Dream Bigger, Achieve Greater

Trouble Bending your Body?

Sitting down on the floor was a prestige issue sometime back when even children hesitated to occupy a place in the mat when they went over to someone’s birthday party or even during a get-together. Sadly now, even kids feel it a pain to sit down on the floor and get up, request someone else to bring them a pencil or an eraser and find it difficult to sit down and get up repeatedly. I am not exaggerating and the other day, my cousin’s daughter requested me to get her a glass of water as her legs were paining and she was too tired of playing. On the other side, even youngsters as young as those in their 20s or early 30s suffer from knee-related problems or joint pain these days. Its pathetic to see such young people quote different problems that has a strong impact on their quality of life. Maybe its due to the unhealthy food consumed, lack of regular exercises, improper work schedules, irregular eating habits and overall, a miserable lifestyle practice. Sometimes, the health of people in their 60s and 70s overpower the energy and strength of those in their 30s and 40s. Knee conditions are prejudiced against women and every household (that has a lady) is not spared of this mostly. They are said to suffer from osteoarthritis-the most common form of arthritis.
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Burdened Bones
Osteoarthritis is the most common chronic condition of the joints where the cushion or cartilage between joints between joints break resulting in pain, swelling and stiffness. In worse cases, the bones break and cause excruciating pain in some people. This condition can affect anyone but predominantly a greater number of people above the age of 65. Age, weight, joint injury history, joint overuse and genes are major risk factors for the disease. 

Sometime back it became well-known that even a 10% reduction in body weight improved symptoms of osteoarthritis in obese and overweight adults. Lifestyle changes which included a well-balanced diet and regular exercise reduced pain and inflammation, helped individuals walk better, faster and improve overall mobility. This 10% reduction in weight not only improved osteoarthritis effect but also improved symptoms of a number of obesity-related conditions. While a group of researchers were curious whether further reduction (20% maybe) in body weight reduced osteoarthritis symptoms further they conducted their study on 240 overweight/obese adults who suffered from osteoarthritis. All the participants were above the age of 55 and most of them were women. The study was a long one conducted for 18 months at the end of which 74 individuals lost less than 5%, 59 of them lost between 5 and 9.9%, 76 lost 10%-19.9% and 31 lost 20% or more of their body weight.

It was seen that those individuals who lost 20% or more of their body weight suffered from less inflammation compared to those who lost only 5% of body weight. The people belonging to the maximum weight loss category suffered from less pain and performed better in a 6-minute walk test than those who lost less than 5%. The 76 people who lost between 10 ad 19.9% body weight also performed almost equally as those belonging to the 20% category.

Greater Weight Loss than Ever
This research shows that achieving greater weight loss through pure and scientific methods benefitted individuals greater than the previously mentioned standards (5-10% of body weight) of weight loss. When weight loss is achieved under professional guidance with no compromise made to the quality of food, without skipping meals and regularly working out it results in better quality of life, pain reduction and improvements in function. Such professional weight loss in a scientific way is made possible in a simple way by registered dietitian nutritionists at www.firsteatright.com who can help every individual achieve his/her target weight in a realistic and doable way.