WSR

We live in a busy world of high stress and hard work. As students our lives are filled with school, work, church, and extra curricular activities. Time and resources are limited and healthy eating and exercise generally become a last priority. Over the past 30 years America's obesity levels have nearly doubled. In 1976-1980 the prevalence of obesity in 20-74 year olds increased from 15% to 32.9% in 2003-2004 (CDC 2007). Obesity leads to severe health risks including heart attack, stroke, hypertension, diabetes and some forms of cancer. Proper eating habits and exercise will decrease the risk of disease and lead to life-long healthy living.

Healthy Weight
 Whether you want to lose, gain or stay the same weight a balance between calorie intake and energy output must be met. Calories are the fuel or energy value of food. Food and calories are how we fuel our body and receive the energy we need to work and survive. There is the right amount of calorie intake one must consume based on weight, height and age. This number can be calculated on the mypyramid.gov website. Correct amounts of grain, diary, fruits and vegetables will be provided and adapted for each individual.

Maintaining Weight
If you want to maintain your current weight, weigh yourself once a week at the same time of day, wearing similar clothing. Keep track of your weight gain and loss and adjust your calorie intake accordingly.

 If you are gaining weight, cut back on the calories you are eating. The best way to do this is to cut back on "extra" foods, that are not needed in your diet. Including added sugars, solid fats and sweets. Increase your exercise routine, focusing on intensity and endurance of your exercise.

If you are losing weight, increase your calorie intake. You can do this by increasing the amount of food you eat within each food group. Eat wisely making sure you are not loading up on empty calories that will not give you the energy you need.

Losing Weight
If you want to lose weight, weigh yourself once a week at the same time of day, wearing similar clothing. keep track of your weight loss over a period of several weeks. Decrease your calorie intake, making sure you eat foods that are essential and are found within the food groups. Increase your output of energy and calories by exercising regularly. This pattern of weight gain and weight loss can be seen in the figure below.
 

 

 
To maintain a healthy weight make sure the scale is balanced. Your intake of foods and calories should match your output of physical exercise. If you want to lose weight tip the scale towards the output of physical exercise, so you burn more calories then what you put into your body. If you want to gain weight, make sure you are eating more calories then you are burning when you exercise.
 
Physical Exercise

What is physical exercise?
Physical exercise is simply movement of the body. It can include anything from running and weight lifting to yard work, climbing stairs and pushing a baby stroller. It is recommended that you recieve 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise activity at least 30 minutes a day.

Moderate activity includes:

• Walking briskly (about 3 ½ miles per hour)
• Hiking
• Gardening/yard work
• Dancing
• Golf (walking and carrying clubs)
• Bicycling (less than 10 miles per hour)
• Weight training (general light workout)

• Running/jogging (5 miles per hour)
• Bicycling (more than 10 miles per hour)
• Swimming (freestyle laps)
• Aerobics
• Walking very fast (4 ½ miles per hour)
• Heavy yard work, such as chopping wood
• Weight lifting (vigorous effort)
• Basketball (competitive)

Check out these websites for more portion size and healthy eating tips

• The Portion Distortion Quiz from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) (http://hin.nhlbi.nih.gov/portion/) shows how portion sizes of some common foods have changed over the years.
• Food labels can help you understand that portion sizes are often larger than you think. Click the links below to learn how to use the Nutrition Facts Label on food packages:
  • How to Understand and Use the Nutrition Facts Label, Food and Drug Administration, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/foodlab.html).
  • Test Your Food Label Knowledge (quiz), Food and Drug Administration, Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/flquiz1.html).
• Take the NHLBI Visual Reality quiz (http://nhlbisupport.com/chd1/visualreality/visualreality.htm) to test your skills at estimating serving sizes.
• Use this handy Serving Size Wallet card from NHLBI (http://hin.nhlbi.nih.gov/portion/servingcard7.pdf) to help estimate the right amount to eat, or check out (www.MyPyramid.gov for detailed information on how much to eat from each food group without eating more calories than you need.