Be Healthy About Weight Loss

The first thing to remember about weight loss is that being a size zero is only desirable - and possible without complicated and expensive surgery - if your body leans that way in the first place. While most of us think about food and gain ten pounds, there are those who think about exercise and need to have a cheeseburger to regain the calories.

It is hard to say whether it's worse to not be able to gain weight or to have a very hard time losing it. People on both ends of the discussion would point to the others and say they've got it easier.

For example, if you want to lose weight, you generally can, even if extreme methods are required. There is no surgery to help you keep on the pounds. At the same time, there are health negatives on both end of the equation, although being a little heavy is worse than being a little skinny, being a lot skinny is worse than being a little heavy.

The people who need to lose weight - not just the "I want to lose five pounds to look better in my string bikini people" but those in genuine need probably have it a little worse. While there are those who will point and assume anorexia on the part of those who cannot gain, the social criticism of overweight people is much stronger, with an attendant level of blame for getting that way in the first place.

Ironically, such attitudes on the part of the public and especially by the person who needs and wants to get healthier, can make the whole process that much harder. Blaming yourself and feeling that you need to be punished for the numbers on the scale or your waistband will not only lead to the inevitable seeking of "comfort food" but can also induce production of those same stress hormones that too much work and too little sleep flush into your system.

Stress is interesting. In the short term, it provides sort of a protective barrier. This is why people can run themselves ragged with 80-hour workweeks and never get sick. Over the long term however, it does damage, wears down the system and waits for you to relax to wreak havoc.

Stress will also induce very old chemical and hormonal reactions in our bodies that interpret impending attack, and start hoarding calories in case things go pear-shaped. Causing us to go pear-shaped.

The point of all this is that weight loss will not be achieved by punishing ourselves. That is far more likely to make everything worse by making weight loss more difficult and dropping us into a cycle of anger that causes significant problems.

The good news is that one of the keys to weight loss "exercise" releases good hormones and chemicals into the brain that make us feel better. As does eating the right food. So, weight loss can actually be improved not only by eating better, exercising and getting the proper nutrients, but also by taking a "healthier" attitude toward ourselves. And anyway, all those stress hormones are only fun for a little while.