Health & Lifestyle Benefits of Weight Loss
Losing weight has a myriad of advantages. In fact, you don’t have to lose a lot of pounds to experience the benefits of weight loss.
Instead, losing just up to 5-10% of your body weight can yield a host of health and lifestyle benefits that are favourable in the long run.
Wondering what these advantages are?
Check them out below.
10 Health Benefits of Weight Loss
Below are the health benefits of weight loss -
1. Better Heart Health
Better heart health is guaranteed thanks to weight loss. Here’s how it happens. Less fat means lesser pressure on the arteries when they pump blood.
As a result, there is lower blood pressure and lower bad cholesterol levels. Moreover, weight loss, either through surgery or exercise, decreases the risk of heart disease.
2. Decreased Joint Pain
Being overweight or obese can cause joint pain. This is because obesity triggers stress, inflammation and damage to most joints. Joints wear down faster when under stress from excess weight, leading to stiffness or pain.
Moreover, simple weight loss of around 10% body weight can improve symptoms of osteoarthritis in adults.
3. Help to Ease Blood Pressure
As mentioned above, the extra body weight pushes against your arteries, making it harder to pump blood. It forces your heart to work harder, pushing up the blood pressure. You can lower your blood pressure by 5 points if you drop 5% of your body weight.
4. Helps Prevent Type 2 Diabetes
Among the benefits of weight loss and exercise is the prevention and delay of type 2 diabetes. Moreover, weight loss ensures that you are at less risk of developing other health problems from Type 2 diabetes.
5. Helps to Boost Good Cholesterol
It’s not easy to raise good cholesterol or HDL. This type of cholesterol helps to remove bad cholesterol LDL from your blood. In addition, losing body fat can help get you the HDL in the higher range of 60 mg/dl.
6. Reduced Risk of Some Cancers
The American Cancer Society states that around 11% of the cancers in women and 5% in men is because of excess body weight. Some of these cancers are endometrial cancer, breast cancer, kidney, liver, and pancreatic cancers. Hence, the benefits of weight loss include the prevention of cancers.
7. Reduced Risk of Stroke
Excess weight can increase blood pressure. And a higher blood pressure increases the chance of a stroke. Hence, losing weight helps to reduce a person’s risk of stroke. But, on the other hand, high blood pressure puts a strain on your blood vessels, making them stiffer and causing the blood to more likely clot, triggering a stroke.
8. Regulation of Blood Sugar
Losing weight can help in improving insulin sensitivity in people with Type 2 diabetes. Excess fat typically interferes with the insulin hormone that regulates blood sugar levels. Weight loss reduces the excess fat, which allows you to manage the blood sugar level properly.
9. Reverses Insulin Resistance
Body fat, especially in the belly region, releases chemicals responsible for reducing the body’s response to insulin. Weight loss helps to reduce this insensitivity to insulin.
10. Prevents Sleep Apnea
When a person is obese, they can develop excess fat tissue in the back of their throat. When relaxed, that is when asleep, that tissue can drop down and block the airways. This can cause breathing problems and heart problems. So weight loss certainly has benefits as it helps to prevent sleep apnea.
Those were the health benefits of losing weight. Now, you can check out some of the lifestyle benefits.
6 Lifestyle Benefits of Weight Loss
Check out the lifestyle benefits of weight loss below.
1. Improved Sleep
Losing up to 5% of weight can result in improved sleep. Moreover, it can also reduce sleep apnea, as discussed above. On the other hand, a poor sleeping pattern can result in weight gain, hence getting those forty winks to enjoy better weight.
2. Better Mobility
Losing weight can help to improve mobility. Weight loss reduces the pressure on knees and joints and thus improves mobility.
3. Higher Self-esteem
While there is no direct correlation between weight loss and higher self-esteem, some evidence warrants this belief. A 2014 review examined this hypothesis and found some consistencies to indicate an improved idea of self, body-image and general well-being in those who lost weight.
4. More Energy
Another of the benefits of weight loss is the feeling of having more energy during the day. Shedding the pounds means you require less energy to move, so you end up feeling less tired. In addition, weight loss improves respiratory function, making you feel more energized.
5. Improved Sex Drive
Among the unexpected benefits of weight loss is an improved sex drive. Weight gain increases SHBG (sex hormone-binding globulin) levels that reduce free testosterone and hence libido.
6. Improved Mood
Depressed people who lost 8% of their body weight were more likely to feel better. While other research shows that you will continue to feel better if you keep the pounds off!
While these were some of the benefits of weight loss, certain people may need to lose more weight to experience them.
Therefore, before embarking on any weight loss program, it is advised to first talk to a doctor to know the pros and cons.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much exercise do you need to observe weight loss benefits?
You will need to perform aerobic exercises at least 3 times a week for a minimum of 20 minutes per session. To experience better weight loss benefits, you can increase this amount.
What are the types of exercise you can do to experience weight loss benefits?
Aerobics and weight training are some of the exercises that you can pick to lose weight easily. Aerobics helps to pump your heart rate, and weight training helps to build muscle.