Last Updated on December 23, 2021 by Andrew Blakey
The Harmful Effects Of Being Overweight
Have you ever told yourself “I’ll just have one more piece of pizza”?
This is what you tell yourself before one leads to two, and two leads to four. When we make a habit out of binge eating our eating high calorie foods without exercise, we put ourselves at risk for gaining weight.
I know what you’re thinking “So what? It’s only a couple extra pounds, and the dad bod is in style!”. While this may be true, their are quite a few harmful effects of being overweight that are putting your life and your future in jeopardy.
I “Kneed” You To Understand
Let’s first talk about your knees (I apologize for the terrible pun).
Let me start off by telling you what happens to your knees with each additional pound you put on (or lose!).
According to Harvard Health, when we’re walking, with each step we take, we exert a force on our knees of 1.5x our body weight.
This means that if we are a 150 lb woman we’re exerting a force on our knees of 300lbs. By simply losing 10 lbs your taking a tremendous amount of strain off your knees and your body will thank you for it later!
Can you see how this extra weight can lead to the harmful effects of being overweight?
Why Is This Important?
This is extremely important because as we age our joints begin to feel the wear and tear we’ve put on them over the course of our lifetime.
Why speed up the process by carrying around extra weight that’s going to decrease the quality of life you have down the road? I promise you, even if you don’t feel the harmful effects of being overweight now – you will down the road.
What Else?
Well here’s the fun part. Let’s go into some of the 50+ diseases and harmful effects of being overweight. These are directly from the CDC (Centre For Disease Control)
The 12 Effects
- High Blood Pressure
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Asthma
- Heart Attacks
- Lower Quality Of Life
- Blood Clots
- Headaches
- Arthritis
- Low back pain
- Sleep Apnea
- Many Types of Cancers
Why Do I Bring These Up?
I bring these up because we are in a literal health epidemic. Where our knowledge of eating healthy and implementing healthy habits is going up, but so are our waist sizes.
I am fortunate to be able to live a healthy life. I have no health issues (knock on wood), and I simply cannot stand by watching anyone else slowly destroy their body. These harmful effects of being overweight are simply too much to ignore.
There’s a study that was conducted by the New England Journal Of Medicine. This study found that for people who were overweight at midlife, they had a 20-40% higher death rate than those who were not. For those who were obese it was 2-3x as high! Not only can losing weight take stress off your cardiovascular system and your joints, it also increases your odds of living longer compared to if you stayed overweight/obese.
Our Healthcare System
Imagine the strain we could take off our health care system. The pills we may not need to take, and the amount of time you would buy back so that instead of focusing on what you can’t do… you can focus on what you can.
All of this is possible by simply focusing on losing some of the extra pounds. I say ‘simply’, however, as we all know, losing weight is far harder than people think.
I strongly believe that the journey of going through weight loss far outweighs all the effects of being overweight that will be placed on you throughout the rest of your life.
Sometimes getting a helping hand or someone such as a fitness trainer to help keep you accountable is all you need to start seeing differences and getting on track to a healthier happier you.
How Can You Lose The Weight?
There’s so many things you can do in order to start your journey. Even something as simple as walking can help you start making positive progress towards your goal. Read this article which details some important notes for using walking for weight loss purposes!
1. Focus On Your Nutrition
Weight loss isn’t a sexy process. It involves dedication, commitment, and consistency in order to make a meaningful change to your life.
That being said, it can seem so much harder when you don’t know where to begin.
I challenge you to do just one thing today. Look at your breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Analyze it and determine whether it’s some sort of highly processed and refined foods; or is it heavy in vegetables – giving you the nutrients your body craves?
Make just one change, try to make one of your meals with less refined foods and more things like healthy veggies, healthy fats, or a healthy carbohydrate.
2. Get Out And Move
Starting today, you’re going to get out and do at least 30 minutes of exercise every day. Whether it’s a walk, bike, jog, or going to the gym with a friend. Do something. Your body is going to thank you for it later, I promise you!
3. Understand That This Isn’t Going To Happen Overnight
Change takes time. You’ve been living your life with a certain list of patterns and habits that have gotten to you where you are, but if you’re reading this it means that you’re not okay with it anymore.
Understand that you’re making changes for you. You’re doing this so you can live a longer, happier life, and experience all that life has to offer. You’re making a change that will drastically change the rest of your life, so take the time it takes NOW to learn and start implementing the healthy habits that are going to get you there.
What Else?
While talking about weight loss is something that can literally be talked about so much we could make a book out of it; we’ve already created a guide book that is your best bet for starting to get involved with fitness and exercise.
Enter in your details below and we’ll send you your copy of the “11 Tips To Get Back In Shape” Guidebook.
