Surprising weight gain culprits !!!

Food and exercise aren't the whole diet story. A slew of stealthy, often surprising weight gain culprits could be causing the scale to creep upward. Beware!!!!

Artificial sweeteners.
A recent Purdue University study compared two sets of rats: those fed liquid spiked with saccharin, others fed liquid sweetened with natural sugar. When both groups were later given a sugary snack, the rats accustomed to artificial sweeteners ate more. "Our bodies have ways of judging how many calories a food has from how it tastes, and artificial sweeteners may mess up that natural regulating process," says Susan Swithers, PhD, associate professor of psychological sciences at Purdue and one of the study's lead authors.

 The solution: "We're not suggesting you give up your diet soda at this point," Swithers says. But if you consume artificially sweetened products, pay extra attention to the calorie count of everything you eat, especially snacks with real sugar.

Missing meals.
Research shows that people who eat breakfast are less likely to be overweight, and that morning meals seem to help those who've lost weight keep it off. It's not just breakfast, either: Skipping meals of any kind results in a "tremendous bout of compensatory hunger."

 The solution: Eat small meals throughout the day. A steady nutrient intake will keep your blood sugar relatively constant, helping prevent out-of-control binges.

Dining out.
We tend to eat more when we dine out.

The solution: Eating out is fine, as long as you don't use it as a frequent license to indulge. Choose your entrees wisely, and share your meal!!!!

Would you tell a friend they are Fat ?

Have you heard of Steve Miller ? If you have not, he’s the presenter of the English TV show Fat Families. Recently he was slammed for his new project "Warn A Friend They're Fat Day" . He designated the day as the day for Britons to tell a close friend or relative ( who could handle the information) , that they are overweight. It don’t end there, the person would then offer to become an exercise buddy to facilitate weight loss. Miller claims that this could eventually save thousands of lives. The thought is not bad right?  but………

“The plus-size community” were pretty pissed! I can understand why, it could be quite embarrassing & humiliating. Rational was: wouldn't someone who’s already fat be aware of it herself? If she/he wants to do something about it, don’t you think she would already have done that? Rivkie Baum, the editor of plus-size fashion magazine 'Slink' was so disgusted with #Warn A Friend They're Fat Day that she and a group of fellow plus-size campaigners launched a counter movement called #Tell A Friend They're Fab.

She said “ If someone does want to lose weight, the only way they will reach their goal, is if they want it. Anyone who wants your help losing weight, they will ask for it - then is your time to step up. But if that doesn't happen, appreciate that their body is their business and use #youarefab to remind each other of the reason you're friends in the first place.''

Steve Miller thought  #youarefab is equally dangerous.  “Because what they are saying is you are OK to be fat and fabulous.  That is completely wrong in my opinion.  You are basically saying to someone, stay fat and you might die early and that is fine. That is wrong.' 

Well I don't think Baum is trying to say all that. Though I am an advocate of weight loss I have to agree with Rivkie Baum in saying: we should respect other people’s choices, if they have not come for help, don’t infringe & butt out of others business especially regarding sensitive issues. How would you feel if people start telling you what you should do, eat or act? Wouldn’t you get annoyed too?

Celebrity weight Gain from pregnancies :Jessica Simpson

Few celebs have caught as much criticism for weight gain as Jessica Simpson. The singer gained a great deal of weight with all her pregnancies unlike most celebrity starlets the weight did not disappear instantly. She worked hard and got the weight back down but not before several pictures of a slightly plump frame caused her to be called fat by the media.

Celebrity weight gain for roles: Haley Joel Osment

Haley Joel Osment won the hearts of the world for his unparalleled performance in The Sixth Sense. But now the 26 year old is unrecognizable as he prepared to play a Nazi in an upcoming movie Yoga Hoosiers. He has gained quite a bit of weight and has transformed his appearance for the role. It’s good to know that his dedication to his acting continues.

Is air-conditioning making us FAT ???

I'm sure many of you have at least experience sauna once. What it does is to make you sweat it out, & hopefully you lose some weight & clear the skin a little. Then there's hot yoga- it's like normal yoga +1...haha... yes if you don't sweat while doing the normal yoga because you probably are having your class in some nice cool place, hot yoga is the opposite! It's Yoga exercises performed in hot and humid conditions. Due to the heat, Hot Yoga really make you sweat,  it also rapidly enhance flexibility and improves blood circulation.

So the idea is to sweat it out, but we often do not have the chance to do just that! I sleep in an air-con room. I wake up , eat my breakfast get into my car ON the air-con & zoom to work. My office is big with full blast air-coning. Comes lunch,  most days I do not entertain the thought of going to the humble hawker center & sweat it out with the rest. IN actual fact you don't find the hot & humid hawker center in town anymore. They have been replaced by air conditioned food courts ! Which brings me back to something I was thinking of, is staying too much indoors with air-conditioning indirectly making us FAT ?

Living in constantly comfortable temperatures, the body do not have to work to keep cool or warm. Body gets lazy, fats accumulate & before you know it, you have a tummy, your thighs grew a little larger & your ass a little fatter !

Celebrity Weight Gain and Loss For Movie Roles: Renee Zellweger

She gained 30 pounds in 2001 to play the part of Bridget Jones in both Bridget Jones’s Diary and again for the 2004 sequel, yet somehow she was able to take it all back off after filming–twice. Amazing !!!!

Imagine anything sweet & sugary being tax extra !!!

Well don't laugh, this could happen - thankfully not here!!!  If the Chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies of UK could have her way, UK will be the first nation to impose a sugar tax on calorie-laden food and fizzy drinks.

Recently she warned that the nation's obesity epidemic crisis is now so severe that today's children will possibly have a lower life expectancy than their parents' generation.  The idea that sugar, rather than fat, causes both obesity and diabetes is gaining support among diet and health experts. Sugar is now called  'the new tobacco', & is being blamed for a range of health problems and early death.

The typical Briton consumes 12 teaspoons of sugar a day and some adults consume as many as 46. I’m serious, that’s what the report said ! I’m rather shocked by these numbers as well. Currently just over a quarter of adults in UK are obese.  But experts say this figure is expected to more than double by 2050.

Dame Sally Davies argued that increasing the prices of certain products, particularly fruit juice and fizzy drinks, could be the only way to change the public's poor diet. She did not specify how much tax would be added to sweet food and drinks, it could be around 20 per cent- suggested by experts.

It was also believed that clothing manufacturers had kinda “normalized obseity by changing their dress sizes so the public would not realise they were getting fatter. A woman who fitted in to size 14 clothes now would actually have been a size 16 in the 1970s.

There is also the fear that today's children could be the first to have lower life expectancies than their parents. The average life expectancy has increased over the generations due to better standards of living and medical advances but obesity threatens to reverse this trend. That is of great concern. Scary Right? Hmmmm......