Health Talk With Adeola

Welcome to another volume of Health Talk with Dr. Adeola. In this episode, she tackles ‘weight loss’.

May I implore our dear readers with successful weight loss stories to kindly share – so others can be encouraged, and/or emulate your achievements.

Enjoy.

Feb 2019

Hello everyone … it’s February already !

Let’s talk about Weight loss and special diet: the new ‘in thing’ and that which we are all either trying to lose or at least maintain..

I don’t intend to preach, I know it’s hard to get the balance right especially when it seems to be a struggle against nature (especially after kids for females 😀) and for both gender as we grow older.

Diet

The most important factor is what we eat; if we do not control this, all other modalities to achieve weight loss may be ineffective . In the simplest form weight gain or loss is the result of the difference in what comes in and comes out of our body : how much our body uses up for energy and what is left to be stored up as fat.

There are lots of diets advertised but whatever dietary methods is chosen, it is important to make sure it’s the right one and there aren’t any medical problems that can make the method harmful for the individual concerned.

We should also be aware that for some people, some medical conditions and/or medications make it more likely to gain weight or more difficult to lose weight. These group may need their doctors to prescribe weight loss medications to assist them in their efforts. However, weight loss medications are more likely to be effective with diet control.

The diet chosen should also be sustainable long-term: it should be a diet one enjoys and can incorporate into everyday meals at home rather than a short term one else there usually will be rebound weight gain after stopping – which is more demoralising than where one started from.

Exercise

Exercise is very useful for burning off what the body doesn’t need, toning up and also for cardiovascular fitness – which is important for overall body metabolism and a determinant of general health and fitness.

Some simple fitness routines can be incorporated into a busy schedule such as walking to the shops, taking the stairs etc. There are exercises that can be done without necessarily going to the gym or buying expensive gadgets and these are available freely over the internet.

Please note that attending a gym is great – because it affords access to structured programmes by fitness trainers but, inability to access the gym shouldn’t be a deterrent to achieving almost equally effective exercise and workouts.

An exercise routine also has to be simple enough to follow (simple doesn’t equate easy 😀)otherwise we won’t follow through …

We all aspire to maintain a healthy diet and to engage in regular exercises, we are in the race together and so we wish ourselves best of luck😊

Adeola