For a good majority of women, issues related to fat and weight control have always been very important. Most eat and exercise to maintain a healthy weight. While some women find that staying slim comes naturally and they don’t have to work very hard to achieve it, others find it quite difficult to lose some unwanted pounds, especially as they age.
Body image, sexuality, and self-image are often closely intertwined for women. However, the perceptions that most women have of their own bodies and also the perception of those whose bodies they love have been mostly negatively affected by all kinds of social and marketing influences. Today’s media basically wants women to have pubescent girl bodies that are slim, taut, hips out, curves out, whose breasts should be appropriately perky and youthful with visible musculature. This is very high demand, to say the least, considering the age factor and the challenges of female hormones.
Sexual empowerment for both men and women begins with high self-esteem and a positive body image. When a woman is comfortable with her appearance, size and shape, she is naturally more in tune with her senses and her sexuality takes on a whole new meaning and she wants to have sex, try new sexual positions, ideas and techniques. However, the degree to which women today gamble their happiness, their future and/or their sexuality on some fanciful weight loss or other personal physical “improvement” is discouraging.
It’s also interesting to note that while the anger most women feel at the pressure society puts on them to have perfect bodies is understandable, most women’s appearance isn’t just scrutinized more closely by other women. , but is often unfairly criticized by the women themselves. The problem is that most women can’t help but compare themselves. Arguably, most women dress for other women, although they dress to please men, what matters most to them is what other women say. Men can praise themselves more easily, but this is not so for women, who are in constant competition with each other to win the so-called “Miss Fit” contest. In fact, women are much more critical of their body shape and weight than men.
Why do women gain more weight than men? A woman’s lifestyle (unbalanced diet and lack of exercise) and her female hormones are the big culprits when it comes to talking about excess fat in women. Women seem to pay a much higher social price for their excess fat, while fat men somehow “get away with it.” Most fat men get fat by eating too much, but this is not always true for women. Naturally, male hormones keep muscle mass high and fat levels low, but the opposite appears to be true of female hormones.
Food is made up of calories, or units of energy. Physical activity and the body’s normal metabolism burn calories. When a person eats more calories than the body uses, the extra calories are stored as fat. These fat cells increase or decrease in size depending on the energy balance in the body. The metabolic pathways of female hormones favor the reduction of calories used to generate body heat and increase body fat storage by increasing the use of calories to produce fat. In general, women’s metabolism tends to convert more of their calories to fat, while men’s tends to produce more heat from calories. Therefore, women gain weight more easily than men and find it more difficult to lose fat.
Most women are actually the right size, but they are not happy with their shape because they compare themselves to average women. However, sometimes weight becomes a real physical, medical, emotional and/or psychological problem. A woman who carries many extra kilos has a greater burden than literal weight, since she will be prone to measure herself first, before any personal achievement, considering her weight as a main personal failure.
Actually, women should take a more retrospective look at their lifestyle and the demand that most of the media make of them. The point is that much of women’s frustration over body fat is mistaken. The desire for those super skinny female celebrities in magazines is based on a misconception. Even a healthy and fit woman would be hard-pressed to achieve the body of these young celebrities. When you consider topics like pregnancy, motherhood, full-time careers, menopause, and aging in the life of an average woman, these overhyped, media-hyped models really should fade into oblivion. Women are simply setting unattainable goals for themselves.
When women start to become more confident and adopt a more positive attitude towards their bodies, they soon begin to realize how sexy they really are and can be. The truth is that every woman definitely has some positive qualities about her body, which can be her nice feet, her heavy breasts, her long eyelashes, her super shiny hair or her wonderful curves. Every woman is unique, and while she may be busy belittling some of your characteristics, there are others who wish they had them. Therefore, it is best to be yourself, inside and out, and be proud of your physical qualities, enhancing and accentuating them, as they are part of your overall sexuality.
However, it is not about ignoring healthy standards. Being overweight can increase a woman’s risk of heart disease, breast cancer, and diabetes. It can also complicate pregnancy and can even make getting pregnant more difficult. Long-term studies indicate that the overall risk of developing chronic diseases is generally related to a person’s body mass index (BMI) as follows: BMI less than 20 (may be associated with health problems for some women, eg anemia, eating disorder, increased susceptibility to infection); BMI 20-25 (very low risk – healthy weight); BMI 25-26.9 (risk is beginning to increase – caution zone: overweight); BMI 27-29.9 (moderate risk – overweight); BMI 30+ (high risk – obese).
Your health risk is only partially determined by your weight, as there are other risk factors such as poor diet, alcohol, lack of exercise, smoking, high blood pressure, and of course female hormones. all of which play an important role. However, in their desperate attempt to get rid of the fat, some women resort to fasting or strange, unbalanced diets that simply make the problem worse.
There are many positive actions a woman can take to feel better about her weight, as taking good care of her body will help her feel more attractive. If she thinks her BMI needs to be lowered, especially for health reasons, a healthy, balanced diet to get rid of excess fat is a good start, and in general, women should eat as much healthy food as possible. Also routine aerobic exercise to improve the body’s ability to burn fat will help reap the rewards of a healthier, happier and better sex life.
Emotional health is the key to being beautiful. Therefore, self-pride and self-responsibility are imperative requirements if you want to establish and maintain weight control, a healthy exercise regimen, or some other physical routine. Starting a healthy, balanced diet habit and adding an exercise routine will make you feel good about the fact that you are taking positive steps toward a fitter, firmer, and overall healthier body, all of which will feel better to show it.
However, women should be optimistic but realistic about the prospect of losing excess weight because the fatter a woman is, the less competent her body is at releasing fat from fat cells; preventing calories from entering fat cells and burning fat for calories. As a result, the fatter she is, the less able she is to shed fat. The fatter and out of shape a woman is, the slower fat loss becomes. Prevention, they say, is better than cure.
Whether you’re curvy, dainty, muscular, slim, or plump, your body type is part of your sexuality. So start with a healthy balanced diet and routine exercise regimen because the sexiest women are the ones who are most comfortable with themselves.
