The Health Benefits of Losing Weight in 2015

Many people make New Year's resolutions to lose weight and it can be for various reasons. For example, you might drop a few pounds just to fit into those jeans you haven't worn since your college days, but it can also be beneficial to your health. If you decided not to make losing weight one of your resolutions, you might want to change your mind!

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It lowers your "bad" cholesterol! Is your doctor getting on your back about how bad your cholesterol levels are? If you start exercising and eating healthy, you can start to raise your HDL or "good" cholesterol levels, which helps to fight your "bad" LDL cholesterol. It won't be able to deposit plaque in your arteries, decreasing your chances of heart attacks and strokes! If you lose just 10 pounds you can decrease your cholesterol by 10 percent.

It also lowers your blood pressure! When a doctor measures your blood pressure, they are measuring how much pressure is on your artery walls. The more plaque build up in your arteries, the higher your blood pressure. You need to especially look out for hypertension! It thickens the walls of your heart, making them stiff and prone to heart failure. That makes your heart work harder to pump blood throughout your body and can lead to damaged blood vessels in your kidneys.

Reduces your risk of heart attacks. With high blood pressure and bad cholesterol you have a ripe situation for a heart attack. All that plaque buildup has created a narrower space in your arteries for blood to pass through! Eventually the plague can buildup so much that it completely blocks your heart from getting the oxygen that your heart muscles need to survive, and in some cases it can prove fatal. You can improve your life easily by choosing to exercise and lose just a few pounds. You can reduce your chances by 50 percent if you lose just 10 pounds!

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Decreases your chances of losing your memory. The abdominal fat that surrounds your internal organs is called visceral fat. You can see this fat protruding from over half of the bellies in America. That type of fat can be pretty dangerous because it contains cells that release inflammation-causing chemicals into your body. It can cause memory loss and an increased chance of developing dementia!

Helps you to sleep better. If you're overweight, then the extra tissue can thicken your windpipe wall and narrow your airway. This makes even the size of your tongue and tonsils a threat to your life, because it can prevent air from getting to your lungs! If you can't get air into your lungs while sleeping, it results in low oxygen level and will send signals to your brain. As a result, your brain sends shocks to your body to wake you up and keep you alive. This is called sleep apnea. If you have severe sleep apnea you can be woken up hundreds of times per night!

Avoid join pain! All that extra weight puts a large amount of pressure on your joints. For every pound you are overweight, it is three times extra pressure on your knees and seven times extra pressure when you're walking up stairs! Over time, all that force wears away the cartilage of your joints and leaves an area of arthritis. Don't worry though, if you're starting to lose weight all that cartilage will start to build back up because you are reducing that pressure on your knees.

Worry less about diabetes! When you have extra weight your cells becomes less sensitive to insulin. This hormone is important because it manages the movement of sugar into your cells. When your cells become resistant to insult and cannot function properly, you have a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes. If you start controlling what you eat and exercising, you can increase your body's response to insulin and decrease your chances of developing diabetes by 60 percent!

Reduces your risk of cancer. Losing weight can greatly reduce your risk of cancer, especially breast and uterine cancer! The fat cells in your body are highly active and release all types of hormones. They release estrogen, insulin and insulin-like growth factors that fuel many types of cancer. Losing just eight pounds can greatly reduce your risk of getting cancer.

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Raise your sex drive. If you are less interested in sex it might be because of high blood pressure or diabetes. You might be more tired and less interested in sex; losing that bit of weight will give you more energy and reawaken your sex drive.

Save a little money! If not for your health then surely for your wallet at least! Dr. Travis Stork did a little research and figured out that if you simply cut out 100 calories from your diet every day you can save up to $172.20 per year! You can even save money on your medication by losing weight. It can lead to a lower blood pressure,which means less medication to take and more money in your wallet!

You'll have so much more energy! One of the best parts of losing weight will be how much better you start to feel! Lots of people have belly fat and that belly fat can start to squeeze your kidneys. This will raise your blood pressure and fatten your liver, leaving your liver unable to process toxins. Your liver will harden over time and develop scar tissue causing you to feel constantly tired and groggy! It's not permanent though, because once you lose that weight, over time your liver will recover. You'll start to have more energy than you ever imagined.

Source: Dr. Oz