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Regular physical activity is an important part of effective weight control. It helps to control your weight by using excess calories that otherwise would be stored as fat. Exercise also helps prevent many…

Losing weight and keeping it off is not easy. Before you get started on a weight loss program, consider the following tips. They should help you reach your goal of obtaining and…

One out of every three Americans is overweight, and more children are considered obese today than ever before. But, you don’t have to resign yourself to being overweight. There are many steps…

What is obesity?

The definition of obesity varies depending on what one reads, but in general, it is a chronic condition defined by an excess amount body fat. A certain amount of body…

The balance between calorie intake and energy expenditure determines a person’s weight. If a person eats more calories than he or she burns, the person gains weight (the body will store the excess energy…

 
• Race. Racial factors may influence the age of onset and the rapidity of weight gain. African American women and Hispanic women tend to experience weight gain earlier…

Phentermine

phentermine (the other half of fen/phen) suppresses appetite by causing a release of norepinephrine by the cells. phentermine alone is still available for treatment of obesity, but only on a short-term basis (a…

Measuring a person’s body fat percentage can be difficult, therefore, other methods are relied on to diagnose obesity. Two widely used methods are weight-for-height tables and body mass index (BMI). While both measurements…

All too often, obesity prompts a strenuous diet in the hopes of reaching the “ideal body weight.” Some amount of weight loss may be accomplished, but the lost weight usually quickly…

The National Institute of Health consensus has suggested the following guidelines for surgery in obese patients:

 
• Patients with a BMI of greater than…

Despite claims by manufacturers, the use of OTC products alone does not cause weight loss. Herbal weight loss products or preparations called “fat burners” are even more misleading. These products may contain a…

The first goal of dieting is to stop further weight gain. The next goal is to establish realistic weight loss goals. While the ideal weight is…

Researchers at UC Davis are studying how genes influence the amount of arachidonic acid (a fatty acid important in the synthesis of prostaglandins in the body) in the liver and muscle…

Almost any of the commercial weight-loss programs can work, but only if they motivate you sufficiently to decrease the amount of calories you eat or increase the amount of calories…

No matter how young at heart we may be, Old Father Time still counts down on the granules of our life expectancy. As we age, we become less able…

A new study conducted in Europe and published last month in the online edition of the International Journal of Cancer—the official journal of the International Union Against Cancer—found that in postmenopausal…

When we discover that we are heavier than we want to be, we have a natural inclination to eat less food. We may skip lunch or eat only a tiny amount of…

Reaching your fat loss goals may be easier than you think. To lose a pound of fat a month, all you need to do is cut 100 calories…

Habits, good or bad, are formed by repetition. Eating habits are no exception. If you are in the habit of snacking when you watch TV, you were reinforcing that habit until finally it became a…

If you want to reduce your body fat, focus on increasing the amount of exercise you get rather than decreasing your food intake. A recent national study was done using two groups…

“The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.”
~~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Q: How do I know how many calories I should consume?
A: To determine your approximate caloric needs, you can easily compute your basal metabolic rate. This is the number…

Q: What causes someone to become obese?

A: The core reason most people become overweight or obese is fairly simple: by taking in more calories than are burned on a daily basis. Those surplus…

Here’s the bottom line: one pound is equivalent to 3,500 calories. Whether by making slight changes to your diet like the ones listed below or exercising, a deficit…

If you are unable to use the BMI calculator, or if you are interested in how BMI is calculated, this page has the mathematical formulas. You can calculate BMI using either feet,…