When I go to my physician for my yearly check up, she always suggests that I should lose some weight even thought according to the growth chart they have been keeping since I popped out of the womb says that I'm only a little above the average for my age and height. She says that this chart is based on American standards, standards that are much higher then others in the world. The average caloric consumption, she says, is between 3,000- 4,000 calories, twice the calories needed for everyday life. Now shes not talking about athletes like Michael Phelps where he consumes 12,000 calories a day xD Pro Athletes can eat that much because they burn it all off during their training.
So if we are consuming double the calories needed, the excess is tucked away in fat cells. What most people don't know about is that fat cells excrete a hormone called Leptin. It is responsible for giving off the feeling that you're always hungry. So if you accumulate too much excess nutrients, the larger the fat cell gets, and the more leptin it releases causing you to always be hungry (Broad Insitiute). This leads to over eating and the cycle continues.
obese mouse on left, normal healthy mouse on right.
Its not just that fat cells make you hungry all the time if they get bigger but the strain put on your heart to pump blood to the rest of the body is to much. This increases the risk of a heart attack so the heart is more likely to fail. Breathing also becomes a problem. Too much weight is pushing against the lungs when they are trying to expand to intake air. When sleeping, the weight acts as a counter weight to the lungs expanding. This can lead to sleep apnea, where there are short periods of time when you cant breath. Over time, sleep apnea leads to brain tissue death.
weight gain is a problem. i know that ever since my dad came to America he gained a lot of weight so much so that he now has a "buddha belly" what caucasian people might call a beer belly. he didn't immediately gain all that weight because he was in the army, and he had never put on any weight in the philippines because he was always so active. after he left the army, there was no need for him to eat so much but he kept his eating habits. filipinos are known to eat as if they haven't eaten in days. i for one, am guilty of that because that is how i was raised. being in america, where there is an abundance of food, you can never go hungry but we are just so used to eating this way and it's hard to stop. i know that once i start exercising less that i will have to change my eating habits. i can no longer have eating contests with my friends on a meal to meal basis for it will turn into glutony.
ReplyDelete