ones we ate at a particular place or time, such as on a date or holiday event. As well as other characteristics about the food, it's smell, look and texture.
It also assigns an emotional value to food. So that we get pleasure and reward from certain foods. When foods are pleasing we learn to like that food and the brain uses the same powerful pathways that respond to narcotic drugs to communicate that information.
Foods that are rewarding motivate us to want that food. They are controlled by dopamine signals, the same chemical we release from gambling and sex.
The emotional satisfaction we get from food is so strong that it can override our metabolic brain, or the signals our brain receives that tell us we're full.
Researchers speculate that our powerful drive to get such satisfaction from food was wired into our biology to motivate our ancestors to leave the safety of their caves, walk for miles, and risk encountering predators or toxic plants.
The interaction between these two brains is complex, and in many ways, overlapping. They're nature's way of making sure our bodies fend off starvation, which was the biggest threat to our survival as the human species for most of our time on this planet.
Starvation is rarely a problem in our modern world. We are going to see how our appetite and energy control systems aren't adapted for working to our advantage in our current food environment.
That is part of the reason we are seeing such rising rates of obesity.
Obesity As a Disease of Weight Set Point
ওজন বৃদ্ধি এক হিসাবে একটি রোগ:
Our appetite control system not only regulates our food intake in the short term, but our weight over the long term.
It does this by sensing the amount of fat or adipose tissue we have stored.
The body weight and amount of fat stores that our body tries to maintain is called our set point.
You can think of set point like a thermostat for weight. If our weight drops below the thermostat setting, it compensates by increasing appetite and slowing metabolism until we regain the weight.
The same thing happens when we gain weight. We feel fuller and our metabolism speeds up until we lose weight back to our set point.
Given that for some people, weight steadily rises, you may be wondering,how can it be that we have a set point?
Why do these compensatory responses kick in to help us lose weight?
Much research now indicates that in obesity, our bodies are no longer functioning normally. The set point ratchets up, and our body fights hard to defend this new set point.
In fact, our set point can steadily increase upwards or slide downward.
It is not fixed. Let'sok at two scenarios.
The first at our set point where body weight is normal. When a person with normal body mass index is placed on a very low calorie diet, he or she will likely lose weight.
But once allowed to eat at will, our energy balance system kicks into drive weight back to our starting point.
The same happens when we're intentionally overweight. Once allowed to eat at will, we subconsciously lose appetite and our brain speeds our metabolism until we lose weight.
In the case of obesity, set point rises in proportion to our body fat.
The same defense has tried to maintain the new hire set point. So, even if weight loss is hard-earned by following a diet, it becomes hard to maintain that weight loss.
Our body acts like we're starving, even though we may be overweight.
আমাদের ওজন বেশি হলেও আমাদের শরীর ক্ষুধা লাগা মতো আচরণ করে।
While often people who are overweight feel they may lack the discipline to lose weight and keep it off, science is suggesting that obesity is a disease where our control systems become abnormally regulated around a higher set point and the body doesn't function normally.
যদিও অতিরিক্ত ওজনযুক্ত বেশিরভাগ লোকেরা ওজন হ্রাস এবং এটিকে বন্ধ রাখার শৃঙ্খলার অভাব থাকতে পারে, বিজ্ঞান পরামর্শ দিচ্ছে যে স্থূলতা এমন একটি রোগ যা আমাদের নিয়ন্ত্রণ ব্যবস্থা উপরের সেটের চারপাশে অস্বাভাবিকভাবে বেশি। নিয়ন্ত্রিত হয় এবং শরীর স্বাভাবিকভাবে কাজ করে না। মূল উপায় হ'ল যদিও আমরা আমাদের খাওয়া এবং অনুশীলন আচরণটি কীভাবে আমাদের শরীরে প্রভাব ফেলে তার উপর আমরা বেশি মনোযোগ দিয়েছি
The main takeaway is that even though we focus so much on how our eating and exercise behavior controls how our body functions, the reality is that the way our body functions is what controls our eating behavior.
While we view regaining weight and reverting back to being overweight as failure, what is really happening is our body is fighting what it perceives as the threat of starvation due to a higher set point.
It's still frustrating, but understanding why this happens can help you
understand how to work with your body to successfully lose weight and keep it off.
Over the course of the following weeks, one of the things we're going to focus on is how our environment, not just our food, but also our habits can affect our set point to lead to obesity.
Targeting these factors will help get to the root cause of obesity so that you can create an individualized plan for managing weight long term.
Why There's No One-Size-Fits-All Approach to Losing Weight:
ওজন হারাতে সমস্ত পন্থা: কেন কোনও এক-আকারের ফিট নেই।
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It's common to observe that some people can eat hardly anything and yet their weight stubbornly claims, while others seem to eat nearly everything and still maintain their weight.
Why is that?
How much of our body weight is locked or genetically determined?
And how much is in our control?
Through an explosion of genetic research, mostly over the past decade, scientists have found common genes that account for approximately 20 percent of the variation in body mass index across the population.
Each of these genes only makes a tiny difference in our body weight and we each inherited a different combination of these genes.
Our mix of genes ultimately determines a small proportion of body weight.
This is the part over which we have little control.
What is the function of these genes?
Interestingly, they mostly correspond একই to functions in our brain, influencing areas that play a role in our appetite and energy control systems.
Some of these genes for example, may affect the reward or pleasure we get from food.
Others may determine how quickly we send hormones that tell the brain we are full.
Depending on the combination of genes we get, our experience with food may be different, how we taste food and the pleasure we get from it may be different.
It may be easier or harder for you to avoid chocolate cake or stop eating even when you know you're a full than it is for me.
What that also means, is that we each have a different predisposition to obesity.
It means that obesity isn't one disease, there are many subtly different types of obesity caused by different subsets of these genes.
While that may be surprising, it's really no different from what we're learning through genetics about other common diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and depression.
Eat is not one disease but many similar diseases, which explains why each person responds differently to medications for these conditions.
Since the genes discovered to be associated with body weight control our susceptibility to obesity,
the drivers that lead to becoming overweight or obese are different from person to person.
As a result, the diet or any other approach to weight loss for that matter that works for one person, may not work for another.
There is no one size fits all answer to weight loss. Our goal is to help you find what unlocks your success.
Since the genes that have been discovered to affect our body weight control only a small proportion of the differences seen in body mass index, the good news is that we can determine most of our body weight through choices we make and through shaping our environment.
In other words, most is in our control. The fact that our genes haven't changed much since the 1980s, but rates of obesity have skyrocketed, reinforces this idea.
With that background, let's dive deeper into the changes in our food as well as other changes in our environment that have been making managing weight so challenging, and what we can do to manage obesity.
Managing Obesity: The Role of Diet
How Processed Foods Interact with Our Biology
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Americans are consuming approximately 500 calories more per day than they did in 1970.
According to the USDA Economic Research Service in 1970, Americans consumed around 2,039 calories per person per day. By 2010, that amount increase to 2,536 calories per person each day.
Why the increase and what types of calories account for the rise?
The USDA estimate 87% of the additional calories we are eating are from grains, added oils and fats, and added sugars and sweeteners.
All calorie-dense ingredients commonly found in processed foods. Unfortunately, only 2% are from eating more fruits and vegetables.
How did grains fats and sugars creep into our food supply?
Many advances in food processing technology during the latter half of the past century have rapidly changed the typical western diet.
With a discovery of chromatographic fructose enrichment technology, high fructose corn syrup began being made in massive quantities and added to many staples.
Grain started being milled since milling grain strips the fiber coating and many of the nutrients from whole wheat, this led to widespread use of highly refined grain flowers that are lower in nutritional quality.
Industrial processing also allowed for refining vegetable oils in larger quantities than ever before and more salt into our diet resulting in 75% of the salt that we consume now coming from salt added to processed foods.
The standard American diet has gradually changed to wine where
62% of our calories are from processed foods. As a result, we're consuming more calories but getting fewer nutrients.
If we think back to how our metabolic brain works, we can better understand why refined grains and added fats and sugars cause us to over-consume calories.
We eat until the stretch receptors in our stomach reach a particular volume of food rather than until we have eaten a set number of calories.
Since processed foods are concentrated in calories and are low in bulky fiber, we consume more calories before our stomach senses we are full.
Additionally, our stomach and digestive track sense a certain threshold of nutrients. We stop eating based on the quality as well as the quantity of food.
Since processed foods lack the nutrients of natural foods, lower nutrient density is another reason we are packing in more calories.
The most alarming reasons scientists speculate processed fat, sugar, and refined grains are causing rapid rates of obesity, however, is independent of their calorie content.
They cause changes in our metabolism and hormones that raise our set point.
In animal studies, for example, when rodents were fed a high saturated fat diet, they developed inflammation and injury and nerve cells located in the hypothalamus which you may recall as the part of the brain that acts as command central for our appetite and energy regulation.
The injured cells became leptin resistant or unable to sense the appetite hormone leptin which signals when we're full.
As a result, rodents ate to the point where they packed on more fat and drove up their set point. Some evidence suggest the same may be happening inside our bodies.
Another way processed foods can raise our set point is by over-stimulating the reward center in our brain.
Remember how our cognitive and emotional brain works?
It responds to pleasure from foods that raise dopamine.
Namely, fat, sugar, and salt.
Back in ancestral times, the foods that gave us such intense satisfaction were limited. Sweet-tasting honey was only available seasonally.
We could only get a small amount of fat from animals that roam wild and free and salt was only available in your water.
It made sense for our bodies to get such a thrill from these foods to stay motivated to continue searching for food when we were starving in week.
Today, processed foods are engineered to give an amount of pleasure and reward that is far beyond that found in natural food.
Food scientists blend the perfect proportion of fat, sugar, and salt to find a bliss point.
The point where a product has the maximum texture, feel, and taste to release the highest amount of dopamine. This quality makes it irresistible. So, you can't stop at one chip.
Animal studies suggest processed foods reward our brains far beyond the amount we can genetically handle.
As our reward system gets overwhelmed, we binge when we eat junk food. This is thought to be another way we're driving up our set points.
In summary, processed foods are high in calories relative to volume and lack many vitamins and nutrients.
There also contain unhealthy fats and sugars that interact with our brain to cause overeating.
Avoiding process foods is one of the most important steps you can take for maintaining a healthy body weight.
The Benefits of Whole Foods:
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Just as important as knowing what to avoid, is knowing which foods you should eat.
To lose weight healthfully and keep the weight off, you need a dietary pattern that you can follow your whole life.
You need to eat foods that give you all of your essential nutrients without leaving you hungry, and you need foods that provide you with strength, energy and creativity.
The types of foods that can do this are whole foods.
What exactly are whole foods?
These are foods that are closest to their natural form, similar to the ones our ancestors ate. For example, fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts and seeds, are whole foods.
এগুলি এমন খাবার যা তাদের প্রাকৃতিক রূপের নিকটতম, আমাদের পূর্বপুরুষরা যেগুলি খেয়েছিলেন তার অনুরূপ। উদাহরণস্বরূপ, ফলমূল, শাকসবজি, মটরশুটি, বাদাম এবং বীজ পুরো খাবার।
They aren't packaged in a box.
They don't come with a nutritional label.
They don't contain additives or preservatives,
and they don't include a long list of ingredients. Whole foods are bursting with natural flavors, so you never have to feel deprived and there are many different whole foods from which to choose.
You can combine and pair them in a limitless number of recipes to match your tastes and preferences. Abundance of studies concur that eating a whole food's dietary pattern is the safest way to manage your weight.
Eating whole foods isn't a diet per se, it's a lifelong framework from
which foods you should eat and which ones you should avoid.
There isn't a set meal plan you have to follow, and you don't have to count calories. When you eat whole foods, you can know that with every bite, you're feeding your body the most nutritious foods on earth.
The reason whole foods help with weight loss is that when they enter our body, they have a very different effect than processed foods. Unlike processed foods, whole foods naturally control your portions.
They do this because they're low in calories per volume and high in nutrients. You can eat a lot of food for not a lot of calories.
You can keep eating until you're satisfied. They're also high in fiber,
which adds bulk and keeps you full.
Whole foods also contain natural amounts of fat, sugar and salt. They don't override your appetite hormones, and drive you to eat past the point of feeling full.
Another advantage of whole foods is that they regulate your weight set point in a healthy range.
If you recall, the biggest culprits and driving up set point are saturated fat in refined carbohydrates.
Saturated fats are found mostly in animal and dairy products, such as beef, pork, cheese and butter, as well as in processed, baked, and fried foods.
Refined carbohydrates include processed grains that have been stripped of their natural fiber and vitamins as well as sugars, muffins, many breads, cereals, pasta and deserts, are examples of products with refined carbohydrates.
On the other hand, plant-based whole foods with minimal lean meats and low-fat dairy, allow you to consume different types of fat and carbohydrates.
They provide healthy fats such as mono and polyunsaturated fats, and high quality carbohydrates, such as whole grains, vegetables and legumes. শিম জাতীয়।
As a result, by eating whole foods that are mostly plant-based,
you won't ratchet up your set point. The higher-quality of fats, carbohydrates and proteins in whole foods also prevent and even reverse many diseases ranging from diabetes to heart disease and cancer.
Plant based whole foods contain health promoting chemicals found only in plants called phytonutrients.
These include antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds, as well as ones I can turn on good genes and turn off our bad genes.
The fiber in many plant-based whole foods also feeds our good gut bacteria.
By reducing oxidative damage and inflammation,populating our gut with diverse good bacteria and controlling how we express our genes, whole foods keep us healthy and living longer.
A whole food, mostly plant-based diet, includes some of these. This week's challenge is to eat whole foods as much as possible.
Weight Loss Diet Wars: Is There a Best Diet?
ওজন হ্রাস ডায়েট ওয়ার্স: একটি সেরা ডায়েট আছে?
Low fat high carb,
low carb high protein,
even when choosing whole foods,
is their a proportion of macronutrient which are the carbohydrates, proteins, and fats that is best?
For the last 50 years or so, many studies have evaluated diets based on the content of their carbohydrate, protein, and fat.
Each macronutrient, in turn, has been blamed for the rise in obesity.
Historically, out of an intuitive notion that fat must be making us fat, low fat diets became popular in the 1970s.
Between 1980 and 1997, dietary fat as a percentage of total calories decreased from 41 percent to 37 percent. Anything low fat was considered healthy, including low-fat cookies and low fat ice cream.
Despite many low-fat options hitting the grocery shelves, rates of obesity steadily rose. A closer look at the American diet during that time, shows that even though fat as a percentage of calories decreased, the total amount of fat we were eating didn't change.
Instead, we began consuming more calories. In other words, we never really went low fat. What happened is that we became so focused on fat that we stop paying attention to other macronutrients.
Many low-fat foods replace fat with unhealthy carbohydrates, sugars, and refined flours.
In our intake of these processed carbohydrates and our total calorie intake soared. In response, many low carb diets became popular and since then, many different diets, including fad diets, continue to hit the market, each claiming to be the best.
In 2009, researchers at Harvard tried to end the debate. They carried out the largest ever, highly regarded, randomized clinical trial, in which participants were assigned to diets with different proportions of fat, carbohydrates, and protein and were followed closely for two years.
While the average weight loss from the various calorie balanced diets was three to four kilograms, the amount of weight loss was similar in all the groups.
People on low carb diets did just as well as people on high carb diets and people on low fat diet did just as well as those on high-fat diets.
Whole it may seem countered the popular perception, the authors concluded, and what has been seen in other studies, is that you can lose weight on many different diets, with different proportions of fat, carbohydrates, and protein.
The key takeaways from this large Harvard study are, first, it's not the quantity but rather the quality of fat, carbohydrates, and protein that matters for weight loss and health.
Higher quality or healthier fats, for example, are mono unsaturated or poly unsaturated fats rather than saturated or trans fats.
Higher quality carbohydrates are ones that are from whole foods package with fiber. Such as vegetables, fruits, and legumes, rather than ones that are processed.
In general, choosing whole foods matters more than worrying about your intake of protein, carbs, and fat.
Second, the best plan for you is one that you can stick with long-term.
One that matches your preferences, traditions, and customs.
Don't look for programs that are so strict or so limiting that you can only follow them for a few weeks.
In the Harvard study, participants that were able to stick to their healthful diet, no matter the proportion of protein, carbs, and fat lost the most weight.
Observation’s from different cultural diets around the world reinforce these findings. In fact, some of the healthiest diets around the world vary dramatically in their proportion of each macronutrient.
They Okinawan diet followed by the Japanese in this longevity hotspot is high in carbohydrates. On the other hand, the hearten waistline healthy dietary pattern followed by the people in Mediterranean countries as high in fat.
Using genetics, however, the latest science is showing that there's a twist to these two major principles.
In 2016, the same researchers that carried out the large Harvard study went back and re-evaluated how participants responded to the different diets based on whether they carried a particular gene that affects energy balance and fat metabolism.
They're observed that how each participant responded to the varying proportions of the fat, protein, and carbohydrates differed significantly based on whether or not they carry this gene.
Therefore, well, among all people that follow a diet that is low carb or low fat, the average response is not significantly different.
The response in each person does vary considerably. In other words, no healthy diets stands out as best for everyone.
The diet that works best for each person can vary significantly based on our genes. Referred to as the weight-loss trap, this idea that each of us responds differently to different diets made the cover of Time Magazine in May 2017.
Frustrating as the headline suggests, it's important not to miss the forest for the trees. It's not that there are no diet rules, and it's not that diets don't work, we all do better with a healthy pattern of eating with plenty of fruits and vegetables than with junk food and processed foods, no matter our genetic makeup.
But within this theme of healthy eating, it may take some trial and error and persistence to find the proportion of fat or carb that makes weight loss more manageable and sustainable.
In summary, don't give up if you don't lose any weight following the same plan that worked for your friends or family members. Failing several times is normal.
Focus on eating clean, whole food, avoiding processed foods, and trying different proportions of protein, carbs, and fat.
Eventually, you will be successful.
Beyond Diet: The Role of Stress, Exercise, & Sleep
Week 3 ডায়েটের বাইরে: চাপ, অনুশীলন এবং ঘুমের ভূমিকা
Stress, Hormones, & Emotional Eating
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Calories in must equal less than calories out. That has long been the mantra of weight loss.
But what if those numbers don't add up?
What if you follow the calorie restricted diet and your weight doesn't budge?
While you should follow this first law of thermodynamics, it oversimplifies how our bodies work.
It fails to take into account three of the most significant missing links that also affect our weight and drive up our set point, stress, exercise and sleep.
In addition to our food choices, these factors influence many hormones and chemicals that control our metabolism and body composition.
Stress has become a common part of our lives. Many of us are familiar with reaching for comfort foods when we're under stress.
Why are we driven to do so?
The first reason is intuitive. প্রথম কারণ স্বজ্ঞাত।
দীর্ঘস্থায়ী মানসিক চাপ অপ্রীতিকর।
এমনকি হতাশার কারণ হতে পারে।
Chronic stress is unpleasant.
It can even cause depression.
Comfort foods which release, dopamine, reward our brain with pleasure.
Reaching for comfort food is a way of self-medication against the negative feelings that come with chronic stress, but there's a more physiological link between craving comfort food and stress.
Under stress, the brain releases hormones via the hypothalamus pituitary adrenal pathway.
This pathway causes adrenal glands to release cortisol, also known as the stress hormone.
Cortisol tells our body to fuel up for a challenge, to prepare to fight or flee in case we encounter a bear.
It drives us towards seeking quick energy carbs and calorie dense foods, but there's no bear or need to escape in our modern world.
Instead, we pack on the unused calories. High fat and high sugar foods also dampen our stress response.
Dopamine released from eating these foods happens to be a stress recovery chemical.
It down-regulates the hypothalamus pituitary adrenal pathway to turn off the stress response and bring the body back to its pre-stress balance.
So, we're driven to eat comfort food under stress not only to soothe ourselves against the negative feelings of stress, but also to chemically dial down or stress response.
Stress via cortisol further thwarts weight loss by creating a vicious cycle of weight gain.
In combination with other hormones including insulin and NPY, cortisol causes fat from other areas of the body to redistribute as belly fat, a possible reason being that deep belly or visceral fat is more readily converted to energy than fat in the thighs or buttocks.
Visceral fat however is an organ.
It releases hormones and chemicals that cause inflammation and insulin resistance.
In turn, these compounds further promote weight gain, fat accumulation and arising set point.
“The damaging effects of stress occur not from being exposed to stress, but in proportion to how we respond to stress.
স্ট্রেসের ক্ষতিকারক প্রভাবগুলি স্ট্রেসের সংস্পর্শে আসার কারণে ঘটে না, তবে আমরা কীভাবে চাপের প্রতি প্রতিক্রিয়া জানায় তার অনুপাত অনুসারে।“
“Having skills and tools for managing stress is an integral part of preventing and controlling weight over the long term.
That doesn't mean you need to eliminate stress from your life.
দীর্ঘমেয়াদে ওজন রোধ এবং নিয়ন্ত্রণের একটি অবিচ্ছেদ্য অংশ স্ট্রেস পরিচালনার জন্য দক্ষতা এবং সরঞ্জামগুলি থাকা।
এর অর্থ এই নয় যে আপনার জীবন থেকে স্ট্রেস দূর করতে হবে।“
Stress is inescapable and avoiding it is not always in your control.
Instead, you can work on getting better at handling stress.
Fortunately, there are specific proven habits and behaviors any person can learn to get better at stress.
Numerous studies on people who are resilient, who can physiologically buffer the stress hormones to an ideal range indicate that they share these characteristics in common.
স্থিতিস্থাপক, যারা শারীরবৃত্তীয়ভাবে স্ট্রেস হরমোনকে আদর্শ পরিসরে বাফার করতে পারেন তাদের উপর প্রচুর অধ্যয়ন থেকে বোঝা যায় যে তারা এই বৈশিষ্ট্যগুলি সাধারণভাবে ভাগ করে নিয়েছে।
Optimism, we can learn to perceive stressful situations in a productive way, as a challenge rather than a threat.
“Gratitude, practicing being thankful for what you have by expressing thankfulness and appreciating the simple gifts in life or the beauty in nature can reduce your cortisol level. “
আশাবাদ, আমরা হুমকির পরিবর্তে চ্যালেঞ্জ হিসাবে উত্পাদনশীল উপায়ে চাপযুক্ত পরিস্থিতি বুঝতে শিখতে পারি।
কৃতজ্ঞতা, কৃতজ্ঞতা প্রকাশ এবং জীবনের সহজ উপহারগুলি বা প্রকৃতির সৌন্দর্যের প্রশংসা করে আপনার যা আছে তার জন্য কৃতজ্ঞ হওয়ার অনুশীলন করা আপনার কর্টিসল স্তরকে হ্রাস করতে পারে।
“Nurturing, supportive and trusting relationships.
Empathy and support causes to release the cuddle hormone, oxytocin, which dampens our stress response.
Finding a sense of purpose and meaning. “
Doing so can help you sail easier through life's daily ups and downs.
There are many other ways we can make stress work in our favor rather than wreak havoc on our hormones.
The important thing to remember is that managing weight involves far more than balancing calories.
মনে রাখা গুরুত্বপূর্ণ বিষয় হ'ল ওজন পরিচালনার ক্ষেত্রে ক্যালোরিগুলিকে ভারসাম্যহীন করার চেয়ে অনেক বেশি কিছু জড়িত।
You need to create a lifestyle that balances your hormones, which then naturally balances your weight.
Exercise & Physical Activity: Powering Your Metabolism
অনুশীলন ও শারীরিক ক্রিয়াকলাপ: আপনার বিপাক শক্তি
Yes, exercise burns calories and yes, exercise can build muscle mass.
Since muscle burns three times more calories than fat, the more you exercise and the more muscle you make, the faster your metabolism.
যেহেতু পেশীগুলি ফ্যাটের চেয়ে তিনগুণ বেশি ক্যালোরি পোড়ায়, আপনি যত বেশি অনুশীলন করবেন এবং যত বেশি পেশী তৈরি করবেন তত দ্রুত আপনার বিপাক হবে।
But the need to exercise or at least get adequate physical activity, which is just less structured movement, it's far more fundamental.
তবে অনুশীলন করা বা কমপক্ষে পর্যাপ্ত শারীরিক ক্রিয়াকলাপ গ্রহণের প্রয়োজন, যা কেবলমাত্র কম কাঠামোগত আন্দোলন, এটি অনেক বেশি মৌলিক।
Exercise balances many of our hormones and immune system regulators.
It can reduce cortisol as well as the harmful inflammation caused by stress.
অনুশীলন আমাদের হরমোন এবং ইমিউন সিস্টেম নিয়ন্ত্রকদের অনেককে ব্যালেন্স করে।
এটি কর্টিসল হ্রাস করার পাশাপাশি স্ট্রেসের ফলে ক্ষতিকারক প্রদাহকে হ্রাস করতে পারে।
In the past decade, researchers have discovered, that when muscles contract, they release chemical messengers called myokines.
These messengers travel throughout the body to affect how every part functions.
Myokines influence our metabolism as well as our heart, muscle, fat, brain, liver and other organs.
They are critical mechanism by which exercise prevents and treats over 40 medical conditions.
An example of a myokine is brain-derived neutrophic factor.
Released during exercise, this factor acts on the brain to generate new brain cells and build new pathways among existing ones.
It helps our mind function clearer and builds reserve against dementia.
অনুশীলনের সময় প্রকাশিত, এই উপাদানটি মস্তিষ্কে নতুন মস্তিষ্কের কোষ তৈরি করতে এবং বিদ্যমান ব্যক্তিদের মধ্যে নতুন পথ তৈরিতে কাজ করে।
এটি আমাদের মনকে আরও পরিষ্কারভাবে কাজ করতে সহায়তা করে এবং ডিমেনশিয়ার বিরুদ্ধে সংরক্ষণাগার তৈরি করে।
“When it comes to fighting obesity, brain-derived neutrophic factor is a key influencer on the pathways that control our body weight and energy balance.
Many other myokines help burn fat and clear blood sugar from circulation. “
You can think of myokines as the checks and balances to the harmful effects of excess fat.
আপনি অতিরিক্ত মেদ ক্ষতিকারক প্রভাবগুলির চেক এবং ভারসাম্য হিসাবে মাইোকাইনগুলিকে ভাবতে পারেন।
“Whereas belly fat releases chemicals and proteins that increase inflammation and hence the risk of many diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and stroke, myokines released by contracting muscle, reduce inflammation and counteract this damage.
পেটের ফ্যাটগুলি এমন রাসায়নিক ও প্রোটিন প্রকাশ করে যা প্রদাহ বৃদ্ধি করে এবং তাই ডায়াবেটিস, হৃদরোগ এবং স্ট্রোকের মতো অনেক রোগের ঝুঁকি, পেশীগুলির সংক্রমণের মাধ্যমে মায়োকাইনগুলি মুক্তি দেয়, প্রদাহ হ্রাস করে এবং এই ক্ষতির বিরুদ্ধে লড়াই করে।"
“Your muscles need to move a threshold amount, however, to switch on these health-promoting chemicals.
Different types of muscle, fast-twitch or slow-twitch, release different sets of myokines.
Therefore, you need a mix of aerobic exercise such as walking, jogging, dancing, or biking as well as strength resistance exercise such as lifting weights, yoga, or body resistance, to get all the health and metabolic benefits of exercise. “
“The recommended amount is 30 minutes a day of aerobic exercise, and twice a week of strength resistance exercise.
প্রস্তাবিত পরিমাণটি হ'ল বায়বীয় ব্যায়ামের দিনে 30 মিনিট, এবং সপ্তাহে দু'বার শক্তি প্রতিরোধের অনুশীল”
Independent of the need for physical activity, there's another culprit that commonly gets in the way of losing weight; being sedentary for an extended amount of time.
“Muscles uptake glucose and triglycerides out of our circulation. When we sit for more than an hour, muscles power down. “
“They slow or stop this critical function. As a result, metabolism slows and blood sugar and triglycerides as well as body weight rise.”
“Simple changes like standing up or pacing for a minute every hour can reactivate muscles.
প্রতি ঘন্টা এক মিনিটের জন্য দাঁড়িয়ে বা প্যাকিংয়ের মতো সাধারণ পরিবর্তনগুলি পেশী পুনরায় সক্রিয় করতে পারে।“
In one study, among people who worked a sedentary job, researchers compared the group who took the least standing breaks to the group that took the most.
They found that those who took frequent breaks had a lower blood sugar, cholesterol, body mass index, and an almost six centimeter smaller waist circumference.
Getting up and moving as often and as much as you can, to get something, use the restroom or run errands has other benefits.
Over the course of the day, it is from these light activities rather than exercise that we burn the most calories.
That's because even though exercise burns a lot more calories per minute, we typically only spend about 5 percent of our day exercising.
On the other hand, we spend nearly a third of our day doing light activities.
Cumulatively, the calories burned during these everyday activities adds up to more than that from exercise.
Even if you don't like to exercise, moving more can make a significant difference in your weight and overall health.
Try to build more activity into your day. A few minutes walking in a parking lot, some more taking the stairs or walking around your block, until you reach 30 minutes a day.
Try to stand out more often. During conference calls, by having walking meetings, walking over rather than emailing a colleague, or using a standing treadmill desk.
• Sleep Deprivation & Appetite
কম ঘুমানো এবং ক্ষুধা
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The average adult needs seven to nine hours of sleep a night.
When we get less than this, hormone changes occur that increase our susceptibility to obesity.
According to a 2013 Gallup poll, 40 percent of Americans are not getting the recommended amount of sleep.
Studies estimate that a third of American adults age 30 to 64, are getting even less than six hours a night, and the lower the amount of sleep, the higher the correlation with obesity.
“Sleeping less than seven hours a night, raises the level of the hunger hormone ghrelin. “
“It also lowers the amount of the satiety hormone leptin.
As a result, our brains get the message that we are hungrier than we should be. Without realizing it, we consume more calories than needed to compensate for the extra hours of being awake. “
In one study, participants were allowed to sleep ten hours for two nights, and were then sleep deprived with only four hours of sleep for two night's.
Following sleep deprivation, their ghrelin level increased by 28 percent, leptin decreased by 18 percent, hunger level increased 24 percent, and appetite for high carbohydrate foods increased 39 percent.
Then there's cortisol. Naturally, our level of cortisol is highest in the early morning, and decreases throughout the day.
With inadequate sleep, cortisol levels spike again in the afternoon.
Just as under stress we crave quick energy carbs, with insufficient sleep, levels of insulin also increase after meals.
Higher insulin causes us to store more fat. Therefore, the hormone changes that occur after a poor night sleep, not only make us hungrier and crave more junk food, they also cause us to accumulate more fat.
So, what is the sweet spot for the amount of sleep we should get for controlling our weight?
People with the lowest body mass index are the ones who get seven to eight hours of sleep per night.
Both the quantity as well as quality of sleep are essential.
নিম্নতম বডি মাস ইনডেক্সযুক্ত ব্যক্তিরা হলেন যাঁরা প্রতি রাতে সাত থেকে আট ঘন্টা ঘুম পান।
পরিমাণের পাশাপাশি ঘুমের মানের উভয়ই প্রয়োজনীয়।
If you aren't getting this amount, there are habits and techniques you can use to train your mind and body, to get a better night's sleep.
Using Habit & Emotions to Your Advantage
আপনার সুবিধা অভ্যাস এবং সংবেদন ব্যবহার করে
Conscious Choice Versus Subconscious Habit
সচেতন পছন্দ বনাম অবচেতন অভ্যাস
When you think movies, you probably also think popcorn.
Similarly, football and beer go hand in hand.
Specific cues in our environment can trigger wanting to eat certain foods. This type of subconscious eating can even drive us to eat when we're full.
Therefore, while knowing the general types of foods to eat and ones to avoid is essential for controlling your weight. Translating that knowledge into your daily life takes more than conscious choice.
It also requires managing your habits. Habits shape most of our everyday decisions. Yet unlike conscious choices, habits are carried out subconsciously, outside our awareness.
They are reflexive and instinctive. We don't control them through determination and will power like we do our deliberate choices.
Being aware of and shaping our day-to-day practices is critical for being successful at achieving any goal.
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Our brain is constantly shifting between two types of thinking, conscious thinking and subconscious, automatic responses.
Conscious decision are ones that are in line with our values and beliefs.
They are rational and goal-oriented, but they also require a lot of effort and energy.
We couldn't possibly get through the day if we spent time deliberating each split-second decision.
Imagine getting up each morning and having to think about how to get into the shower, shampoo your hair, button your shirt, or find your way to work.
It would be nearly impossible to get through the day.
The brain prefers to default to mental shortcuts.
It delegates repetitive and routine activities to the subconscious mind. This part of the brain, also called the primitive আদিম brain, acts efficiently and reflexively.
It frees up our conscious brain to spend time and energy on choices and decisions that need consideration.
Habits are subconscious actions that have been repeated enough times in the same context that the context alone, be it a place, a social setting, or smell, can automatically cue the habit.
Marketing relies on the associations our mind makes with food.
For example, television, magazines, and billboard pictures of decadent chocolate chip cookies or their smell wafting out of a bakery can evoke the expectation that a reward is imminent.
In this way, sights and smells can create cravings.
Researchers call these advertisements, which often prompt us to engage in unhealthy behaviors, food porn.
These environment triggered habits can work to our advantage just as much as they can work to our disadvantage.
The primary way to leverage habit is by being aware of the instinctive associations we make with our surroundings, and disrupting and recreating better ones.
Indeed, up to 45% of everyday activities are estimated to be behaviors that we tend to repeat in the same physical location every day.
Another way is to use our consciously thinking brain to shape our microenvironment so that we default into good decisions.
Our subconscious decisions need to be shaped just as much as our conscious choices.
They're just as much a part of us, and among the reasons we succeed or fail is our informed choices.
When applied to how we control our weight and appetite, our internal signals are regulated by the hypothalamus.
It's the part of the brain that integrates our metabolic and cognitive and emotional brains.
The hypothalamus processes most decisions outside our consciousness.
That means that we make most of our food choices without thought.
We don't use mental energy to apply the information we know about healthy choices.
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The implication is that we not only have to know what to do to control our weight.
We also have to structure our environment so that the habits we create and the many decisions we make each day are subconsciously sound decisions.
We have to use our thinking brain to create these positive associations.
We need to use our mental energy and resources to develop habits that work to our advantage when we are hungry, in a rush, or under stress.
Recognizing the vital role and power of habit is the first step to getting there.
How to Consistently Make Healthy Choices
কীভাবে ধারাবাহিকভাবে স্বাস্থ্যকর পছন্দ করবেন
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Think through your day.
What are the things you do at a habit?
Which practices do you wish you could change?
Mastering habit requires creating gentle nudges, all pre-contemplated that can help you consistently work better patterns into your day.
There are two main ways to make healthy choices effortless and
automatic over time.
The first is by associating the desired habit with an activity you do routinely every day like brushing your teeth or getting dressed.
Each time you do the activity, you can incorporate the desired practice until over time, it becomes habitual.
An example would be doing a few stretches or planks before getting dress each morning.
The second way to make health promoting choices routine is by planning ahead. So that when you're in a rush or stressed, the convenient option is a beneficial one.
An example would be having snacks like nuts or bite-size fruit readily available at work and home, so that you can effortlessly choose them over seeking a less healthy alternative.
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Although initially it takes forethought and commitment, you can make subconscious choices work in your favor by following these next steps.
Step one is paying attention to and doing an inventory of your current habits.
What are the practices you routinely do that you consider health promoting?
What are ones you consider your weaknesses or that make you frustrated?
Can you tell what triggers the ones that make you feel stuck, that are holding you back from being your healthiest self?
Is there a specific place, emotion, sight, smell or social context deep rooted in your mind as a prompt to these behaviors?
Try putting into your awareness not only your habits, but the root causes that elicit the habits.
For example, do you snack on junk food?
What makes you snack?
Why do you sacrifice nourishing your body with the fuel it needs to function its best?
Is it convenience, stress, lack of prioritizing yourself and you health?
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Step two is creating a vision for what you would like to accomplish and thinking about how you could rework your day to create a path for reaching your vision.
Would you like to control your portions, reduce junk food?
Would you like to start your day with an energizing breakfast or avoid eating dinner close to bedtime?
Step three, now that we have tuned in to the habits that you would like to change, think about and disrupt the situation or pattern that triggers them.
For example, if you would like to avoid junk food when you're stressed, what are other ways you can manage stress?
What are ways you can reduce the temptation for calorie pack snacks?
Or if being exhausted and hungry at the end of your work day has gotten you in the habit of going through a particular fast food drive-thru on your way home, how can you change that pattern?
Can you eat a more substantial lunch or afternoon snack to avoid reaching the point of starvation?
Can you take a route home that avoids the temptation of the drive-thru?
Disrupting your current routine will force you to breakout of automatic mode and think through alternate choices.
Step three, now that we have tuned in to the habits that you would like to change, think about and disrupt the situation or pattern that triggers them.
For example, if you would like to avoid junk food when you're stressed, what are other ways you can manage stress?
Step four is creating and reinforcing a desired habit.
For example, if you want to associate your morning cup of coffee with reaching for fruit or oatmeal, plan ahead to make those options readily available.
Then each morning when you sit down for coffee, sit down with your fruit and oatmeal.
Lather, rinse, repeat in the same context until your practice becomes automatic.
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Step five is re-engineering your environment to default to better choices. Doing so can be challenging when so many messages and convenient choices steer us towards unhealthy choices.
But if you take some time to investigate and plan, you can have healthy standby options that your brain can default to when it's preoccupied, tired or stressed.
For example, if you love potato chips, but end up eating the whole bag, can you buy small snack size amounts?
Or parcel out a small portion of a larger bag?
Better yet, can you have vegetables and hummus or other healthier snacks consistently ready and available?
Or can you do some homework to find healthy, convenient lunch or
dinner options, such as salad bars or restaurants that will allow you to customize your order and provide you nutritional information, so that you can have healthy go to options.
Through these planned ahead defaults, you can reduce impulsive temptations and consistently make better choices over time.
এই পরিকল্পিত সামনের ডিফল্টগুলির মাধ্যমে, আপনি আবেগময় প্রলোভনগুলি হ্রাস করতে এবং ক্রমাগত সময়ের সাথে আরও ভাল পছন্দ করতে পারেন।
Developing a Better Relationship with Food
খাবারের সাথে আরও ভাল সম্পর্ক গড়ে তোলা
Eating mindlessly while distracted, watching television, carrying on a conversation, texting or working behind a computer, is another common way we have become less conscious of our food decisions.
The less attention we pay to eating, the more we delegate to our instinctive brain and the greater we challenge our body's ability to regulate our appetite and energy balance.
When we eat mindlessly, we don't allow our brain to form a memory of the meal.
As a result, studies show we end up snacking and eating more later in the day.
We also don't tune into our internal signals that tell us when we're full and over eat as a consequence.
Just as eating triggered by environmental cues and cravings can lead to weight gain and weight regain after successful weight loss, mindless eating can be an equally significant hindrance to long-term successful weight loss.
It's another way we eat automatically. Shifting mindlessness to being mindful at meals, can help increase the intense pleasure we get from food.
Control our portions, cope with emotions associated with eating, and develop a better mindset about food.
Mindfulness is the ancient practice of paying attention to present moment experiences, thoughts and emotions in an open and nonjudgmental way.
When we practice mindfulness, we are in tune with what we are sensing in the present rather than reliving the past or worrying about the future.
When applied to eating, mindfulness involves chewing our food, paying attention to its taste, smell and texture, and taking the time to recognize when we are full.
Mindful eating cultivates the skills needed for becoming aware and accepting emotions and thoughts that prompt eating.
It helps us distinguish emotional eating versus eating in response to true physical hunger.
Practiced regularly, it can help us tolerate negative emotions, find better ways to adapt to stress and change our relationship with food.
It can make us better at controlling our impulses to environmental cues and cravings.
The majority of studies on mindful eating, concur that it can change eating behavior, reduce stress, and lead to successful weight loss.
Here are some simple ways to get started.
Eat slowly and don't rush your meals.
It takes the brain 20 minutes to recognize when you are full.
When you eat quickly,
you may over eat before you realize you're full.
Chew your food carefully.
Savor the texture, flavor and taste of your food.
Don't multitask while you're eating.
Avoid distractions as much as possible.
Tune into your sense of hunger and fullness.
Finally, recognize but don't judge emotions you associate with food.
Creating a Weight Loss Plan: A Step-Wise Approach
Week 5
Set Realistic Weight Loss Goals
ওজন কমানোর পরিকল্পনা তৈরি করা: একটি পদক্ষেপযুক্ত পদ্ধতি
বাস্তব ওজন হ্রাস লক্ষ্যগুলি সেট করুন
In this final week,
we're going to apply what we have learned about our appetite and energy balance systems, about the specific foods and other missing links that affect our set point, and the power of habit and awareness into practical steps for designing a long-term successful weight loss plan.
Let's begin by setting a realistic weight loss goal.
While most people aim for a body weight the equivalent of a normal body mass index of 25 or under, this may not and often should not be your goal.
Losing five to 10 percent of your body weight is enough to improve your health substantially.
This amount can prevent the onset of diabetes in someone who is pre-diabetic and can significantly lower blood pressure.
A goal of five to 10 percent weight loss at a time is more realistic than achieving a normal body weight.
In a study of over 175,000 obese men and women, the annual likelihood of getting to a normal weight for a man who was obese was one out of 210.
For an obese woman, it was one out of 124.
For morbidly obese men and women with a body mass index greater than 35, the likelihood was even more daunting.
One out of 1,294 men and one out of 677 for women.
The same study however, found that losing five percent body weight was far more realistic.
One out of eight morbidly obese men and one out of seven morbidly obese woman were able to achieve this goal.
Therefore, this amount is a good starting point. Calculate five to 10 percent of your body weight.
This is the amount you should aim to lose.
Subtract this amount from your current weight.
Now, you have your target weight.
Unlock Your Set Poin
আপনার সেট পয়েন্ট আনলক করুন
As we have seen, the main culprits that can gradually raise a set point, and anchor weight in an undesirable range are,
1. one, different combinations of processed foods high in sugar, and fat.
2. Two, stress.
3. Three, being physically inactive, and four, not getting enough sleep.
Each of these factors affect set point to a different degree based on each person's unique set of genes.
Our genetic makeup influences how we experience, and taste food.
The degree of reward we get from fat, sugar, and salt, and the threshold at which our brains sense we are full.
As a result, the challenge of maintaining a healthy body weight, and our susceptibility to the factors that can raise set point is different for every individual.
Conversely, the combination of factors that will lower set point also differs.
Nonetheless, there's a general framework you can follow for unlocking your set point, and ultimately having your body stop fighting your attempts at weight-loss.
Number one, focus on changing your dietary pattern rather than just cutting back on calories.
Counting calories seems a logical place to start for losing weight, but cutting back on calories without changing the types of foods that you eat, will only help you lose weight in the short term.
When you eat the same food, but just less of it, such as stopping after one slice of pizza rather than two, you haven't made any changes that would affect your set point.
You may lose weight, but your body will compensate by increasing your appetite, and slowing your metabolism until you gradually regain the weight.
Although, frustrating, that doesn't mean you lack willpower or can't stick with a diet.
Our biology is simply too powerful to override.
আমাদের জীববিজ্ঞানটি ওভাররাইড করার জন্য খুব শক্তিশালী।
To lose weight over the long term, you have to change the composition of your diet.
You have to swap out calorie packed processed choices for whole foods closest to their natural state.
By doing so, you will naturally control your portions and calories.
Number two, stick with high quality sources of macronutrients.
While many popular diets tout lowering or eliminating a specific macronutrient be it fat, carbohydrates or protein, the majority of studies concur that the most effective, and healthiest weight to lose weight is to zero in on the quality of each macronutrient.
It's not that the amount of macronutrient doesn't matter.
Indeed, preliminary genetic studies suggest that there are differences in for example, how we each respond to a high carb or low carb diets.
However, despite the genetic variances in how we respond to different ratios of macronutrients, these differences are subtle, relative to the benefit of eating whole foods.
You can think of the quality of fat, carbohydrate, and protein as the engine of your car.
Quantity is more like, its fuel efficiency.
To get the highest quality sources of macronutrients, the two most effective measures you should make are reducing process carbohydrates.
These include products made with sugar, and flour such as, bread,
pasta, baked goods, and packaged foods with high fructose corn syrup.
Exchange these for carbohydrates naturally high in fiber found in nature's packaging fruits, vegetables, and whole grains like, rolled oats, wheat berry, barley, and key moi.
Once you have switched to these high-quality sources of carbohydrates, you can experiment with changing the amount of your carbohydrates. Swapping animal fat for plant-based fat.
Saturated fat found in meat, fish, poultry, pork, milk, yogurt, cheese, butter, and other animal sources may raise your set point by injuring your brain cells.
Saturated fat can also cause insulin resistance, which compounds the challenge of losing weight.
Swapping out animal fat for healthier plant-based sources like, avocados, nuts, and seeds can help lower your set point.
Keep in mind, however that although some oils are healthier than others olive oil for example, over butter, all oils should be used sparingly.
None should be considered a health food.
Oils are concentrated in calories.
A 120 calories in one tablespoon, and can quickly add up.
Once you've reduced animal sources of fat, you can try varying the amount of fat in your diet.
Just as with carbs, the degree to which the amount of fat affects your set point will differ from person to person.
Number three, revamp behaviors that may be interfering with weight loss, while diet has taken center stage for most weight-loss approaches, many of our other practices affect our set point.
More specifically, the singular focus on dietary factors has detracted attention from the effects of stress, sleep, and physical activity.
Each of these elements can disrupt hormones involved in energy regulation.
Once out of balance, our bodies can't function effectively, and can even work against us.
Techniques that help with managing stress, increasing physical activity, and the amount of sound sleep we get, can bounce hormones, and are often necessary for unlocking a set point.
What should you try changing first, finding the most impactful path to lowering your set point be it dietary or through other behaviors is a process of trial, and error.
Frustrating? Yes, but to put it in perspective, it is similar to how we manage most chronic diseases that have been studied for a much more extended period of time.
For high blood pressure for example, it often takes trying several different medications to find the one to which a person responds.
Same holds for anxiety, and depression. Medication management often takes months, and involves trying, and adjusting several medications before finding the right combination.
Think of obesity as similar to these other diseases.
Be patient. Don't give up even if it feels like nothing is working.
Eventually, you'll find what works best for you.
You will know when you've successfully lowered your set point, when you no longer feel like you have to fight against your body to keep the weight off.
Number four, try different combinations of changes rather than one change at a time. By having an understanding of obesity, you can fight biology with biology.
If you recall, the energy balance system we inherited from our ancestors is intricate, and redundant.
The interconnections, and overlap between our metabolic, and cognitive, and emotional brain or adaptations that help us overcome the threat of starvation to survive.
If one pathway that restores set point body weight is compromised, another pathway kicks into compensate.
Targeting different pathways will increase the likelihood of overcoming your body's hardwired instinct to boomerang back.
For example, if you make any one change such as, reducing processed carbohydrates, you're likely to notice a positive result.
Working harder at the same type of change for example, completely eliminating processed carbohydrates, will make you more successful, but you will likely have the most success combining different approaches such as coupling several dietary changes or combining them with other lifestyle changes.
Number five, consider weight loss medication or other weight loss interventions.
In our modern world, and amid plenty, our bodies remain program to conserve, and store energy.
Even most of the biggest loser contestants who received the best coaching in the world couldn't overpower our shared biology.
The inability to maintain weight loss is not a failure or due to a lack of willpower, is a part of what makes us human.
Obesity, alters our hormones, and chemicals which by definition makes it a disease, and just as with any other illness, sometimes it needs to be treated with medication or other interventions.
However, unlike the case with other conditions, seeking treatment for weight loss is often stigmatized.
অন্যান্য অবস্থার সাথে এই ক্ষেত্রে অসদৃশ, ওজন হ্রাস জন্য চিকিত্সা চাইতে প্রায়ই কলঙ্কিত হয়।
Currently, only a tiny fraction of people eligible to receive weight-loss treatment are benefiting from them.
বর্তমানে, ওজন-হ্রাস চিকিত্সা পাওয়ার জন্য যোগ্য লোকের মধ্যে কেবল একটি ক্ষুদ্র অংশই তাদের দ্বারা উপকৃত হচ্ছে।
If you have limited success combining different lifestyle measures to lower your set point, consider, and discuss with your doctor options for adding weight-loss medications or procedures that can help alter how your body regulates your set point.
Create a Microenvironment that Supports Your Success
A এমন একটি মাইক্রোএনভায়রনমেন্ট তৈরি করুন যা আপনার সাফল্যকে সমর্থন করে।
While knowledge about unlocking set point speaks to our conscious mind, we make most of our food intake decisions subconsciously.
Because we're instinctively designed to prefer choices that soothe us, give us instant gratification from boost of dopamine, and feel more hunger when we have lost weight, we have to plan around our impulses. সাহিত্য।
Here are steps you can take to structure your microenvironment, to guide your non-thinking actions.
Step one is meal planning.
When you meal plan, you select dinners and recipes, shop for ingredients, and prep ahead of time, for example, by chopping vegetables for the whole week.
Even if it's done one day rather than a week at a time, meal planning is a vital part of changing your dietary habits.
By dedicating time to making deliberate and sensible choices using fresh whole food, you avoid making last minute meal decisions when you're hungry and tired.
While it may seem time-consuming, typically, it takes about an hour
on the weekend to plan for the week.
It actually ends up saving time and money.
Meal planning doesn't mean that all your meals have to be home prepared. You can work in take-out or restaurant meals.
But by planning ahead, you can select places that provide nutritional information and offer fresh ingredients.
If you have kids, meal planning is also a great way to get them involved. The more your little helpers assist, the more they learn and get excited about eating healthy food.
The second step is creating a healthy food microenvironment.
দ্বিতীয় পদক্ষেপটি একটি ছোট স্বাস্থ্যকর খাদ্য পরিবেশ তৈরি করছে।
Your food microenvironment includes all the places where you consume your meals and snacks, including at home, work, or on the go.
Your goal for creating a healthy food microenvironment is to make eating well the easy default choice during times when you haven't had the chance to meal plan.
Our Western food environment is one where choosing healthy food is challenging. Even the most health-conscious consumer can be tempted into unhealthy choices.
While changing our food culture, we require a united effort by public health officials, policymakers, businesses, and consumers.
You can begin your own transformation by controlling your personal food microenvironment.
You can do this by keeping your pantry, refrigerator, freezer, office, or bag stocked with healthy staples.
The path of least resistance will then work in your favor.
Every food swap will be a small victory that shifts your momentum towards consistently choosing healthier foods.
In addition to steering you away from foods high in calories, and low in nutritional value, other advantages to creating a healthy food microenvironment, are that you will reduce the impulse to stress eat, and you'll be less likely to binge on junk food.
What foods should you stock?
Here are some suggestions to get you started.
For instance, in your pantry, keep sprout at 100 percent whole grain bread, intact whole grains, canned beans, spices, and extra virgin olive oil.
In your refrigerator, stock non-dairy almonds soy, or rice milk, fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, hummus, or non-fat plain yogurt.
In the freezer, an assortment রকমারি মাল of fruit and vegetables, veggie burgers, cooked whole grains or edamame.
Snacks in your pantry or office could be nuts, seeds, dried fruit, peanut butter, other nut butters or plain popcorn.
The third and final step is building surroundings that support healthy habits.
Third তৃতীয় এবং চূড়ান্ত পদক্ষেপটি এমন পরিবেশ তৈরি করা যা স্বাস্থ্যকর অভ্যাসকে সমর্থন করে।
Our environment influences not only our food choices but all our habits and decisions.
Our Western culture tends to be what researchers referred to as obesogenic, with automation and technology nudging us towards being more sedentary, sleep deprived, and stressed.
In this final step, I want you to challenge yourself, to design not just your food microenvironment, but to think more broadly about your surroundings.
Consider ways you can support the habits and behaviors you want to adopt. The basic principle is to remove hurdles from the habits that align with your goals and personal vision, and then add steps for the ones you wish to change.
Here are some examples.
i. If you want to check email and social media less often, delete bookmarks and automatic passwords for accessing your accounts.
ii. If you intend to drink more water, keep a water bottle with you.
iii. Lay out exercise clothes and shoes the night before if you want to start the day with a workout.
iv. To improve your sleep, set a bedtime and keep your bedroom cool, dark, and quiet.
v. If your goal is to walk more, live in a walkable community or use public transportation.
vi. For reducing stress, start your day with a five minute meditation or keep a gratitude journal within reach.
These are just some of the ways you can design your environment to default into healthy habits.
Now, it's your turn to think about your personal vision and the changes in your microenvironment you want to make it happen.
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