Take Control of Your Health

Can You Be Fat and Fit?

with Joseph Mercola, D.O.
Lee Swanson

Dr. Joseph Mercola of Mercola.com

Is a person’s weight really a reliable indicator of overall health? Some medical research is showing that it isn’t. A recent report in The Archives of Internal Medicine compared weight and cardiovascular risk factors among a representative sample of more than 5,400 adults. Half of the overweight people and one-third of obese people in the study were “metabolically healthy.” That means that many overweight and obese adults may have healthy levels of “good” cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood glucose. At the same time, about one out of four slim people in the study actually had at least two cardiovascular risk factors typically associated with obesity.

Being overweight or obese is definitely linked with numerous health problems. Nonetheless, researchers found the proportion of overweight and obese people who are metabolically healthy surprising. Several studies have shown that fitness, as determined by how a person performs on a treadmill, is a far better indicator of health than body mass index. Some research has indicated that people who are fat but can still keep up on treadmill tests have much lower heart risk than people who are slim and unfit.

Your body is designed to operate best when it’s at an ideal weight, which varies slightly from person to person. However, carrying around extra pounds will inevitably increase your health risks. So while the new research is interesting, the idea that you can be overweight, or even obese, and still be in optimal health can easily lead you down the wrong path.

That said, obesity itself is not the underlying cause of any health problem; it is merely a symptom. The underlying cause is usually an unhealthy diet and lack of exercise, which leads to increased insulin and leptin levels. Add to that the strain of unaddressed emotional challenges and you may soon find yourself at an excessive, unhealthy weight, and health challenges can easily develop from there.

These three factors are present in the majority of people’s lives, which explains why two-thirds of the American population is already overweight. If the trends of the past three decades continue, it’s possible that every American adult could be overweight by 2048!

Achieving your optimal weight

In order to be optimally healthy, you can’t simply focus on one aspect, such as striving to fit into a size 6. You may be healthy at that size, you may not—depending on how you got there and how you stay there; i.e., are you exercising, eating healthy, and managing your emotional and mental stress levels, or are you just starving yourself and running on pure adrenaline? Making up your mind to lose weight is half the battle. From there, it’s just a matter of changing your lifestyle in the following ways:

1. Tailor your diet to your nutritional type. These are the foods that are right for your biochemistry, and these are the foods that will push your body toward its ideal weight. (By the way, these foods may be high in fat, high in carbs, heavy on protein or heavy on veggies, it all depends on YOU).

2. View exercise as a drug. When you’re trying to lose weight, a casual walk here and there is not going to cut it. Many studies find that exercising for one hour, five days a week is actually needed, and I tend to agree with that. There is also strong compelling evidence that strength training and high-intensity anaerobic interval training may be especially effective for weight loss.

3. Let go of your emotional blocks. Tools like the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) are your friend and ally when it comes to losing weight. For some, emotional eating is more complex, and an experienced EFT practitioner may be able to help unravel some of your deeper emotional issues.
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