Losing Weight and Feeling Great

Archive for March, 2008

I’ve been thinking about vitamin and mineral deficiencies lately, and how dieting and aging effect them.  Why should we be at a special risk — women over 40 who are losing weight?

Dieting and Balance

Losing weight by dieting opens up a can of worms, so to speak.  You’re taking in less food, and presumably less nutrients, although hopefully better as far as overall nutrition.  But are you getting enough of the vitamins you need to stay healthy, even with an improved diet?

Or…are you one who just looks at cutting calories, and not balancing the calories you do take in.  Sorry, taking in 1,200 calories worth of Ben and Jerry’s and popping a multi-vitamin pill isn’t the same as eating a varied diet of fruits, veggies, proteins and fats for that 1,200 calories.

Either way, you could be setting yourself up for a vitamin / mineral deficiency.  And the older you get, the more important to pay attention to what you do eat.  You might have been OK with rice cakes and tuna in college, but that doesn’t cut it now.

Getting Older (That Aging Thing)

Ladies, we all know about osteoporosis and how it can effect us.  We know we have to take in more calcium or at least calcium supplements as we get older.  Broken bones are no fun in the best of circumstances, and can be life-threatening as we age.

But did you know that you could be setting yourself up for a B12 deficiency, just by getting older?  Sad, but true.  Vitamin B12 starts its path into your body by being broken up in your stomach with the enzyme pepsin.  As we get older, our bodies produce less and so we can’t break down all the B12 we take in.

The list of symptoms of a vitamin B12 deficiency are frightening; yet also very familiar.  They should be, because they sound exactly like the "normal" aging process, yet aren’t!  It makes you wonder exactly how many people in nursing homes don’t really need to be there.

It makes you wonder if that forgetfulness you’ve had lately is the result of a B12 deficiency or something more insidious.

Aging and Diet

The older we get, the more important it is to take care of our bodies.  Face it — they don’t bounce back as fast anymore.  Our reflexes aren’t as fast, and we may have a few more "foggy" days as far as our minds go.  It happens, but we don’t have to let ourselves degenerate faster than we normally would.

We don’t have to be relegated to a nursing home in our 70′s or 80′s.  We can take back our lives and health — some people a little, some people a lot.  But we need to finally start taking care of ourselves, right here and now.

We can’t change the past.  We can change the future.  And we can start today by discovering what our bodies need more of as we age, the signs of deficiencies and how to combat them.

Start out with the list of B vitamins, and I’ll be researching other vitamins and minerals that are vital to our bodies.

Losing weight — it’s hard enough without the specter of bad breath.  Why do we get that awful smell, and is there anything we can really do about it (aside from gargle every five minutes)?

Losing Weight and Bad Breath — Why?

First is the "why" — why when we go on a diet we start being odoriferous?  There are a couple of reasons.

1. Our diet detoxes us. Now I’m talking a sensible weight loss plan here — not a total fad like eating nothing but hot dogs or peanut butter.  When we start eating properly, and start to lose weight, the toxins stored in our body start releasing.  Some toxins may give us additional sweating, others strange body odors and some…bad breath.  The good part is that as you detox more and more, the odor gets less and less.
2. Some diets are more prone to bad breath.  A high-fat, high protein, low carb diet (example:  Atkins) will naturally give you additional interesting scents.  Part of it may be that some of the natural breath cleansers (many fruits and veggies) are pretty much absent.  Also, the release of ketones in your body can produce bad breath all by itself.  Check out WebMd for more information on low-carb diets and bad breath.

How Sweet it Is

Now even if losing weight and bad breath goes hand-in-hand, it is not a reason to quit dieting — face it, extra weight is worse for your health than bad breath!  But there are some things you can do to start smelling sweeter again.

The first is, naturally, brushing regularly.  Why?  One is to remove food particles that can cause odors.  The other is to keep your teeth and gums in good shape — you don’t need a tooth or gum infection to smell even stronger!

You can also pop sugarless mints occasionally.  While this has merits, especially for a quick fix, you don’t need all those extra chemicals in your diet (more to detox).  So keep your mints around for emergency fixes, but don’t totally rely on them.

Drink more water, less coffee.  Coffee adds to the smell, while water washes it away.  You can also use green tea, which is light and sweet in smell and guess what — it’s good for your teeth!

The standard remedy of chewing herbs can also help.  Just about everyone knows about parsley, but have you also considered any of the mint family — mint, peppermint, spearmint and even chocolate mint (although that’s one you’ll have to grow yourself)?

Consider a colon cleanse to hasten a detox.  There are gentle ones that work over the course of a month.  There are also, ahem, explosive ones that work very quickly.  (They aren’t really explosive, although it may seem that at first.)

Well, see you later — I’m off to brush my teeth and drink some water!

Why do you want to lose weight?  Sure, to be healthier.  To feel better.  But what are the more personal benefits of losing weight for you?

One thing for me — I want to be able to learn to belly dance.  I tried, in the privacy of my own home (complete with DVD) about 40 pounds ago and I couldn’t get through the warmups!  I don’t think I’d ever really want to do a belly dance in public, but I think it’s cool, and I’d love to be able to do some of the moves.

I know this one lady who wants to be able to get in and out of her car without feeling like a contortion artist; her car is on the small side and her weight makes it tough to slide in.  Getting out is also a feat that leaves her tired and sore.

Another one of the benefits of losing weight for me is getting into that little black dress David has promised me, once I reach my goal weight…and the cruise that goes with it!  You know, he’s promised me that for 5 years now, and up until recently (maybe the last 30 pounds) I don’t think he ever thought he’d have to actually pay up!

A friend of mine doesn’t have any children of her own, but is close to her young nieces — she wants to be alive to watch them grow up and get married some day.  To be able to be a part of their lives, instead of sitting around in the background.

One more for me; I want to age well.  To have a great quality of life as I grow older.  You know those commercials where they have those wonderful over 100 year old people still dancing and playing in a band?  I want to be one of them.  And I know I can’t, unless I take care of my health now.  Or they invent time travel (I’m not getting my hopes up on that one).

So, personally, what’s on the top of your benefits of losing weight list?  Come on and share!

As a nation, we’re obsessed with dieting.  We’re either on a diet, thinking about dieting, going off a diet…you get the picture.  (I guess I’m not helping matters any, am I?)

Is there anyone left in America who is a normal weight?

And aren’t the messages we’re getting so conflicting?  One commercial tries to tell you that it’s good to be full or otherwise SuperSize you.

The next commercial is for a dieting program.

A third tells you about a new candy that because it has dark chocolate, it has less fat.  Now that may be true, but the insinuation is that the candy bar is almost, well, diet when it’s far from it!

Dieting in America is a national pastime, and the scary part is that it’s not about losing 10 or 15 pounds anymore to look better.  No, now we’re fighting for our lives and having to lose 40 or 80 or a hundred or more pounds.  And yes, I fall in that category (although I’ve already lost 70 – yippee!).

It’s hard enough being overweight at 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 years old.  But what happens as we age even more?  Will we be able to walk around — or will diabetes have robbed some of our senses and put us in a wheelchair?  And for that matter, will we be able to find a wheelchair to fit into?  Take that one step further — can we even get up out of bed without help?  Scary thoughts.

We’re into instant gratification — or at least fast.  We want to lose weight the same way — go to sleep fat and wake up thin.  I really wish it worked that way…but it doesn’t.

Dieting.  Hard word.  But doing it successfully can make the difference between a good quality of life as we get older, or one where we have to watch everything and everyone pass us by.