You don’t feel your best when you’re carrying around extra weight … especially when it’s yours. Those extra pounds and the flab you’ve developed around your belly don’t just make you look older, slow you down, and dampen your confidence, they actually increase your risk for chronic diseases.
If you haven’t been able to shed extra weight by hitting the gym an extra time or two a week — or if you haven’t been able to hit the gym at all — you might lose hope that you can ever be fit. Losing weight isn’t easy, but it’s one of the most important things you can do to improve your health.
The expert doctors at Men's T Clinic® want you to stay healthy. They help you with weight loss so you can regain your energy and avoid the chronic health conditions that you’re more likely to develop if you’re overweight or obese.
And — don’t worry — you don’t have to lose enough to fit into your freshman high school jeans again to benefit. According to the CDC, losing just 5-10% of your body weight can lower your risk for diseases such as arthritis, diabetes, sleep apnea, heart disease, stroke, and cancer.
Stiff, achy joints aren’t just a sign of aging. When you’re overweight, the pressure on your joints from excess pounds gradually wears away the cartilage that protects your joints. In fact, every extra pound of body weight puts an extra four pounds of pressure on your hip, knee, and ankle joints.
As your cartilage degrades from the stress of excess weight, your joint bones grind against one another when you move, triggering pain and inflammation. Inflammation degrades your cartilage even more.
And, of course, when your joints are stiff, swollen, and painful, you’re less likely to do what’s best for them and best for you, which is to engage in physical activity every day. If you already have arthritis, your doctor works with you to devise lifestyle changes that keep you physically fit and allow you to shed pounds without triggering your painful joints.
Being obese (BMI of 30 or over) and sedentary substantially increases your risk of developing insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes. When you have diabetes, your insulin can’t move blood sugar into your cells so they can use it for energy.
Too much sugar (glucose) hanging around in your blood damages your blood vessels. The consequences of untreated diabetes can be dire. Due to lack of circulation and damaged vessels, you can go blind or lose a digit or even a limb.
While snoring may seem like no more than a nuisance, if it’s loud enough to wake you up or if you gag or choke in your sleep, you may have a dangerous sleep disorder called obstructive sleep apnea. If you have sleep apnea, you actually stop breathing for seconds to minutes at a time, and you could do this hundreds of times a night.
When you’re overweight, the fat around your neck and in your mouth can obstruct your airway, causing those dangerous pauses in your breathing. Untreated sleep apnea deprives your body of oxygen and restorative rest, raising your risk for heart attack and stroke.
Speaking of heart disease and stroke, even if you sleep peacefully through the night, just being overweight raises your risk for these two killers. And if that weren’t bad enough, you’re also more at risk for certain types of cancer, including those in your gallbladder, kidneys, liver, and colon.
A good diet and plenty of exercise are essential to good health and a trim figure. But if you’re anywhere from age 30 and up, you may have gained weight because your levels of the hormone testosterone (T) have dropped. Low T makes it harder to gain muscle and slows down your metabolism, two factors that increase your chances of putting on extra fat, especially around your middle.
Luckily, balancing your T not only gets your hormone levels back to normal, it also resolves the metabolic issues that led to your weight gain. Once you have sufficient T, you can expect benefits such as:
If you’re ready to take charge of your health and charge through your day, like you did when you were younger and fitter, contact the Men’s T Clinic® today. Reach out with the online form, or just call your nearest location in Dallas, Frisco, The Colony, Houston, Cypress, Pearland, or Pasadena, Texas.
