Yo[u]Value | Online Self Help and Improvement

There is a staggering number of people in the United States of America who are overweight. Obesity is a disease that affects about a third of adults age 20 and over in the United States, which amounts to more than 72 million people. About 33.3 percent of American men and about 35.3 percent of American women are obese. The number of overweight and obese Americans has increased almost continuously since 1960.

There are a number of dangerous health problems that overweight people are prone to:

• high blood pressure
• type 2 diabetes
• heart disease
• stroke
• gallbladder disease
• cataracts
• age-related macular degeneration (AMD)
• breast cancer
• prostate cancer
• colon cancer

Even lesser known health risks of being obese include:

• asthma
• complications with pregnancy
• infertility
• Parkinson’s disease

You don’t have to be skinny to reduce these risks. If maintained, even weight losses as small as 10 percent of body weight can improve your health.

According to the Rand Corporation, almost 7 million adults were morbidly obese in 2005 which is defined as having a body mass index of 40 or higher. Body mass index (BMI) is a good indicator, because it correlates pretty well with the amount of body fat a person has. BMI is a formula that calculates the ratio between height and weight:

To measure your BMI using inches:

(pounds of weight / [inches of height]2) x 703 = BMI

For example, if your weight is 170 lbs. and your height is 5’6″ (66″), then the calculation is:

(170 ÷ 662) x 703 = 27.4

To measure your BMI using meters:

kilograms of weight / meters of height2

For example, if your weight is 75 kg and your height is 162 cm (1.62 m), then the calculation is:

75 ÷ 1.622 = 28.6

The following is a small table that outlines the BMI ranges and their correlating weight status:

Below 18.5 – Underweight
18.5 – 24.9 – Normal
25.0 – 29.9 – Overweight
30.0 – 39.9 – Obese
40.0+ – Morbidly Obese

So, what can we do about this? Exercise? Diet? Those words are far easier to think and say than they are to do. After I did my BMI calculation, I found that I was just a little bit overweight according to the BMI table above. I am willing to bet that I am about as equally unexcited about dieting and exercise as someone who is overweight or obese. However, the facts don’t lie. Too much weight means risk of poor health or even death. Not to mention, society has never taken very kindly to the overweight and the obese. It’s not right, but it is certainly reality. Even with all these bad things, it is still hard for us to go through the pains of exercise or the dissatisfaction of diet foods and, as if there needed to be more bad news, it typically costs more to each “healthy” than it does to eat the cheap food and junk food.

The things we have in our control for losing weight are what we eat, how much we eat, the type of activity we do, and the amount of activity we do. If you can’t eat healthier foods, you can change the amount of the food you eat. If you are overweight or obese, it is possible to lose a significant amount of weight simply be decreasing the amount that is eaten. This is true to a degree. In some cases, eating less can actually cause you to gain weight because your body things it is starving and tries to store fat.

Ok, so if we don’t change the type or amount of food, we can make it a habit to be more active, but what are the best activities to do? I suppose it mostly depends on what your life allows for. Some prefer walking or running. Some get exercise tapes to watch and workout to.

Ultimately, we can narrow this down to two basic things; eat better and be more active. But, even if we make it that simple, it is still hard to get started and even harder to stick with it.

I recently found a website that might be a big help to many people. This guy has figured out which foods can actually burn fat. Some of these foods you would never guess to be fat burning foods. He has also devised exercises that are easy to do and stick with. It does take at least a little bit of will power on your part, but he even has ways to make it easier to stick with a plan for a healthier, leaner, and more sculpted body.

There are free video presentations at http://www.gettabettabody.info for men and women. His name is Mike Geary and his system has been used by over a quarter of a million people all over the world. Go take a look and see if it is right for you.

Until next time, good luck and I wish you well.

Stress can be a killer.  No, literally, stress can not only increase your chances of getting sick and have negative mental and physical side-effects, but it can actually bring you to your end before your due time.  There are a number of ways to relieve stress and there are many good resources both online and offline.  However, you don’t need to go and buy a bunch of books and you don’t need to consult a therapist.  That stuff costs money and money tends to be a root cause to stress both directly and indirectly.

One great way to relieve stress is to find something to do that brings you peace, joy, happiness, or any combination of those.  This may seem like an easy task, but it is much harder than some might think.  For many people, enjoyment of anything can lead to feelings of guilt or anxiety.  The best thing to keep in mind, if you are one of the unlucky who feel guilt or anxiety over doing something fun or enjoyable for yourself, is that there is nothing wrong with taking some time for you to do something that you like to do.  Yes, there are people who take this a bit too far and go to the other extreme where they spend too much time on pleasing themselves which can lead to actual neglect for other important things in life.  It is important to have a little discipline and moderation with anything. 

There are other types of people who are so busy that it seems hard for them to justify the personal time out for a small piece of personal enjoyment.  It is important to remember again that stress is unhealthy.  Less stress means better health.  Better health means better life.  Taking a little time for yourself is highly important in the pursuit of a better life.

There are ways to think your way out of stress.  Many times, people suffer from what I like to call “spilled milk syndrome”.  It is easy to get caught up in the stress that comes from thinkgs you cannot control or events that have already occurred.  It is often best to work your way through a stressful situation by realizing what can and cannot be done.  For the things that are outside of your control, you must bring yourself to a point of acceptance so you can get to the next step.  The perfect example is spilled milk.  You cannot un-spill the milk.  It happened, it sucks, but unless you can go back in time to prevent it, there is nothing you can do.  You can move forward though.  The spill can be cleaned up.  You can get more milk. 

The spilled milk scenario may seem a bit childish or silly, but you can put this mentality to use for just about any stressful situation.  Identify what can and cannot be dealt with and keep on moving forward.   The reason this mentality works is because, if you let your mind become wrapped up in what could have or should have happened, you freeze.  Your mind stays focused on something that cannot be changed and this makes it difficult or sometimes impossible to recover.  many times, spending too much time focused on things that cannot be controlled or changed that it makes the situation worse and more stressful.  In the spilled milk example,  you are crying over the fact that the milk spilled and thinking about how it happened and why it happened and so on, meanwhile, the mlik is soaking into the floor deeper and wider and getting into cracks that cannot be reached.  If the part that can be dealt with is handled right away, then the significance of the problem is reduced and thus the stress of it all is reduced.  OK, enough of the spilled milk.

In short, do what can be done and accept that which cannot be done.  Stress dissolves easier when you think this way.  I hope this helps.   If you have some tips on stress relief, we would sure like you to share. 

Take care!

This information has been circling around for a number of years now. The powers that be seem to be in a tussle over the facts about whether or not certain chemicals leak into our food and water as a result of heating or freezing the plastic containers that hold them. Plasticizers such as DEHA and another chemical known as BHP along with other chemicals considered to be carcinogens are said, by some officials, to be very costly to our health and in some cases are cancer causing agents.

An interview on NPR (National Public Radio) mentioned that Whole Foods is one of the only markets for groceries that provides their goods in packages and containers that are free of these chemicals.  I will be looking deeper into this to find out not only the validity to this, but also I will try to get a list of other food providers who offer the same.

I would also like to get more details about how dangerous these chemicals really are and how much risk are we really taking by microwaving and freezing our foods in plastic containers.  If anyone has some good resources for this information, please comment on this.

In the end, it is better and more “green” to get away from the use of platics, but our society and industries make it aweful difficult to do so.  Plastic is everywhere and it is in everything.  I would hate to think that we have surrounded ourselves with a toxic killer.

More to come on this subject…

Fear is often one of the biggest if not the biggest obstacles in our lives.  I found a neat article that touches on this very topic.  You can check it out here .  The most common solutions to overcoming fears seem to be understanding your fears and then finding a way to face them or deal with them.

A great example of this conquering of fear is my personal experience of riding roller coasters.  I used to tense up and tighten my stomach and shake with nervousness before the ride even started.  At the point at which the roller coaster speeds downward, I always felt as though I was going to just explode.  Between the muscles all over my body being tense and my insides shaking with fear, I am surprised that I never lost my lunch during and after the ride.

Once, I went on a trip with some friends and bravely seated myself in a roller coaster cart accompanied by one of my friends.  I stayed tense before, during, and after the ride.  However, I noticed something about my friend right as the roller coaster began to speed downward.  He was completely relaxed and even had a little boyish grin on his face.  My brain managed to process this and I quickly formulated the theory that, if you remain relaxed, maybe the downward falling feeling you get would be decreased.  Since I was in the perfect laboratory to test my theory, I quickly made my way to the next available roller coaster.

To my shock and amazement, when I forced myself to stay as relaxed as possible, the downward speeding roller coaster had a very enjoyable effect.  I think I rode nothing but roller coasters the rest of that day; even the ones where you have to stand up and go upside down.  Some of which I could never bring myself to do before.  I rode these with great ease and enjoyment.

I think it might work the same in many other parts of our lives.  If you can bring yourself to keep a clear and relaxed mind and body, a situation that was once fearful may be tackled with greater ease.  I have walked through life with this knowledge and found it to be … mostly true.  Some fears are rather large, but I won’t give up.  I hope you don’t either.

I’d like to hear from other people on their fears and how they were able to overcome them.  I’m sure it could help others and I would love to see a good discussion on this.  Please feel free to comment on this topic.