Are You Overweight?

Quite a few Britons would consider themselves slightly overweight but not many would assume that being overweight can be quite serious in terms of overall levels of healthiness. Typically, a high fat content diet, a sedentary lifestyle and the drinking habits of a vast proportion of the male population of the UK make it quite easy to put on weight but once it’s on it can be that much more difficult to get rid of.

Why Weight Matters

We don’t want to scare you, but he health risks of carting around excess weight are real. If you’re only slightly overweight, your increased risks are minor but if you’re truly obese – defined as more than 20% above your optimal weight or wearing more than 25% body fat – these are some of the dangers you’re looking at:

1. At least twice the risk of high blood pressure; almost six times the risk if you’re under 45
2. Likelihood of high cholesterol, leading to clogged arteries
3. Higher chance of stroke
4. Increased risk of heart disease and heart attack
5. Increased risk of colon cancer and prostate cancer
6. Increased risk of developing adult onset diabetes
7. Greater likelihood of sleep apnea, gallbladder disease, osteoarthritis and sexual problems.

Here’s the case in a nutshell: fat men die young.

The Psychological Dimension

If that’s not enough to get you started on a healthy diet think about this: there are also psychological problems tied up with being overweight – these include anxiety about health, feelings of shame and self-consciousness.

It’s not only women in Western countries who have a negative self image from comparing themselves to the sculpted forms of fashion supermodels. Millions of men, trying to rebuild deflated self-esteem, are spending a fortune on diets that don’t work, fuelling a diet industry that is worth billions of pounds.

Do You Weigh Too Much?

Obesity is a reality for many of us, but do you really have to worry? Research shows that although only about one third of men are truly overweight, many more than that think they are.

Why are so many of us convinced we’re fat? A lot of it has to do with cultural stereotypes: lean is good, pure and simple. Many international observers are amazed and amused by our obsession with leanness. On the one hand we’re saying, “You’re only fat if you think you are”. On the other hand the range of healthy, acceptable body shapes and sizes is far greater than certain sections of the media might have us believe.

It comes down to this: get things in perspective, take a realistic view of your body and don’t get fanatical about your weight or torment yourself with guilt about it.

So, it’s important to take a realistic line on your weight.

It’s also important to know the proportion of fat to muscle in your body. If you’re a trained athlete or if you work out a lot, you may have a higher percentage  of lean muscle mass. Muscle weighs more than fat. Compare a couch potato with a man who actually uses his health club membership regularly. Both may be the same height and have the same body type – they may even weigh the same – yet one will be trim and healthy and the other will be chubby and at risk. Nutritionists have stated that a body fat percentage of between 15 & 20% is healthy.

You’ve also got to take into account another factor: your age. Once a man turns 30, his metabolic rate begins to slow down, and the result is an average weight gain of 1-1.5 lb per year (unless, that is, his calorie intake is reduced and his exercise levels are increased).

Why we Weight Too Much

If you make a pie chart called “Why are we Overweight”, one slice might be called Family genes and habits. The rest of the pie would be divided into slices labeled Eat too much, Don’t Exercise Enough and High Fat Diet. Let’s look at each of these in turn.

Family Inheritance

Nutritional researchers now believe that human beings may be genetically programmed to carry different weights and also different amounts of body fat. Each one of us may have a biologically determined set point for fatness, a specific amount of fat our body “wants” to carry, so that no matter how much we diet, it will keep trying to get back to that set point.

In other words, what is normal for one person may be high – or low – for someone else. That makes a lot od sense considering that all sorts of characteristics such as height, hair colour, body type and build, run in families.

Genetically you may inherit from your parents a large body frame, a slow metabolism and a large number of fat cells. If you get this package you will have to work very hard to maintain a healthy weight.

Too Much Food, Too Much Fat

Most of us simply eat too much food, more than we need to sustain all the body’s activities. If you take in more calories than you burn, the excess gets converted into fat cells and stored for future use.

We also don’t get the balance right. Men get 35-40% of their calories from fat; it should be 25 to 35 percent. Pound for pound and gram for gram fat is more fattening than other foods. Protein and carbohydrates contain four calories per gram, a gramme of fat nine calories. That means you can eat twice as much protein or carbohydrate as fat and still not take in as many calories. Also, fat cells, complex carbohydrates and protein, on the other hand, are not.

Sedentary Lifestyle

How many times have you been reminded of the importance of exercise and vowed to do more? Yet we’d have pretty good odds if we bet that you didn’t do much.

Only a small percent of men in Britain exercise regularly and vast numbers of us don’t get any exercise at all. If you keep stuffing your face and don’t burn those calories off they’re going to be staring you in the face, from your mirror.