Keep the Weight On and Look at All the
We are a nation of “fat cats” in more ways than one. As the prosperity level of the people in the U.S. have grown, so have our waistlines. A CDC study finds that over the past 25 years, obesity rates have increased to 34% of U.S. adults over age 20. It seems we are a rapidly “spreading” nation and if we continue to ignore warnings to lose the weight, the following are some “highs” we have to look forward to.
Higher Blood Pressure. It has been shown that being overweight leads directly to high blood pressure. This is due in part because when you are overweight, the kidneys are being squashed by body fat. The kidneys are responsible for regulating your blood pressure. When they are being compressed by fat, they need to be fed with a higher blood pressure. With high blood pressure, you can look forward to heart attack, stroke, heart failure, kidney failure and impotence. A weight loss of just 10% of the weight gained since you were 18 can reduce your blood pressure quickly and dramatically.
Higher Cholesterol. A high level of the “bad” cholesterol (LDL) (and low level of “good” cholesterol (HDL)) causes your arteries to be gunked up and prevents the blood from flowing freely. While genetics can dictate some of your cholesterol level, a lot depends on you physical activity levels and poor food choices, such as trans and saturated fats, simple sugar and too many calories. These same factors that affect your cholesterol are also the ones that affect weight loss (or weight gain as the case may be). The more poor food choices are made, the fatter we get, the “bad” cholesterol builds up and stops the blood flow, which causes stroke, memory loss, impotence, wrinkled skin, and a host of other problems attributed to blood flow malfunctions. Now isn’t that something you want to look forward to as you age.
Higher Blood Sugar. We may think that just because we don’t have diabetes, that our blood sugar level is fine and we don’t have to worry about the food that goes into our mouths. But that would be a mistake. Even with normal blood sugar levels, your blood sugar fluctuates and may rise significantly throughout the day as you eat. High blood sugar weakens the lining of your arteries, weakens your immune system and prevents oxygen from getting to your tissues. Overweight men and women are 12 times more likely to develop diabetes than their counterparts that have normal weights. Although often thought of as a purely genetic disease, type 2 diabetes is largely affected by our environment (our lifestyle, our behaviors, what we eat, whether we exercise or not) much more than our genes. Diabetes ages you one and a half years for every year you live. Again, the same factors that affect blood sugar levels are the ones that affect weight loss and/or weight gain. So go ahead and keep packing on that weight, you’ll grow older faster and die faster. Isn’t that what we all want?
In addition to all the “highs” listed above, you will enjoy a higher risk of cancer, sleep apnea, and joint problems with all the weight you keep putting on. So go ahead, don’t worry about weight loss programs, exercise, and eating junk foods. You’ll just get older faster (if you haven’t died from a heart attack before then) and feel sickly and miserable doing it.