Hello There,
Welcome back to K&T blog, we hope you are doing good.
The epidemic of Obesity is on the rise and has been doing so since its emergence, the rates worldwide has tripled since 50 years ago. Obesity is something we cannot ignore as it has ramifications on the quality of our lives and those of our family and community members, It is reported that 1 in 8 people lives with Obesity, and that the number of obese people has more than doubled for adults, and quadrupled for children and adolescents. One does not have to know and believe these numbers but can look in the mirror, family members, the neighbors and community wide to see the reality of this epidemic. Remember that Obesity is defined as “abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that presents a risk to health“, it is therefore clearly visible.
In light of this epidemic of Obesity, it is becoming apparent that weight management is a skill worth having, it is a skill we need to possess to manage obesity and our health. We firmly believe that “health management start with weight management“, if you manage to get your weight under control you automatically have an upper hand on other aspects of your health. To help with the acquisition of weight management skills, we would like to share some of the things that helped us to lose weight on our journey, these are not sequential or a step by step prescriptive method to lose weight but random things that were part of our process of losing weight. They worked for us and we hope they will add value to your journey.
1.Change your snacks – Chocolates, cookies, biscuits, chips must be replaced with whole foods seeds, nuts, fruits and vegetables sticks, boiled eggs and biltong/jerky.
2. Eliminate sugar in tea, coffee, cereals, vegetables….everywhere you use direct sugar.
3. Measure your weight at least once a week, we measure ours every morning, every day. This is a daily reminder of our journey.
4.Eat mostly real food (food from the earth and animals) and drastically reduce processed foods(food from the factory), these 2 types of foods are not the same.
5.Start moving and continue to do so consistently. Walking, running ,gardening, playing with kids, exercising. Please don’t stop once you start .
6.Grow your interest in weight management, e,g learn from Youtube, enroll in nutrition short course, frequently read blogs like this one 🙂 .
7.Give your body a chance to digest food, e.g try not to eat anything for 3 hours after you ate, challenge yourself to do so.
8.Get a training or weight loss partner or join a physical or virtual group, because weight loss is hard in isolation.
9. Completely eliminate sodas and juices. This should probably be the first thing you do.
10. Be patient, remember it took a while to gain weight, it will also take a while to lose it sustainably .
That’s it for this week, weight management requires some basic skills or it can lead to frustrations and despair, it requires a holistic and long term approach, it involves adapting and improving all areas of one’s life to align with one’s desired goals. Weight management therefore should become a lifestyle to increase the chances of success, Benjamin Franklin stated that “All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move.” , faced with the current reality of Obesity, we need to be the mankind that move, both physically and mentally as well as habitually.
Until next week, Stay blessed.
Kat & Tshepi
PS: Change is POSSIBLE, and it is beautiful to see 🙂 . Please subscribe below to get the latest posts shipped to your e-mail whenever we publish.
Kat & Tshepi 