As the second of January arrives so does the diet, but which is the best one for you, you could spend weeks looking through all the diets that are on the market. Which diet is best suited to you, as you study them there are testimonials from people claiming they lost ten pounds in six hours, and “I used to be twenty three stone, look at me now only nine and only been on a diet for twenty weeks”. What are you to do and which diet is best for you?

When we want to lose weight, one thing is for certain we have to use up more calories than we take in, for most that includes doing some extra form of exercise. That does not mean you have to spend hundreds of pounds and joining the local gym, it will be just as good for you taking the kids or the family dog out for a walk another idea is when you want to go to the local shops walk rather than take the car. This is the first step to helping you lose weight.

Choosing a diet!

As I said there are literally thousands of diets on the market, which is best for you? There are diets that help you lose weight quickly, steadily and some that try and restructure your eating habits. We have all heard of the main diets like Atkins diet , Slim fast and Weight Watchers but there are many more that most people have not heard of, diets such as the Lazy Girls Diet, Muffin Top Diet and the Sensa Sprinkles Diet, over the next few weeks we will hopefully help you in choosing a diet that will suit your lifestyle and help you lose those extra pounds.

Obesity can cause many psychological as well as health problems, as we put on weight we get depressed so we eat more and more then we get depressed because we have ate so much and so the cycle continues. There are many diets out there to help you lose weight, but if you are not in the right frame of mind then you are wasting your time and money. Our kids are no different!

In a recent survey carried out for the NHS, found that 1 in 10 kids starting school are classed as clinically obese – this may be due to the fact that parents are unable to distinguish the difference between puppy fat and obesity. A combination of eating high calorie foods such as chocolate, sweets and fast foods, coupled with kids opting to stay in and playing gaming consoles or computers rather than playing outside or going for a family walk are all leading to a sharp rise in childhood obesity.

What can be done to help our children? We can put them on a diet, but if they are not ‘trained’ how to eat properly then you could be simply wasting your time and money. The NHS are so worried about the situation that they are setting up Health schools, to be run in the Summer. This will take obese children and give them ‘mind training’, which will include how to eat properly, the dangers of eating the wrong foods etc…

The NHS will also be doing a rigorous exercise regime, which will help the children get into a regular training program. The object of the whole program is to encourage not blame. These courses are still in a trial stage at the moment, if successful they may well be extended to a nationwide program.

The fact that parents (and plenty of them) are willing to fork out between £3,500 and £8,000 to send their kids to a British ‘fat camp’ for the majority of the summer holidays shows just how desperate these families have become.

It’s easy to say fast food, television, computers and electronic console games are destroying our childrens health. But chew over this fact for a bit : By the time a child is ready to start primary school, one in six of them will be overweight and parents mistake obesity in their child for what is lightly termed as ‘puppy fat’. What is also worth considering is that ‘families on poor income’ have a higher risk of raising an obese child and this rate is growing, rapidly.

Education seems to be the key, more information about eating fruit and veg, proper excercise and more parental interaction with their kids is a positive start. Look, if we don’t start trying to communicate and educate our children about weight gain – even at very early years – we are going to see more ‘fat camps’ spread all over the UK.

If we continue to eat we will become obese, obesity is measured by your Body Mass Index (BMI) which
measures the amount of excess fat that is stored in your body. People become obese with lack of exercise and when the amount of calories taken in is far more than your body requires. Being obese and overweight, in the most extreme cases can cause death, below are the most common health problems brought about by being overweight and obese.

1. Heart Disease: as you put on weight the arteries and veins get clogged with fat, as your heart is basically a pump, it finds it harder and harder to pump the blood through your body putting strain and pressure on your heart to continue working properly. Another problem is that the heart wall becomes thickened which again can cause stroke or even death.

2. Liver Disease: as we eat too much cholesterol this can cause the bile in the liver to harden and produce gallstones. But more worrying is the excess fat in the liver will cause inflammation which could lead to liver cancer or scarring which is untreatable.

3. Muscleskelital Disease: as we put on weight and become obese our joints and muscles suffer, as we walk the cartilage between our bones wears away and the bones start to rub together causing osteoarthritis. Another problem in obesity is gout this is due to the high levels of uric acid in your body.

4. Respiratoary Disease: one of the most affected areas in obesity, sleep apnoea is very common and this will happen every night. Another complaint is asthma. Both these complaints are caused by restriction of the airways.

5. Skin Diseases: stretch marks and cellulite aside, when people get obese they find it harder to clean themselves as thorough as they would like which can lead to unsightly skin infections.

These are just a few complaints that co-exist alongside people who become obese or overweight. Think about your health, try and be positive and if you are concerned about being overweight and what it does to your body then visit your local GP for proper medical advice on how best to cope with obesity.