Top 10 ways to lose weight and burn fat

1. Walk to work

If it is impossible to walk all the way to work, walk part of the way. If you catch the bus get off the a stop or two before your normal stop. If you drive, park away from the office, even if its just in the next street.

Get into good habits

The great advantage of walking to work is that it is an easy habit to maintain once you have found a way to establish it. Walking through a park or a pleasant or interesting suburb will help.

Deal with the challenges as they arise

Poor weather can be challenge. Be realistic and postpone your walk. Make a deal with yourself to continue as soon as the weather improves. We all get sick (although regular exercise like walking, should help you to avoid falling ill) so again, give yourself a break and vow to resume when you feel better.

 

2. Eat a large cereal breakfast

A large bowl of cereal keeps the nibbles at bay. Eating a healthy breakfast increases your metabolic rate earlier in the day. Just avoid the fatty cereals. Check the packet.

 

Are You Obese?

According to University of Melbourne professor of medicine, Joseph Proietto, exercise and diet programs maybe useless in helping the obese to lose weight without subsequently putting it back on again.

Studies, recently published in the Medical Journal of Australia, show that obese people who shed weight in the short term through diet and/or exercise regain most of the weight lost four to five years later. The researchers believe this weight 're-gain' is caused by hormonal changes as the body seeks to return to, what it considers to be, its normal weight. In effect, the bodies own hormones are actively working against the brain's efforts to stay healthy.

Professor Proietto has a fairly radical solution - surgery. To use the professors own words:

"..we must help the long-suffering obese in their struggle to maintain a reduced weight. In the absence of safe and effective pharmacological agents that can be used long-term, bariatric surgery (which can involve a plastic band being placed around the upper stomach to suppress appetite) is the most successful intervention for sustained weight loss."

Genetic factors are a known cause of obesity. However, genetic mutations could not have happened fast enough to explain the surge in obesity rates in recent decades. The Professor believes that genes have been switched on or off in response to environmental exposures in the womb or in early infancy. In the professor's view, this negative programming of genes, at these very early stages of a child's development, has caused the increased number of obese adults.

"We must focus our attention on primary prevention and stop children from becoming obese". A statement most of us would agree with even without the study.

Show me the evidence!

Overweight patients were treated with a very low energy diet or a structured weight loss program for a minimum of three years. Participants in the weight loss program lost an average of up to 22 per cent of their weight within the first two years. Within five years the weight loss had been reduced to between zero and 5.5 per cent

On the other hand, trials of bariatric surgery found weight reductions of between 21 per cent and 38 per cent up to 10 years after the surgery.

So should I have surgery?

Our advice is to wait, try to lose weight, and maintain that weight loss, by traditional means first. This is a new a study, we await the counter study or further research. Surgery should always be a last resort and you should certainly consult with your own doctor first.

 

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