Introduction
Obesity is an epidemic that is getting worse every day. It is no longer only a health concern. In South Africa, Obesity is on the rise and if you know someone with weight issues it is your civic duty to help them. In order for us to help our friends, we need to know how to destroy obesity with exercise – the best diet ever.
Beat Obesity is no small feat, but it is possible. It does, however, require an entire lifestyle change in just about every facet of their lives. It was not bad luck that caused their obesity but their lifestyle choices.
The best starting point is to get them to understand what caused the condition and how long it took to get to the situation that they are in today. There will be a number of conditions to address and these can include:
- eating,
- drinking,
- sleeping,
- exercising
- emotions
The next point is to have a plan! The plan should address a variety of things.
Goal Setting
The first part of this plan is goal setting. It is most important that your friend realizes that this will take time. Probably a lot of time. If it took them 10 years to pick up the weight, It definitely will take more than 10 weeks, probably even 10 months, to lose it all.
Realistic Goals = small successes and huge motivation and enthusiasm. Ensure that they make small monthly goals. For example, the first month make a goal of losing 2kg. Don’t go jumping into cardio, diets or resistance exercises. Rather, have your friend walk the dog around the neighbourhood, wash the car or do some gardening, which uses lots of different muscle groups.
If your friend starts off too fast he/she might get frustrated, demotivated or even injured. The excitement of accomplishing this goal, and seeing a positive result will be a huge motivation.
After you have set goals you must think about how exactly to approach these goals. In order to be successful at this he/she must educate himself about nutrition, the different forms of exercise, cardiovascular, sleep and some other areas. This can be accomplished by reading all the amazing articles on this website.
Keep A Journal
In the Second part, It is crucial that your friend Keeps a journal and logs when he/she is eating, his/her Diet and what portion sizes are. It is also important to keep track of meals, weight, and measurements. This will help keep track of how their body reacted to different foods,
It is also important to keep track of their emotional state as well. When they were upbeat or not so upbeat. This often helps them wonder why. The next topic will help a great deal with motivation.
Keep A Weight/Measurement Chart
Part 3. You have probably heard of the term “hitting a plateau”. This is when one perceives that they have stopped losing weight, and you know what they say about perceptions?
Sometimes people lose weight in grams and other times they lose size in cm. Why is this? Well, it is quite simple. Muscle is heavier than fat. When they change to a healthy diet, they inevitably consume more protein and other nutrients that their body has gone without for some time.
As a result, when your friend exercises and eats right, they will burn fat but will also develop muscle. So as they develop muscle, the weight of the FAT LOST weighs less than that of the Muscle gained. So in effect, they can GAIN weight but still be losing in centimetres.
It is for this reason I always provide a Weight/Measurement Chart for my customers to fill in and send to me weekly. If you are keen to get a copy of my Weight/Measurement Chart, Click here —-> Measurement chart.
Cleaning House
No, Stage 4 is not about spring cleaning! It is about moving, donating, and getting rid of the unhealthy foods that they keep in the house. The idea is to remove temptation! Now we cannot throw out a month’s groceries. Very few of us can afford that, but we must reduce the simple carbs etc. cut down on sugar in every form. Definitely get off all sweets and sugary snacks.
You really need to snack on healthy snacks throughout the day. For help with snacking, read Snack Planning For Peckish People.
Three Types Of People
Now Part 5 When someone is morbidly obese and has other complications, it impacts on every facet of their life. When you cannot pick up your child, do your shoelaces or wash the car, it has an incredibly negative impact on you emotionally and this, in turn, affects your performance in everything you do.
If this is the situation, this person could have problems with their bone structure, pains in their feet, or other factors that would stop them from performing any typical gym-type exercises.
There are three groups That I use to help my customers:
- “Group A” is made up of those obese people who can perform normal “lifting” type exercises and light to moderate cardio with very little discomfort in their bones. (Muscle pain and soreness are quite normal during and after exercise). The program for this group consists of some light lifting to introduce them to working out with weights.
- “Group B” is those obese people who cannot perform normal “lifting” style exercises without additional pain coming from their joints and bones, but can do some light cardio work. This program is made up of light cardio to be performed throughout the week.
- “Group C” is then the individuals who have problems moving around. Oh Yes, even they are able to get a workout, burn calories, and work muscles.
Group A Sample Workout: (3 Sets Of Each Exercise)
I do not give instructions for each exercise as most gyms will give directions on how to do each exercise.
Day 1:
- One Arm Dumbbell Rows
- Dumbbell Bench Press
- Cable CrossoversIncline Bench Press
- V-bar pulldowns
- Deadlifts
Day 2:
- Arnold Dumbbell Presses
- Dumbbell Lateral Raises
- Seated Dumbbell Curls
- Wrist Curls
- Seated Triceps Press
- Cambered Bar Curls
- Triceps Pushdown
Day 3:
- Leg Press
- Leg Extensions
- Hamstring Curls
- Seated Calf Raises
- Standing Calf Raises
Perform these light cardio exercises on 3 off days for 45 minutes per day. The must be at least one day’s rest between each training day.
Group B Workout
5-6 days of cardio performed at least twice a day which adds up to 60 minutes per day. Also, crunches performed 3 times per week doing 3 sets to failure.
Cardio Activities Include:
- Walking
- Aerobics class
- Jogging
- Biking
- Swimming
- Rowing
- Jumping Rope
- Anything else you can think of to keep you moving?
Group C Workout
As this group is unable to do any activities used by the other groups, Let’s just get them moving, period. I know it sounds silly, but there’s a show on public television that has an old lady doing a workout show while sitting in a chair.
Perform these exercises either with no weight or maybe, some light weights, not necessarily dumbbells (for example, soup cans). People use this to move towards their goal of being able to perform normal activities. So for Group C, I would advise doing anything that makes you move for more than 10 minutes at a time and doing this 3 times a day until you can work out.
How many minutes of exercise should an obese person do?
People should do at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise every week, or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise every week. The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends that this can be broken down into 30 minutes of exercise, five days a week. For an overweight beginner, that can seem like a lot.
How can I Loose 1 KG a Week?
Part 6. One must always remember that it took time to pick up the weight and that it did not occur overnight. That being said, it stands to reason that one would also not lose weight overnight. It takes planning and self-discipline but it is achievable.
Keep some form of a journal to track your caloric intake each day. You will need to eat 1,000 calories a day less than you currently do to lose 2 lbs. of weight per week. Two pounds a week of weight loss over 52 weeks in a year should get you to your 100 lb.
If Women follow a 1200-calorie diet, her daily deficit can be close to 600 calories daily, but that s still not enough, because in order to lose 50 pounds in 3 months and lose 100 lbs in 6 months, you need to have a caloric deficit of 1700 calories per day. … This is key for losing 50 lbs or dropping 100 lbs. These goals may be a little optimistic, though. You can definitely make serious inroads into weight loss so that you feel and look better in three months or so.
Get A Proper Assessment
Before You Start, make sure that you get a proper physical/nutritional assessment. This will help in creating your plan and keeping your goals realistic. This, in turn, avoids failure and disappointment. It will keep you motivated and excited with every successful goal reached.
Exercises that Kill Belly Fat
Here is a list of exercises that will help you lose weight and kill that belly fat:
- Running or walking. …
- Elliptical trainer. …
- Bicycling. …
- The bicycle exercises. …
- The Captain’s chair leg raise. …
- Exercise ball crunch. …
- Vertical leg crunch. …
- Reverse crunch.
Keep It Realistic
In anything you do, losing weight, plans for the future etc, keep them achievable. Now I am not saying don’t dream big. I am saying, keep them realistic. Losing the 40kg it took you 15 years to pick up, in 5 months is not realistic. Losing 2 – 6 kg a month until you reach your goal weight is. Keep it simple and measurable and above all realistic and you can succeed.
Need Assistance
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Weight control has become a big problem in our generation. This is due to the explosion in production of unhealthy food and snacks.
The best way to curb obesity is by eating right. I believe the root cause of obesity stems from poor dieting. Needless to say, if a person starts working out and still eats high carb contents, such person will still not lose weight as required. I was once overweight and what I did to lose weight was to eat right, and run daily. It works like a charm.
You are absolutely correct Louis. The problem is the quality of food that is available to us. Food is now, processed, irradiated, dehydrated, pasteurised and who knows what more. They even remove the kernel out of the maize and sell it separately. Read more on Modern foods here
Great Content and InformationThanks for this concise and thorough article.
I have been battling with Obesity for years now and I haven’t seen reasonable solution on how to go on diet. I actually saw some solutions online but I did not take it serious because I was looking for fast solution to my problem not knowing everything is one step after the other.
The points you highlighted are eye ooener for me especially the point of keeping a weight / measurement chart; I will work on them and i am hopeful i will share my success story here anytime soon.
Thanks for sharing
Hi Bryan! Yes, obesity is an epidemic. And I’m glad you have outlined here the changes a person must do in their life to escape obesity. The huge changes I must say. Doing exercise is key. I didn’t know obesity could be classified in these 3 groups. And that all 3 of them can do exercises. Even those in group 3. That’s incredible!
This article is appreciated. Obesity has been a serious problem in the world today. Your article on how to destroy obesity is really informative and helpful. I will share this on other social platforms I am. But I have a question to ask, is obesity hereditary? If yes is there anything that can be done to prevent a child from being obsessed from birth? Thanks
The evidence so far suggests that genetic predisposition is not the cause of Obesity. Many people who carry so-called “obesity genes” do not become obese. Rather, Eating a healthy diet and exercising seems to counteract some of the gene-related obesity risks.