Why Losing Weight is Important
Losing weight is about more than making yourself look better. It’s not even about helping you to feel better about yourself. Although losing those extra pounds will do both of those things for you.
The biggest reason to want to lose those extra pounds is about your health. Period.
Being overweight isn’t good for you. It wreaks havoc with your body in so many ways. And many times, we don’t even know that it’s destroying us until we start seeing our health decline, with outward manifestations.
Things like rising blood pressure, a high cholesterol count, aching knees and/or ankles and even acid reflux are all outward symptoms of inward stuff that’s happening to our bodies. And the truth is that this stuff can be going on for a long time without being readily visible or apparent to us.
And then one day we realize that our knees constantly hurt, or that we’ve woken up with heartburn for 8 or 9 nights in a row. Or even that we feel tired all the time and don’t know why. These are all hints that something’s wrong.
We need to pay attention to what our bodies are telling us and then do something about it!
If we have any of these things happening, or even if we don’t have these things and we weigh considerably more than we used to, we’re probably prime candidates to lose some weight. And if you’re not necessarily severely overweight, but still weigh considerably more than you used to, take care of the problem now, before it becomes extreme.
It is, after all, easier to lose a smaller amount of weight than a larger amount. And the damage done to our bodies is far less extreme if we catch it earlier rather than later. Seriously, would you rather have to lose 20 lbs. or 75 lbs.? See what I mean?
So our health is the number 1 reason to lose weight and take care of ourselves. If we don’t do it, nobody can do it for us. It’s up to us.
Now, some people might say “I don’t really care much about myself, so I don’t care if I become unhealthy”. Well, first of all, that’s probably not true. You do care about yourself or you wouldn’t be reading this blog post about losing weight.
Besides that, though, there are other people to consider and think about. Like family members who depend on you or who love you and would hate to see you lose your health over something that could have been fixed or taken care of.
If you don’t take care of yourself, lose weight and stay healthy, you could leave loved ones behind prematurely. Think I’m kidding? Don’t. It happens every single day. People die of heart attacks or fall victim to other health issues due to being overweight or due to poor eating habits.
Being overweight can cause problems for you in the following areas:
- Blood pressure – extra body weight leads to high blood pressure, which can lead to strokes
- High Cholesterol – poor eating habits and being overweight leads to high cholesterol, which leads to heart attacks and other problems
- Aching joints – being overweight leads to premature aging and deterioration of our joints, including our knees and ankles, which leads to mobility problems
- Acid reflux – overeating and being overweight can and will eventually lead to major problems with heartburn. Unbeknownst to many people, heartburn is more than just an inconvenience or a discomfort. Constant acid reflux can actually lead to cancer of the esophagus.
- Low energy levels – carrying that extra weight around tires you out. You don’t realize how much work it is to carry that weight around until you’ve lost it. And then you look back and ask yourself “how did I do that for so long?”.
So those are just a few of the health problems that I can think of at this time. I know there are more. But these should be enough to convince you that the time to lose weight is NOW.
Don’t wait for New Year’s resolutions to do it. Don’t wait until the doctor tells you to do it. Don’t wait until you feel completely like crap. Do it now! The sooner you get started, the better off you’ll be. And trust me; you won’t regret it!
Oh, and let me touch on one more little tidbit before I wrap this up!
There has been a lot of talk and commotion the last few years about not letting people push us into thinking we have to be thin to look good or to be accepted. While I understand the good intention behind this thinking, I have to disagree with some of it. Here’s why.
First of all, let me state that we should never push ourselves to be accepted by people. If people can’t accept us for who we are, leave them behind and move on. They’re not worth your time.
But this latest trend of telling people that it’s OK to be overweight, or even blatantly obese, is very dangerous. This gives people a false sense of security and well-being when they are, in fact, very much in danger because of their physical condition.
I get so tired of hearing people tout this newest “feel-good-about-myself” garbage as a way of putting off what they know they need to do about their health.
If we are overweight, then we are overweight. Nothing anybody says to us to try to make us feel better will change that. So please don’t let yourself be fooled into thinking it’s OK to be overweight. The health risks prove that it’s not OK.
And don’t misconstrue this as me saying that we have to be tiny to be healthy. It’s not about being tiny. It’s about not being overweight. It’s about losing those extra pounds that are making you unhealthy. End of story. End of debate.
Remember… it’s not necessarily about looking good. It’s about being healthy and taking care of ourselves. That’s all there is to it.
So I hope this has been enough to convince you that the time to lose weight is now and that I have given you the motivation to get started right away.
It’s not as hard as you might think to lose that weight. It’s really not. You just need to make a choice to do it and then stick to it. Period. End of story.
Nobody can make you stay overweight except you. You’re the one who controls what you eat. You’re the one who decides how much you eat. You’re the one who decides whether you get off the couch or not. You’re the one who decides whether you’ll spend another hour sitting in front of the computer or the TV or get up and do something good for yourself.
And do you know what? You Can Do This!!
Be sure to comment if you have any questions and I’ll do my best to answer them for you.
And if you enjoy this or find it helpful, please be sure to share it with your friends.
Keeping it lean.
Curt