The fifth and last reason is that your knees and elbows will be grateful to you.
Osteoarthritis is a degenerative joint condition, which means that it progressively destroys the bones in our joints and causes us to lose cartilage over time.
Imagine the sound of two boulders rubbing against each other to get a sense of how much fun it is.
Because osteoarthritis is so prevalent, healthy individuals, in my experience, don’t give it much thought because of its prevalence. Aging makes it more probable. Everyone’s grandmother suffers from a little bit of arthritis.
Therefore, we consider it to be the usual.
This conceals the fact that it may be exceedingly uncomfortable and even debilitating to a certain degree.
The progression of osteoarthritis is a vicious cycle, much like that of other chronic conditions.
Your joints pain, so you move less.
Because you are moving less, the strain on your joints will be reduced.
When there is less pressure on the joints, the muscles become weaker.
Weak muscles prevent the body from absorbing force in the most efficient manner.
When there is less padding, the problem becomes much worse.
If you have more osteoarthritis, you will have greater pain.
And so we continue our journey around the drain.
What’s the point? The risk of developing osteoarthritis is significantly increased when a person is obese.
According to the findings of one research that compared individuals of varying weights, those with the highest body mass index had a more than sixfold increased risk of having osteoarthritis diagnosed in at least one knee. It was nearly 18 times for both of the knees together.
(During the last 20 years, there have, of course, been additional studies that have looked at the same link. There are estimations that are both greater and lower than others. On the other hand, the correlation between osteoarthritis and obesity in the body has been shown several times.
It’s difficult to pin down exactly why this keeps happening.
It’s not simply that larger individuals exert greater pressure on their joints, which leads to a gradual deterioration of those joints over time. It may also have something to do with the fact that there seems to be a connection between the existence of extra fat tissue and inflammation.
Therefore, osteoarthritis is most likely caused by a combination of excessive joint loading as well as the inflammatory chemical and hormonal milieu that is produced when a person has an excessive amount of body fat.
In a nutshell, one of the primary benefits of losing weight is that it may alleviate the discomfort associated with joint movement and enhance overall mobility. These are items that will help you in a relatively short amount of time.
Reason number four is that you will have a restful night’s sleep.
Imagine what it would be like if a rockslide obstructed a tunnel.
Sleep apnea occurs when the upper airway contracts while a person is sleeping, preventing oxygen from reaching the brain.
Snoring sometimes isn’t the same thing as having sleep apnea, just so you know.
When you have sleep apnea, you repeatedly stop breathing. Again and over and over. As you sleep.
Which is to be avoided.
The risk of sleep apnea increases in proportion to the amount of total body fat. This is due to a combination of the following factors:
When fat is present in your airway, the space that is accessible is reduced. Your airway will be more prone to collapse as a result of this.
The extra weight that fat in your upper body places on your lungs also makes it more difficult for them to expand. You have a higher oxygen demand, yet your ability to absorb it has decreased.
Your hormonal signals may be altered by fat, which is an organ that produces hormones. Your respiratory systems will be rewired as a result of this.
Sleep apnea affects around fifty percent of persons who are obese but only affects twenty-five percent of adults overall.
Even more frightening is the fact that if you now have mild sleep apnea and you gain weight, the likelihood of your condition progressing to moderate or severe sleep apnea is as follows:
Gaining 5 percent of one’s body weight is equivalent to a 250 percent increase in the risk of severe sleep apnea.
Gaining 10 percent of one’s body weight is equivalent to a 650 percent increase in the risk of severe sleep apnea.
A weight gain of 20 percent is equivalent to a 3,700 percent increase in the risk of severe sleep apnea.
(And it’s scarier for children: just around 4 percent of typically-sized children have sleep apnea, while almost half of obese children have it.)
Then, why is having sleep apnea a problem?
The majority of our metabolism is controlled when we are sleeping. If we don’t get enough sleep, our metabolic health will suffer.
This results in a number of negative health effects, including increased inflammation, accelerated cell aging and oxidation, and hormone disturbance (and, yes, higher risk for all kinds of nasty chronic diseases in the long term).
In a nutshell, the ability to sleep better is yet another significant advantage that comes with a weight loss. Not only does this aid control metabolic processes, but it also benefits hormone systems and other bodily functions. It immediately improves how you think, feel, and live as a result.
Reason No. 3: You’ll finally be able to appreciate the flavor of the food you’re eating.
People who battle with their weight don’t appear to be able to enjoy the flavor of the food they eat as much as others do, which may seem strange.
Hold on, what? Do you think that those who regularly consume a greater quantity of food have a diminished capacity for taste? Exactly.
Why? We’re not sure. We do not yet know if having a higher body fat percentage alters your taste preferences. Or if the way you feel about your food affects your appetite and leads to weight gain.
In addition, we do not know if this is a problem caused by:
“Wanting” flavors: searching for and hankering for the satisfaction of various flavours
“Liking” tastes: genuinely taking pleasure in tasting things
chemical signaling is the process by which the brain interprets the flavor that is formed in the tongue.
Here is the information that we do have.
It varies from person to person how effectively and sensitively particular tastes and textures, such as fattiness or sweetness, may be perceived by an individual.
One theory is that when our sense of taste is diminished, we compensate by eating more food than usual.
On the other hand, those with high BMIs seem to avoid bitter meals more and have a greater “disgust” reaction. This may be because of their higher levels of body fat. As it happens, many veggies are bitter or astringent (think of kale, Brussels sprouts, green peppers, etc.).
It would seem that there is some kind of connection between:
extra fat in the body;
having a desire for and an enjoyment of fatty, sweet, and palatable meals;
consuming fatty and sugary meals; and
avoiding unpleasant flavors.
How could anything like this occur?
Animals provide great models for this purpose since we have complete control over what they eat, and they do not seem to place much importance on the marketing of food products.
So, in animal models:
The function of the mice’s taste cells is altered when they are overfed, which may lead to obesity.
Obesity in rats causes alterations in fat and sugar reward, but those changes may be reversed, at least partially, by reducing the animal’s body weight.
It would seem that “normal” liking and desiring behavior has been restored in rats who have had weight reduction surgery (yes, this is a real thing).
To put it another way, this may indicate that:
A significant number of persons who are overweight also have a distorted sense of taste.
The experience of taste may have existed before the accumulation of fat.
The impression of taste might also be the result of an increase in body fat. Either or both
The only thing I’ll add is the observation that the foods that we believe to be most responsible for obesity also tend to be the ones that cater directly to this dysfunction by having taste profiles that are aggressively too sweet, overly salty, overly fatty, and so on.
We eat them again and over again, yet they never seem to be able to satiate our hunger. It’s like a game of Sisyphus, isn’t it?
The uplifting news is that both people and rats are capable of developing new preferences.
This suggests that reducing body fat, improving physical fitness, and establishing and maintaining healthy behaviors might really alter the way in which we experience tastes. In a nice manner.
(You never know, you may wake up one day and decide that you really like eating Brussels sprouts.)
Most importantly, when you eat because you’re actually enjoying it, not only do you eat less, but you also feel much more content afterward.
The end result is that individuals who are obese have changed taste sensations, which leads to their eating more and consuming more of the incorrect kinds of meals. As you become thinner, you’ll find that you have less of a desire for foods that are heavy in sugar and fat. You could even appreciate an additional vegetable or two.
The second reason is that your immune system will begin to function normally again.
People have a tendency to conceive of their body fat in the same way that an ATM works: as a location where they may deposit or withdraw energy. It is not that.
Instead, fat serves as a functional endocrine organ in the body. This indicates that it exudes hormones as well as cytokines (cell signaling molecules).
Both hormones and cytokines exert their influence in many parts of the body. Chemically speaking, they communicate with one another.
Maintaining a healthy equilibrium is crucial in all aspects of life. When we have the appropriate quantity of fat in our bodies, our hormones and the messages between cells function normally. When we have too much of anything, things start to go awry.
For instance, when we have an abnormally high amount of body fat, our immune systems go out of whack.
Because this body of information is so large and intimidating, let’s try to make things as straightforward as possible.
An increased body mass index (BMI) and increased levels of body fat are both related with an increased risk for a variety of illnesses, including the following:
infections of the gums,
infections of the nose and sinuses,
gastrointestinal infections, as well as
herpes (thankfully, the mouth kind).
Why? Excessive levels of adipose (fat) tissue may trigger the production of significant quantities of immunological molecules. This persistently high exposure may, over time, interfere with the body’s capacity to recognize and fight genuine illnesses that come from the outside.
In a nutshell, reducing the amount of fat in one’s body may result in a healthier, more sensitive, and more strong immune system. And this results in fewer cases of the common cold, fewer instances of illnesses, and an overall better way of life.
The first reason is that you won’t die during the operation or the delivery.
People who have a high percentage of body fat:
are more difficult to intubate.
post-laparoscopic patients are more likely to develop an incisional hernia.
(i.e. springing open again),
having a much extended period of operation,
have a greater likelihood of developing an infection at the catheter site, and
have a greater incidence of life-threatening complications after surgery.
Patients who are obese have increased risks during surgical procedures.
People who battle with obesity also deal with a greater number of health conditions, some of which may necessitate them to undergo surgery. This is a double-edged sword.
Therefore, obese persons could need surgery… Nonetheless, they may not be able to receive it or may not recover as well once they do.
One excellent illustration of this is when a woman is pregnant.
When opposed to just around 20 percent of women in the general population, about half of the women who are extremely obese are required to go through with Caesarean procedures during childbirth.
Even if they choose to have a vaginal delivery, obese women may still have to undergo a greater number of medical procedures and have a greater number of medical tools involved.
Obese moms may have a higher risk of developing surgical site infections after surgical procedures.
This is in addition to the risk of additional issues during pregnancy, which also dramatically rises with increasing body fat.
In a nutshell, the goal of every person who has surgery is to have a trouble-free and rapid recovery. And it is every mother’s hope that her child will be healthy and happy after the delivery. Having a body fat percentage that falls within the normal range increases the likelihood of those positive results.