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The Psychological Effects of Obesity

What you see on the outside of someone who is overweight or obese is only a small part of the equation. Much of the time, it is the psychological and social effects that are even more damaging than the physical ones. Obesity has been linked to health conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and sleep apnea, but it is also linked to several psychological issues that can have profound effects on your happiness and quality of life. Our weight loss team is here to help you with some of the problems that can affect your life with obesity include.

Low Self-Esteem

Quite often, people that are obese have a poor self-image and suffer from low self-esteem. When you start feeling as if you aren’t worthy of good jobs, friends, relationships and other things in life, your confidence erodes to the point that you want to hide away from the world. Tying your self-worth to the size of your waistline is a dangerous practice, but one that a high percentage of obese people participate in on a daily basis.

Anxiety Issues

Anxiety disorders are another common psychological effect of obesity. Anyone that has suffered with any degree of anxiety knows how debilitating it can be, and when it is tied to your weight, it is just as bad, or worse. Whether it is general anxiety about daily life or full-on panic attacks, it can paralyze your social and professional life.

Depression

Obesity and depression have been closely linked for some time, and in a way the self-esteem issues and anxiety brought on by obesity can all contribute to clinical depression. In a University of Wisconsin-Madison study, researchers found that participants with BMI greater than 35 had the highest rates of clinical depression.

Effects on Daily Life

Not surprisingly, many obese people tend to stay away from social situations where they fear they might be judged, or where they will judge themselves. They may end up with eating disorders and use that food for comfort when they feel depressed or alone. If you are obese, those self-conscious feelings may prevent you from riding on buses, going to movies, seeking dates, going to parties and especially going out to eat in public.

It is important to seek help if you are overweight and feel the psychological strain. Whether that help is from a weight loss professional or a psychiatric professional, it is important to take some kind of action so you can get the help you need and pull yourself out of it.

Don’t let obesity control your life. Our team at New Life Wellness & Weight Loss is here to help.

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3 Steps That Keep Your Joints Healthy

One of the negative side effects of carrying excess weight is joint pain. It stands to reason, that your muscles, joints and ligaments would be heavily burdened by having to cart around more weight than they were designed to handle. For someone who is 50 or 100 lbs. overweight, it’s easy to see how your life could be painful with every step. The team at our weight loss clinic is here to help.

The Burden on Your Lower Body

Joint pain and obesity usually go hand in hand, and it is the joints in your lower body that ends up taking the brunt of the pressure. The joints in your hips, knees and ankles are subject to the most force when you walk, increasing your risk of developing osteoarthritis if you don’t do something to alleviate the problem. After a while, it will become difficult to maintain an active lifestyle, and if you are too heavy, you might not be able to live and function independently.

Aside from pain medication, you don’t really have many options when it comes to controlling joint pain from obesity. All prescription pain medications have side effects and while some are more severe than others are, the best solution to control the pain is always weight loss.

Less Weight Equals Less Stress

Since it is the extra weight that is causing the pain, any amount of weight you lose can help to alleviate it. Even in cases with a firm diagnosis of osteoarthritis, weight loss can delay or prevent surgery and get you on the road to greater mobility. Naturally, exercising with joint pain can be difficult, which is why diet modification should be your first step. If you are seriously overweight and have tried various approaches in the past, it may be time to consult a bariatric surgeon to go over your weight loss surgery options.

If exercise is still a possibility for you, light walking is a good choice, as is swimming or any type of exercise in the water. When you are immersed in water, it’s as if gravity doesn’t exist and the strain is taken off your aching joints. You’ll also engage all your major muscle groups, helping you burn calories and fat more effectively.

As the weight comes off, whether through lifestyle changes or surgery, make a point of strengthening the muscles of your legs, hips, buttocks and back, so your lower body joints have a lot of support and will continue to function well into the future.

Feel free to contact our weight loss team at New Life Wellness & Weight Loss today for more information.

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Tips On Mastering Portion Control

With so much talk about ingredients and chemicals and sinister marketing campaigns, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that portion sizes for many foods these days are huge. Even without the whole “supersizing” element, it is easy to eat far more than necessary and turbo boost your caloric intake. Even if you are eating foods that aren’t particularly unhealthy, eating too much will create a “calories in, calories out” situation where you’re not burning off the calories you are consuming. If you have questions about nutrition, contact our weight loss team.

If They Serve It; We Will Eat

Studies conducted by Brown University showed that volunteers would consistently eat more if they were given more. This included regular meals and snacks. In a snack study, one group of students received snacks that totaled 4,350 calories and another got snacks totaling 8,750 calories.

Each group was told to eat as much as they wanted and not eat any other snacks over a three-day period. In the end, the group that had the snacks totaling 8,750 calories consumed 81 percent more calories. Basically, in the majority of cases people will eat more food, if more food is presented to them.

Into the Time Machine

One way to become a master of portion control is to follow portion control metrics from our past, before they were all increased or disregarded altogether. The American Diabetes Association offers portion guidelines that are more in line with the way things used to be. If you can follow these tips, you’ll probably see your waistline start shrinking.

A serving of meat, chicken or fish that is 3 oz. is about the size of a deck of cards. A ½-cup serving of potatoes or canned fruit is roughly the size of half a tennis ball. If you want a 1 oz. serving of cheese it should be the size of your thumb, and a one-cup serving of fresh greens, milk or yogurt is the size of your fist. If you do end up in a situation where the portions are larger than they should be, portion the meal yourself and bring the rest home for later, or split it with someone else.

Helpful Tips to Smaller Portions

You can reduce the amount you eat and lose weight by following a few simple steps. The first is to put down your spoon or fork after each mouthful of food. This will stop you from shoveling it in, like so many of us are prone to do. Next, chew your food slowly and thoroughly, at least 20 to 25 times. And the most important, when you start to feel even the slightest bit full, stop eating. If you follow these tips, your portions will shrink and so will your waistline.

If your ready to get started with a weight loss program – give our team a call today!

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Can Bad Bugs Make You Fat?

Are bacteria to blame for your elastic-waist jeans and poolside muumuu? Did microbes make you devour double bowls of triple-fudge ice cream last night?

It only sounds like a horror movie. A growing stack of research suggests that the mysterious, microscopic “zoo” in your digestive system plays a role in how slim — or pudgy — you are. But don’t even think about trying to figure out which of the countless “probiotic” pills out there might get you into smaller jeans.

We’ve Got a Saner Bug-Control Plan.

The human body hosts trillions of tiny critters, most of who hang out in your intestines. Most are beneficial bugs called probiotics. They break down food, help you absorb certain nutrients, keep your immune system firing on all cylinders, and fend off invaders that can cause a nasty case of the runs. They can even protect against stomach ulcers and urinary tract infections and ease irritable bowel syndrome.

But here’s the thing: There’s now surprising evidence that the wrong gut bugs could make you fat. In one study, obese people were three times more likely than lean folks to have a virus called Ad-36 in their digestive tracts — a bug known to make chickens fatter. Also, some intestinal bacteria seem to trigger bigger appetites and a tendency to store more calories as fat. Researchers even think “fat bugs” might plump you up by pulling more calories from the food you eat.

Happily, there’s also a bit of evidence that good bugs might help you slim down in some circumstances. Among extremely overweight people who had weight loss surgery, those who took a probiotic supplement lost weight faster. And women who took a probiotic during pregnancy had less body fat overall — and less dangerous belly fat — after giving birth than pregnant women who didn’t take probiotics, even though they all followed the same diet.

A whole industry has grown up around probiotic supplements, including probiotic-enhanced foods and “prebiotics,” types of fiber that promote the growth of good bugs. Some products are good. Others are still in question. For example, we don’t yet know enough about the healthiest mix of microbes for weight loss. What we do know: Good bugs are good for your body. So it’s worth taking these steps to keep ’em happy and working hard inside you:

Feed them their favorite foods. It’s way easier to cultivate the good bacteria you already have than to import replacements. To encourage your good bugs to be fruitful and prosper, feed them special prebiotic fibers called inulin and oligosaccharides (don’t try saying either three times fast). And where do you get these yummy fibers? Pretty simple: bananas, asparagus, onions, and garlic; also, dandelion greens, Jerusalem artichokes, and jicama. All are top sources of good prebiotic fibers. Apples may help, too, because they contain pectin, another beneficial prebiotic fiber. And there are some prebiotics in barley, berries, tomatoes, honey, flaxseeds, and beans, too.

Take a probiotic. While you can get probiotics in food pretty easily by consistently eating low-fat yogurt with live active cultures, popping a probiotic supplement is more reliable. We recommend taking one regularly if you’re healthy. The trick is to find formulas that can survive your stomach’s digestive fluids.

We like Premier Labs Probiotic and Galactan Prebiotic powder because it can survive even (burp) the gnarliest mix of stomach acids. If it helps keep you slim and healthy, that’s quite a trade-off.

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3 Sweet Ways To Eat Less Sugar

Any idea how much sugar you eat in the course of a day? The amount might startle you — even if you don’t have a soda habit or a sweet tooth, per se.

Most people take in about 430 calories of added sugar every day. That’s a lot of waist-widening, nutrition-void sweetness! Here are three ways to add sweet without dipping into the sugar bowl.

3 Ways to Sweeten Stealthily

In your coffee pot: Brew your morning coffee with a cinnamon stick or vanilla bean and ditch the flavored creamers. Just 1 tablespoon of flavored creamer can add 6 grams of sugar.
On your breakfast: Maple syrup adds about 50 calories and 12 grams of sugar per tablespoon. For a little sweet, add fresh fruit or pure fruit purees to pancakes and waffles. Or even oatmeal.
In cookie recipes: You can generally get away with cutting the sugar by up to a third in recipes for cookies, cakes, or other baked goods. Try experimenting with a little less of the sweet stuff on your next batch of macaroons.
The Unsweet Truth

Extra calories in sugar often turn into extra pounds, but that’s not the worst of it. Studies suggest high sugar consumption could also increase the risk of heart disease and certain types of cancer — particularly pancreatic cancer.

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Worried About High Cholesterol?

Neutralize LDL with This Party Snack Cholesterol. You know it’s bad for your heart and arteries. But you could make it less bad with this crunchy party snack: almonds.

Turns out almonds not only improve cholesterol levels but also help make LDL — the bad cholesterol — less likely to oxidize. Which is great, because LDL can do scary things when it’s oxidized, like block arteries and cut blood flow to the heart.

Almond Joy

Because oxidized LDL is even more likely to gunk-up your arteries than the unoxidized kind, recent study results on almonds and LDL oxidation helped secure the nut’s position in a heart-healthy diet. When older adults with high cholesterol ate a daily handful of almonds as part of a 4-week cholesterol-friendly diet, not only did the nut eaters suffer less bad-for-the-arteries LDL oxidation, but their LDL levels took a nosedive as well. Pass the almonds, please!

Dance of the Antioxidants

Other good news for the almond eaters: The study subjects’ healthy (HDL) cholesterol rose. How do almonds do it? Researchers suspect that the vast array of flavonoids and phenols in the skins play a role — so be sure to buy whole almonds with the skins on. Those skin-based nutrients may react synergistically with other antioxidants in your body to produce the cholesterol-controlling effects.

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Just How Bad Is Alcohol For Weight Loss

If you need to lose weight, avoiding alcohol is a wise decision. Not only is alcohol packed with empty calories and devoid of any nourishment, but its inhibiting of your fat-burning and fat-storing hormones provides a double and triple whammy against all your weight loss efforts. If that’s not bad enough, it lowers your inhibitions and changes your decision-making processes, causing you to make poor food choices. If you have questions about weight loss contact our team today.

Alcohol Lowers Blood Sugar

Making poor food choices is easy to do when your inhibitions are lowered by drinking. In addition, alcohol lowers your blood sugar levels, thereby making you feel hungrier and much more likely to consume excess calories. Add this to the calories from the alcohol, and you’ll quickly see how bad alcohol is for weight loss.

Significance

Even worse, when your body is attempting to metabolize alcohol and food that have been consumed together, it will use the energy from the alcohol first and store the food as fat. Because the body perceives alcohol as a poison and because it cannot store the energy from alcohol, its first priority is to eliminate it, while digesting and processing the food becomes secondary. That means your meal gets stored and synthesized as fat while the alcohol gets burned off.

Considerations

Because the food you’ve consumed is being stored and not properly metabolized, the nutrition from that food is not being absorbed by your body. The vitamins and minerals you need to be healthy are not utilized. Without adequate nutrition, your body is less healthy and more likely to store fat.

Warning

Drinking alcohol, even in moderation, can make you sluggish and negatively affect your performance at the gym, if you even make it to the gym, that is. Initially, alcohol does provide energy to the body, but it is a sedative and will slow you down, even the next day, because although it’s a sedative, it hinders and prevents restful sleep, making you tired and lethargic. Your workouts will suffer from alcohol, foiling your attempts at weight loss.

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COMMON MISTAKES PEOPLE MAKE WHEN IT COMES TO WEIGHT LOSS

Weight loss is a goal that many people in Watchung aspire to, but not everyone reaches. Many don’t even make a dent, or end up gaining weight instead. Sometimes, these results are due to lack of motivation or poor initiative, but quite often the effort and determination are there, yet mistakes are being made that hinder the process. If you need help with weight loss in Watchung, contact our clinic today.

Counting Calories Incorrectly

Many weight loss gurus and nutritionists discourage counting calories, but if you choose that route anyway, make sure you count them correctly. Most people tend to overestimate their daily calorie requirements, taking in more than they need for successful weight loss. As an example, estimating 2,000 daily calories when 1,800 are actually what you need can keep an extra 20 pounds on your body. Those 200 calories per day don’t seem like much, but they add up.

Keeping the Exact Same Exercise Routine

Doing the same type of exercise day in and day out isn’t only boring, but it can cause you to hit plateaus that prevent additional weight loss. Try varying your routine to include interval training and circuit training that will rev up your calorie burning potential. Going for that moderate treadmill walk while chatting to a friend at the gym each day may be enjoyable, but it’s not your most effective weight loss option.

Ignoring Portion Sizes

One huge mistake many people make when losing weight is to adopt the belief that they can’t overeat if they are consuming healthy foods. This isn’t the case, and a lot of the time, you’ll end up consuming more calories than someone who isn’t concerned with eating healthy. Nutrients are important, but calories count, too. Eat slowly, chew your food well and stick to smaller portion sizes, no matter what you are eating.

Trying to Exercise a Poor Diet Away

One common thought among people that want to lose weight but don’t want to eat healthy foods, is that they can exercise away their dietary indiscretions. Eat what you want and then workout like a maniac to make it all better. This may work for a short time for someone with a speedy metabolism, but ultimately it will catch up to you and you will gain weight. Start with a nutritional approach and use exercise to refine your body and your weight.

Making Excuses

One of the biggest weight loss mistakes is making excuses for why you can’t lose weight. Some people blame their schedule or genetics or any other number of issues that is supposedly holding them back from being successful. If you are determined to lose weight, there is a way to make it happen, but making excuses for why it won’t isn’t the answer.

Our team at New Life Wellness & Weight Loss is here to help you with any questions you have. Feel free to contact us today.

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8 TIPS FOR STAYING HEALTHY AND HAPPY DURING THE HOLIDAYS

Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year’s – these are supposed to be times of celebration, togetherness, and happiness. Yet, they can bring challenges to our physical and emotional health.

New Life Wellness & Weight Loss in Watchung provides 8 tips for staying healthy and happy during this season of joy.

1. Eat well. It’s common to pack on 5-10 pounds during the holiday season, but there are ways you can eat both healthy and well! Know which foods are high in caloric content and low in nutrition. Don’t deprive yourself of such treats, but indulge in moderation. Eat smaller meals instead of “saving yourself” for one huge buffet. Opt for healthy options at home, and when visiting others, bring a healthy dish to share. Be careful of liquid calories, including alcoholic beverages.

2. Stay active. Exercise is just as important during the holidays as any other time of the year. You should be active at least four to five times a week, preferably with some aerobic exercise every day. The weather may be cold outside, but the winter offers additional fun, too! Ice skating, sledding, snow sprints – all of these can be great exercise. Enlist your loved ones to join you for quality bonding time.

3. Prevent illness and injuries. Colds and the flu are most prevalent in the winter in Watchung. Prevent them by washing your hands regularly and urging others to do the same. Stay warm by dressing in layers. Sprinkle sand or salt on icy patches. Watch young ones and assist the elderly, who are at increased risk of falls and other injuries during this time.

4. Check your heating system. Making sure your heating works and is safe. Carbon monoxide is a silent killer. Install a carbon monoxide detector and test it once a month. Keep grills and generators out of the house, and don’t run your car for long periods of time in the garage. Most residential fires also occur in the winter; never leave fireplaces, stoves, and candles unattended.

5. Travel safely. Whether you are going down the block or halfway across the world, follow extra precautions. Give yourself plenty of time in the additional holiday traffic. Never drink and drive. Be on the lookout for reports of extreme weather and heed warnings. If you’re traveling away from home, make sure to pack and take your medications. Know how to contact your doctor when you are away and have a medical problem, and where the local ER is.

6. De-stress. Holidays can be a stressful time. You may be working, and feel the stress of managing your work duties along with additional commitments to your friends and family. You may feel the financial stress of gifts and the interpersonal stress of conflicts. Try to anticipate sources of stress and develop a plan to manage them. This may involve committing to fewer get-togethers or setting a tighter budget. Don’t feel guilty; you have to take care of yourself before you can take of others.

7. Help others. Depression and suicidality increase during the holidays. Watch for signs of depression among your friends and family. Take an active role to support those in need. Invite those colleagues or friends who are alone over the holidays to spend them with you. Volunteer and give to those less fortunate.

8. Treat yourself. The holiday spirit is about helping others around you, but you also have to make time to take care of yourself. So treat yourself with something over the holidays. It may be something as simple as sleep. Wake up late and enjoy a day of rest; you need it. How about reading that book you’ve been meaning to for a long time, or getting a manicure or massage? Take the time to do the things that really make you happy.

I hope these Holiday tips have been helpful! From our team here at New Life Wellness & Weight Loss, have a wonderful Holiday with your family and friends!