Kate Canino - Maintaining a Healthy Weight

To Rachel Chaffee, who has been my stable friend for over twenty years. When it comes to healthy eating, finding new recipes, and cooking, you have and always will be an inspiration.

Published in 2011 by The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc.

29 East 21st Street, New York, NY 10010

Copyright 2011 by The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc.

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Canino, Kate.

Maintaining a healthy weight / Kate Canino.1st ed.

p. cm.(Healthy habits)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4358-9439-6 (library binding)

ISBN 978-1-4488-0609-6 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-4488-0618-8 (6-pack)

1. HealthJuvenile literature. 2. Body weightJuvenile literature. 3. DietJuvenile literature.

4. Physical fitnessJuvenile literature. I. Title.

RA777.C28 2011

613dc22

2009053186

Manufactured in Malaysia

CPSIA Compliance Information: Batch #S10YA: For further information, contact Rosen Publishing, New York, New York, at 1-800-237-9932.

Introduction

Establishing healthy habits at a young age means living a long and healthy life. Such habits include wholesome eating, exercising, taking time out for oneself, and seeking out family and friends who encourage and support these healthy practices. When people lead healthy lives by developing these habits, they may discover that they have more energy, motivation, and self-esteem, as well as the confidence to try new things.

The key to keeping these healthy habits is to become part of a community of people who also want to be healthy. Find family members, friends, and others in your social circle who would be good role models. When a commitment is made to leading a healthy lifestyle (whether alone or with a group), many benefits can be achieved for both the mind and the body. Having a support network will be an encouragement on those tough days.

Being active in the community is important to a persons wellbeing, too, since it allows a person to move outside of his or her own world and help others. Young adults can get wrapped up in trying to be popular, wearing the right clothes, and having the newest technology. When one is volunteering in the community or doing something as simple as helping a neighbor take the garbage out, its a way to avoid selfishness and worrying about superficial things. When people feel better about themselves and how they contribute to this world, they are more likely to take better care of their bodies. There are many ways that an individual can volunteer his or her time. Check with the community centers, schools, churches, and other nonprofit organizations in your area to find ways that you can give your time. Also, the Web site Volunteer Match (http://www.volunteermatch.org) will match people up with volunteer positions based on their ZIP code and area of interest.

Volunteering is a terrific way to make new friends and have a positive impact within the community, which can allow a person to feel better about himself or herself.

Starting to build healthy habits now will help prevent a sedentary lifestyle and diseases in the future. The main concern for young adults might be the here and now, but making the necessary changes now to prepare their bodies for the future will help ensure a long, full, and healthy life. A sedentary lifestyle is one in which a person engages in very little, if any, physical activity and does a lot of sitting around. Leading a sedentary lifestyle and practicing other unhealthy habits increases the possibility of acquiring adult onset diseases such as heart disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and sleep apnea. This book will give young adults the tools they need to control their weight and lead a healthy lifestyle now and in the future.

Chapter 1

The Importance of Controlling Weight

As a young adult, controlling ones weight affects the rest of the body because its going through so many changes. Young adults will naturally put on weight due to hormone changes. When your body reaches the stage we call puberty, the brain releases a hormone called gonadotropin-releasing hormone, or GnRH for short. This hormone, in turn, releases two more puberty hormones called luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH). All of these new chemicals move around inside the body, giving it adult-level hormones.

Due to the influx of new hormones, some young adults will gain weight more quickly during this time as the amounts of muscle, fat, and bone in their bodies change. All of the new weight a young adult gains during adolescence is completely natural and healthy as long as his or her body fat, muscle, and bone are the right proportion. That is why regular checkups with a health care professional are so important: A person knows he or she is on the right track to a healthy weight.

Extra body fat helps in the growth process during this time because the body needs the energy of stored fat to grow. In order to control the weight that a young adult puts on during this stage of his or her life, eating and exercising properly is very important. The key to maintaining weight is not allowing caloric intake to exceed the number of calories burned during exercise. When calories consumed are more than those burned, the body starts to put on weight. Also, not putting too much pressure on oneself to look a certain way and surrounding yourself with positive role models will make help you sustain a healthy weight.

As a young adult, it is perfectly natural to put on weight to help the body in its growth process. Health care professionals are there to help you maintain a healthy weight and to educate you on the proper amount of weight you should or should not gain.

Be careful of trying to obtain the ideal body that magazines and television portray. Hollywoods idea of physical beauty is rarely, if ever, attainable. The pictures of celebrities in magazines are fixed up to look perfect. Also, celebrities have makeup artists and stylists to help them look that way, and they spend anywhere from two to three hours getting ready for a photo shoot or a movie scene. People should not measure themselves against others. If someone is concerned about putting on weight too quickly, he or she should seek advice from a health care professional.

How to Control Weight

As a young adult, you might be concerned about what the right weight is. Everybodys body is unique. We are all shaped in a variety of ways, metabolize food differently, and enjoy different forms of exercise. If everyone in the world looked the same, ate the same, and enjoyed the same activities, life would be fairly dull. Controlling weight is a popular topic because of all the pressure that society places on young adults to look and act a certain way. An essential way to control weight is finding out what motivates a person to get off the couch and take the steps necessary to learn how to build healthy habits.