You’ve certainly heard the expression many times, “You are what you eat.” Have you ever really thought about what it means? And do you think about it when you’re making food choices?

In some ways, we do become what we eat, literally. Have you ever seen an example of your blood plasma after eating a fast food hamburger? What was previously a clear liquid becomes cloudy with the fat and cholesterol that’s absorbed from eating a high-fat hamburger.

And when you think about it, we also become what we don’t eat. When we switch from eating meat to a vegetarian-based diet, we become less fat, less prone to many types of cancers. Our cholesterol can improve. When we’re leaner and eating fewer animal products, then many other health and fitness issues are reduced. The incidence of Type II diabetes is reduced. Blood pressure falls into normal ranges. When you’re healthier, you’re taking fewer medications. Even if you have a prescription drug benefit in your health plan, you’re still saving money with fewer co-payments on medications.

If you have a family history of high cholesterol or high blood pressure, then it’s particularly incumbent on you to revise your eating habits. Moving towards a more vegetarian diet has been shown statistically to reduce the incidence of so many of the diseases of industrialized countries. Vegetarians are statistically healthier than omnivorous persons; they’re leaner and live longer.

Isn’t it time to think about what you want to be and to eat accordingly? Do you want to be sluggish and fat? Do you want the risk that goes with eating animal products, with their high fat content? Or do you want to look like and be what vegetarians are? Leaner and fitter with a longer anticipated lifespan. It’s never too late to change what you’re doing and increase your chances for a longer, fitter life.

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If you’ve eaten meat and animal products your whole life, you might think, why switch to a vegetarian diet? You’ve lived your whole life eating eggs, hamburgers, hot dogs, poultry, so why switch now?

There could be many reasons to switch. Start by looking in the mirror. Are you at a healthy weight? Do you look and feel good most of the time? Do you wake up energized? Or do you wake up tired and sluggish?

How is your general health? Is your blood pressure within a healthy range? Are your cholesterol and blood sugar ranges normal? If they’re not, consider what you’re eating on a daily basis.

How do you feel after eating? Do you feel energized, as if you’ve fed your body what it needs? Or are you tired and dragged out? Do you often need a nap after eating? Is that what food is supposed to do for us, make us tired and sleepy?

Not really. Food should nourish and feed the body and leave us energized and refreshed. The human body is a machine and needs fuel that keeps it running in peak condition. When we’re fat, with high blood pressure, Type II diabetes, high cholesterol and other unhealthy conditions, it’s like a car engine that hasn’t been tuned or isn’t running on the optimal type of gasoline it needs to run efficiently. Your body is the same way. It needs the right kind of fuel to run at peak efficiency, and when you’re eating high-fat meat, or meat that’s been fed antibiotics throughout its life, that’s simply not the kind of fuel the human body evolved to run on.

Try eating vegetarian for a week or a month. See if you don’t feel different, more mentally acute and more physically fit and energized. At least reverse the portion sizes you’ve been eating, and make meat more of a side dish, if you can’t stop eating meat altogether. Even that change can make a big difference in your overall health and well-being.

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Obesity is on the rise and the number of people with too much body fat is higher than ever. A human body consists of fat, water, carbohydrates, protein, vitamins and minerals. When the amount of fat is too high then you are at higher risk of serious medical problems like heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes.

When you have excess fat in your body it raises your cholesterol and triglyceride levels. It can also raise your blood pressure and increase your risk of diabetes. The risk of heart disease is significantly higher when you are obese. In fact a person that is obese may have double the risk of having a major heart attack or a stroke.

When a person consumes more calories than they burn then those calories turn into stored fat. This causes a person to become overweight and may lead to obesity. When there is too many calories consumed that contain a lot of cholesterol and saturated fats the cholesterol levels in the blood increase. This increase of cholesterol will increase the risk of heart disease.

How do you know if you are obese?

Body fat is measure by both body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference. If your waistline is more than 35 inches for women and more than 40 inches for men then you are at a high risk of becoming obese.

The BMI is the body weight in comparison to the persons height. This is calculated by taking the body weight (in pounds) and dividing it by the height (in inches) squared then multiply this by 703.

Here are the levels of body mass index calculations:

18.5 or less is considered as being underweight

18.5 to 24.9 is considered a healthy weight range

25.0 to 29.9 is considered as being overweight

30.0 or higher is considered as being obese

40.0 or higher is considered as extreme obesity.

How to reduce or prevent obesity:

1. Add some exercise into your daily routine, even if you start out with something simple such as walking for 30 minutes a day. If you can’t exercise every day then try to exercise at least three to four times a week.

2. Reduce the amount of time you spend doing activities sitting down, such as watching TV or time on the computer.

3. Make fitter choices, such as taking the stairs instead of the lift.

4. Eat a healthy, nutritious diet that is low in fat. Include lots of fruit and vegetables in your diet.

5. Reduce the amount of food consumed each day by making your proportions smaller.

It is easiest to prevent obesity but if you are already obese it isn’t too late to get back to a healthy weight range. To live longer and have a healthier and more active life, try the above tips to get yourself to a healthy weight and stay at a healthy weight. Having a healthy weight range is the best choice for avoiding those serious conditions, such as heart disease and stroke, which you are at higher risk at by being overweight.

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The question of the best way to lose weight varies from person to person. That’s because everybody is different, and what works for somebody else, may not be all that effective for you. However, it’s all about calories. If two people burn more calories than they take in, following reasonable guidelines, they should both lose weight; it’s just that they probably won’t lose the same amount, or lose it at the same rate.

Then there is also the fact that people already have their own habits, attitudes and level of health. This will make how you respond to a particular diet different from the way others may respond. It will also determine, to a large extent, how well you stick to the details of whichever diet you choose as your best way to lose weight.

You need to look at any diet carefully before you decide to try it. A lot of diets rely on a gimmick of some kind or another to hook people in. A gimmick is there for two reasons. First, it’s an attempt to make it unique; to suggest that it’s something you haven’t tried before, but could really work…this time. Second, gimmicks are designed to hide the boring truth about weight loss. That truth is that the only way to lose weight is to burn more calories than you take in. But let’s face it, a diet that just said that wouldn’t sell, regardless of how effective it was.

Okay, there are a lot of fad diets out there, but there are also a lot of diets based on sound nutrition, too. Those are the diets you should be choosing from. Look into them to see if they let you eat a wide variety of foods, as that’s always a sure sign of a healthy diet. Some diets work by severely reducing certain foods; the low-carb diets, for example. And it’s true that you could lose weight by following them, but weight is only one small part of the bigger health picture. While the idea of eating all the meat and fat you like may sound appealing, the risk of clogged arteries, high cholesterol and heart disease are not appealing.

When you are comparing diet plans, you also need to be realistic. You know what foods you like, which ones you can tolerate, and which ones you don’t like at all. If the diet is heavy on the foods you don’t like, then it’s probably a good idea to move on to one that you’ll be able to stick to. In other words, don’t let the promises of a diet plan convince you that you will somehow start liking foods you can’t stand.

Instead, find a diet that focuses on the foods you love. There is a wide variety of diet plans, so you can be sure there is one that is the best way to lose weight for you. It may take a bit of searching, or you may get lucky and find one right away. Either way, take advantage of it as soon as you find it…once you start seeing positive results, you’ll be glad you did.

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