Up until know, not a lot has been written about
how weight loss can lead to a reduction in sports injury. The
rest of this article will cover how losing a few kilo's can
help to reduce sports injury and then finish with seven tips
to help you shed those extra kilo's quickly and painlessly.
How does losing weight prevent sports injury?
When performing any sports activity your body
is put under a huge strain. The impact forces and stresses on
your muscles, joints and tendons can be up to seven times greater
than your actual body weight. The simple act of running places
a big strain on your ankles, knees, hips and lower back. By
reducing your body weight, even by as little as a few percent,
you will see a benefit in two areas.
Firstly, you will see a reduction in chronic,
overuse injuries like persistent knee pain, shin splints, and
hip and lower back pain. By reducing the amount of weight your
body needs to carry, you're able to reduce the strain and stresses
on your muscles and joints, which leads to a reduction in overuse
injuries.
Secondly, you will also see a reduction in acute
injuries like sprains and strains. By reducing the weight and
pressure on your muscles and joints, you're less susceptible
to sprain and strain injuries like ankle sprains and muscle
tears.
7 Tips for Improved Weight Loss
1. Do You Have a Goal?
Successful people in any endeavor, whether
it is business, family or health, are goal orientated. Nothing
worthwhile happens without first having a definite plan of what
you want to accomplish. Not a vague, general idea. I am talking
about a detailed, structured, written plan for your improved
health and fat loss success. If you are not prepared to take
half an hour to sit down and write out what you want to achieve,
you are only wasting your own valuable time and effort.
Your success will largely depend on how well
you are able to picture yourself as the person you want to be.
Can you see yourself in six months time? What are you doing?
How active are you? What new activities are you doing? How do
you look? How much do you weigh? What dress or trouser size
are you? What is your waist measurement? You must know all this
and have it written out, preferably on 3x5 cards that you can
carry with you wherever you go.
Before you start any weight loss program, sit
down and write out the answers to the above questions. Then
keep your answers close by and read them to yourself everyday.
Start by asking yourself why you want to improve your health
in the first place. You must come up with a good answer to this
question. This is the reason you are going to do what you need
to do. Without a good reason for wanting to improve your health
and lose weight, you are fighting a losing battle. Get the answer
to this question and everything else will flow from here.
2. Are You Looking Long Term?
Are you jumping on the bathroom scales everyday
and constantly being disappointed with what you see? Focusing
on the short term can be very discouraging. However, if you
keep focused on the big picture, looking six to twelve months
down the track, you will not get put off by minor setbacks along
the way.
Too many people tend to throw everything out
the window at the first sign of hardship. If you are looking
long term it is a lot easier to take things in your stride.
When you are working towards a six or twelve month goal, missing
one exercise session because of bad weather is not a big deal,
but when you are trying to lose two kilos by tomorrow, missing
that training session can just about be the end of the world.
Remember, there are no magic formulas for achieving
improved health and a permanent reduction in body fat. The best
results come from a long-term strategy involving a permanent
change in both eating and activity habits. Not from a pill,
potion or some celebrity diet you have cut out of the latest
magazine.
It is very easy to get caught up in the 'quick
results' or 'fast acting' diet scams around today, but it is
important to look at the long-term effects of such fad diets.
Your ultimate goal should be to improve your energy levels,
be free from sickness and disease, and achieve your own personal
desired body weight and stay there. That is why goal setting
and planning are so important.
Your goals need to go beyond the next couple
of weeks. They must be structured and planned out to give you
something to look forward to. Your weight loss should be focused
on more than just looking thin and should be part of an overall
plan to increase your health, fitness, well-being and quality
of life. Try to see past losing just a few kilos and look one
or two years down the track. I hope you are seeing a fit, healthy
and active person with lots of energy and a great zest for life.
3. Is Your Approach Too Radical?
What is one of the hardest things for all humans
to do? "CHANGE"
Change is the most psychologically uncomfortable
thing for humans to do. So let us be realistic, you do not have
to be a psychologist to figure out that it is going to be difficult
for anyone who is used to eating three square meals a day to
suddenly start eating only carrot sticks and brown rice.
For this reason, any change you make to your
eating habits and exercise regimen should be incorporated in
a gradual, systematic way. Try not to incorporate too many big
changes all at once. Start with a few changes and then, when
you are comfortable with them, incorporate a few more. Over
a period of time you will be able to incorporate quite large
changes without upsetting your regular daily patterns.
The good thing about changing your patterns
and habits this way is that they are much more likely to become
a consistent part of your daily activities and eating habits
instead of just a fad diet or a passing phase. This will contribute
greatly to the long-term success of your weight loss goals.
4. Have You Ever Felt Like a Yo-Yo?
When you do not know why you are on a weight
loss program or you do not have a goal and a plan to follow,
it can be very difficult to know if you are doing the right
thing. This uncertainty usually leads to you trying anything
and everything without ever really getting the results you were
looking for. Your energy levels and weight tend to go up and
down like a yo-yo, which can be very frustrating and disappointing.
The answer is firstly to have your goals and
plans written out so you know exactly why you are trying to
improve your health and lose weight in the first place. Then,
stay away from the so called 'fad' or 'celebrity' diets and
stick to the more traditional approach of gradually reducing
or modifying your eating habits and incorporating a moderate
amount of physical activity into your lifestyle. Your own common
sense will go a long way here.
5. Food!
For the most part, 'diets' and 'weight loss
schemes' just do not work. In fact, nutritionally speaking,
most of them are simply dangerous. Try not to look at your weight
loss in terms of a diet, try to concentrate on gradually changing
your eating habits over the long term and making them a consistent
part of your lifestyle.
Firstly, although all food is made up of carbohydrate,
protein and fat, the reduction of dietary fat should be the
main concern in any weight loss program. The trick is to know
which fat to cut out. Many people today are mistakenly eliminating
all fat from their diet and are finding that they are actually
gaining weight, not losing it like they had hoped.
You see, when you eliminate all fat from your
diet, your body actually goes into a form of survival, where
it rapidly stores as much fat as it possibly can. So in effect,
the less fat you consume the more your body will store fat.
But, as I said before, the trick is to know which fats are good
and which fats are bad. Give your body enough of the good fats
and there will never be a need for your body to store fat.
So what sort of foods should you be eating?
Well, you have probably heard it all before but try to substitute
the fatty and fried foods for a wide variety of lean meats,
fish, poultry, eggs, nuts, fruits, vegetables, legumes and moderate
amounts of bread, cereal, pasta and rice. Also, stay away from
foods that have been heavily processed and modified.
Do not over-do the complex carbohydrates (bread,
cereal, pasta, rice and heavy vegetables like potato and pumpkin).
Make sure you get a good supply of lean protein from foods such
as chicken, fish, nuts, and lean meat. Limit your intake of
sugar and salt, and reduce your tea, coffee and alcohol.
Importantly, increase your intake of water and
water-rich foods. These foods include fruit, vegetables, sprouts
and their juices. These foods are great because they take the
least amount of energy to digest and give your body the most
in return.
Another point, which is more a matter of self-discipline
than anything else, is: Never, Never, Never keep eating until
you are full. This point alone will see a dramatic effect on
your energy levels and weight loss success.
Another often neglected and overlooked challenge
to effective weight loss revolves around the type and variety
of food that you consume over an extended period of time. One
of the major problems with most diets is that they are too restrictive
in the variety of food that they offer. When the body becomes
familiar with the same type of food, it tends to get lazy and
ineffective at digesting and metabolizing that particular food.
To combat this you need to vary the type of food that you eat,
always giving your body something different to digest.
For example, people who eat nothing but whole
meal toast for breakfast run the risk of their body becoming
familiar with that particular type of food. This leads to their
metabolism and digestive processes becoming sluggish, which
can lead to a very frustrating weight gain even though you may
be eating less. To make sure this does not happen to you, vary
your breakfast choices; try white, multi grain, or fruit breads.
Have some boiled or poached eggs occasionally. Maybe even try
some bacon and eggs for a treat, or maybe just some fruit, nuts
or yogurt. The main point is to try and vary your diet as much
as possible.
6. Don't Forget to Stay Active!
The advantages of exercise are so many that
it is virtually pointless to undertake any health improvement
or weight loss program without including some form of physical
activity. Any weight bearing activity that uses most of the
major muscle groups will be beneficial for weight loss. The
type of exercise you should consider are things like walking
or easy jogging.
Many people do not realize this, but one of
the best benefits of exercise is that a physically active person
burns more calories at rest than does someone who leads a sedentary
lifestyle. This means that even while sleeping you can burn
more calories if you lead a physically active lifestyle.
Another great advantage is that any form of
extra physical activity obviously burns more calories, thus
leading to a reduction in body weight. But the best advantage
of all is that the correct exercise leads to a reduction of
body fat, while helping to tone and define your muscles. This
means that you can do away with that odd-looking body shape
which is caused by diets that lead to a reduction in muscle
tissue and not body fat.
7. Relax & Have Some Fun!
People can become so fanatical when they are
trying to lose weight. Do not get me wrong, your health and
fitness should be very important to you, but try to keep things
in perspective. Remember, you may have a husband or wife and
family, you may have a career or a business, all these things
are important too. Do not neglect the things that are most important
to you. Try to have some balance in your life by maintaining
some interests outside of weight loss and keep things in perspective.
