If being in a healthy shape for personality and aesthetic reasons is not one of the best ways to convince you to put on your work out shorts then how about the fact that your extra pounds are gradually yet effectively subtracting years from your life span. A healthy weight is directly proportional to a healthy and happy well-being but for over-weight people, sustenance can be challenging as their added pounds open gates to severe chronic health conditions.
Through this article we put forth some of the chronic health risks that more often than not arise due to uncontrolled weight gain. But before we proceed discussing about what happens when we add extra pounds, it only makes sense to know what it is that we do, which makes most of us fall in the category of the over-weight or the obese.
It is true that gene factor also determines our body structure and weight but it can be controlled, provided we control our daily habits and diet. Some of the key causes that make us put on excess of weight are:
- Superfluous indulgence in convenient fast foods and sugary treats
- Addiction to food and when we start to see food as a cope up mechanism from emotional imbalance (stressed eating)
- Being lethargic
- Side effect of certain medicines
- Increased levels of insulin
Following are the health risks that we contract due to being over-weight.
Hypertension
More commonly known as High Blood Pressure, it is the force at which blood hits against arterial walls when your heart pumps. If this force or pressure rises and stays so over time, it means that you have high blood pressure, which can affect your health in ways more than one.
How does weight gain cause hypertension?
If you are overweight or obese then your heart will have to pump harder in order to transport blood to all of the cells in your body thereby, resulting in hypertension.
Coronary Heart Disease
It is a chronic condition whereby a waxy substance called plaque builds up inside your coronary arterial walls. These arteries are responsible for transporting oxygen-rich blood to your heart and when plaque starts to build up inside them; your arteries narrow down or get blocked. As a result of this, blood does not flow smoothly as it would have otherwise. Consequently, it deprives your heart muscle of oxygen it needs to function and causes angina, heart failure, or a heart-attack.
How does weight gain cause CHD?
Being overweight increases your risk of contracting hypertension, high cholesterol and high blood sugar levels. All these conditions impact your heart health adversely.
Stroke
A stroke occurs when blood flow to a part of brain stops causing your brain cells to die out. Ischemic stroke is the most common type of stroke that occurs as a result of a blood clot blocking artery that transports blood to the brain. Haemorrhagic stroke on the other hand occurs due to bursting of a blood vessel in the brain.
How does weight gain cause stroke?
Just as in the above mentioned conditions, increase weight results in high blood pressure, one of the major causes of getting strokes.
Besides the aforementioned, type 2 diabetes, fatty-liver disease, pregnancy issues and kidney problems are some of the other health problems caused in overweight people.
How can I prevent myself from becoming overweight?
The above mentioned are fatal illnesses that the overweight and the obese are at maximum risk of contracting and therefore, the key to a healthy, long life is to maintain a healthy weight. Following solutions are some of the most conventional, highly talked about and undoubtedly effective ways to attaining a perfect body shape.
Maintain a diet low on calorie and high on nutritional value.
Make sure your daily diet includes at least 2 serves of fruits and at least 5 serves of vegetables.
Keep yourself physically active. Run, jog, swim, cycle, do whatever liberates your mind and promotes your physical fitness.
Performing certain poses of non-exhaustive form of exercise, yoga, can help curb sugar cravings and appetite.
Increase your fibre intake. This will help keep you feel fuller for longer thereby, preventing you from indulging in frequent snacking.
In case of sedentary jobs, make sure you get enough work out. Keep taking breaks of 5 to 10 minutes every hour or two to climb up and down your office staircase or stretch.
Invest in superfood supplements such as Green Coffee Pure and Garcinia Cambogia Pure that have recently shot to fame as effective supplements to manage weight.
