It is no secret that there is an obesity epidemic in the United States. More than 60% of Americans are overweight and 25% are considered obese putting them at risk for health challenges such as heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, osteoarthritis and some forms of
cancer.
    According to Shari Lieberman, Ph.D. (author of Dare to Lose: 4 Steps to a Better Body) there are 5 main reasons people are overweight. She refers to them as the 5 fat factors:
1. Yo-yo dieting (losing and gaining significant amounts of weight)
2. Crash Dieting (drastic low calorie diet)
3. Sedentary Lifestyle (very limited exercise)
4. Garbage in (eating processed foods high in fat and sugar with few nutrients
5. Chronic Stress (the result of physical and emotional pressures
    Yo-yo dieting alters your body composition which in turn contributes to carbohydrate sensitivity.  When dieting, people often lose weight as muscle, and regain it as fat. One of the biggest disadvantages of increased body fat is that you have less room to store glucose so it has to be converted to fat to be stored.
    Crash dieting worked for most of us in our twenties. If you wanted to fit into a particular pair of jeans you skipped a few meals and achieved your goal in a few days. As you get older, that doesn’t work. The reason is that when you’re used to eating 2000 calories per day and all of a sudden you drop your caloric intake drastically, your brain signals your thyroid to slow down your metabolism to save energy. Basically your body is in fat storage mode. As a weight loss coach one of the biggest problems we see is that people don’t consume enough calories to keep their metabolism stimulated to burn fat.
    Sedentary lifestyle is a well-known problem. High tech living simply doesn’t promote exercise which is necessary for good metabolic function and for building muscle which is what dictates what you can eat. Exercise is critical to weight loss success and weight maintenance!
    Garbage in refers to all the processed foods we eat in America. We eat foods loaded with fat and sugar as well as additives and preservatives. People don’t read labels and aren’t knowledgeable about the nutrient content of foods. We need to focus on food as fuel for our bodies and select “premium unleaded”.
    Finally, chronic stress is a real challenge. Stress leads people to eat high fat and high sugar foods and during stress, the body produces cortisol which is a hormone designed to provide fast energy for escape from danger. Many adults suffer from chronic mental stress which leads to frequently elevated cortisol levels which results in stubborn abdominal fat. 
    The very best strategy for achieving and maintaining a healthy weight is through a lifestyle change. If you’ve dieted in the past and regained the weight you’re like 95% of Americans. When you combine a low glycemic eating plan with stress reduction, nutritional supplements and exercise, you can reduce body fat and increase muscle mass. Exercise also helps manage stress. Forget diets and make a lifestyle change – what have you got to lose but excess weight?