New Year's Resolution: Lose Weight and Have More Energy!
It’s the New Year and aside from making more money the biggest concern for most people is to lose weight, have more energy and become healthier. It’s unfortunate, but two-thirds of Americans are overweight and struggling with various health complaints such as fatigue, arthritis, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, hot flashes, insomnia, and depression. What’s even more surprising is that according to a university study the most overweight group in America are Christians.
That revelation is alarming when you consider scripture teaches us that our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). My only question is how are we taking care of our temple? Statistics show that obesity and their health related problems associated with the extra weight has now exceeded the financial expense that smoking and their associated health related problems has done to our society.
The Diet and Exercise Paradigm
Get Our Latest News for FREE
For years, the common thinking was less calories equaled less weight. Others have taught that the amount of fats or carbohydrates in your diet was the answer. Exercise has always been part of the answer, but what type of exercise? Do we do low or high intensity exercise? Is weight training necessary or can I get by with only aerobic exercise? The only thing we know for sure is that for the last 30 plus years, we’ve become more overweight, more people are struggling with diabetes, including our kids. The number of people struggling with heart disease, asthma, arthritis, depression, insomnia (and the list goes on) has only increased.
Our obesity problem is more than simple diet and exercise. People have been dieting and exercising for years and are still struggling with their weight which tells us there is another piece to the puzzle. The other piece of the puzzle that is often overlooked is stress and how it triggers various hormones to either burn or store fat. Stress has become a number one problem here in America and many people consider themselves under too much stress. Our lives have become so fast-paced, so go-go, so little time to relax and enjoy life. Stress is a huge part of this whole weight loss problem because of the hormones it produces.
Many hormones in our body are designed to burn fat, other hormones are designed to store fat, still other hormones are designed to burn carbohydrates and proteins. The question we need to start asking is which hormones is our body producing more of? Are we producing more of the storing or burning hormones?
Asking the Right Questions
I’ve heard you don’t need to have the right answer – if you don’t ask the right question. Merely looking at the number of calories you consume or burn doesn’t take into consideration whether or not your body is burning calories from stored body fats. Our body was designed to burn calories for the production of energy from either fats, carbohydrates or protein. So when you get off that treadmill or stair-stepper and the machine says you burned 300 calories…does that mean you burned 300 calories from stored body fat? You could have easily burned those calories from the breakdown of lean muscle tissue, which is common. Whatever the case, to simply believe you burned 300 calories from stored body fat may not be accurate. Counting calories and fat grams and carbohydrates doesn’t take into consideration how your metabolism is functioning and whether or not you are staying in your fat-burning zone throughout the day.
Determining if you are staying in your “fat-burning” zone throughout the day is relatively simple. Ask yourself, do you struggle with cravings? Low blood sugar? Midmorning or afternoon slumps? Do you become irritable or lightheaded if meals are missed or delayed? Do you need to eat every 2-3 hours to maintain your blood sugar levels? Do you have a hard time ‘staying’ asleep?
If you answered “yes” to a couple of these questions that’s an obvious signal that your metabolism is not functioning the way it was designed and is not burning fats for energy. Instead, your hormones which regulate your metabolism are triggering your body to burn carbohydrates and proteins for energy. This is a common problem and another reason why so many people struggle with fatigue: they are not burning the right type of fuel for energy. When you burn fats for energy, you get more than two and a half times more energy than you do when you burn carbohydrates and proteins.
To successfully lose weight and keep it off you need to regulate and balance those hormones so your metabolism will function the way it was designed to. When you do that you restore normal metabolic function, you get back in that “fat-burnin”’ zone and your body will start burning those unwanted pounds. We’ve gone thousands of years without the need of counting calories, fats or carbohydrates in our diet. It’s more than simple diet and exercise.
We’ll talk more about the specifics in the weeks to come but if you want to learn more let me encourage you to listen to our radio show, “Action Steps for Health,” or get a copy of my book, “To Burn or Not to Burn, Fat is the Question” If you want to see if you are in your ‘fat-burning” zone, I invite you to take our “online health quizzes” that you can find on www.DrLenLopez.com
________________________________________________
Dr. Len Lopez is the author to “To Burn or Not to Burn, Fat is the Question” and host of “Action Steps for Health.” To learn more about health and wellness go to www.HealthTipsWithDrLen.com.
