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Losing weight can offer you more than the bonus of being able to drop a dress size. With the right weight management plan, losing weight can also help to improve all aspects of your health.
How can losing weight improve my health?
We all know that dropping a few lbs can make a drastic difference to our health, such as preventing diabetes and heart disease, but did you know that losing weight can also prevent back pain?
We have all suffered from it at some point in our lives, yet many of us don’t realise how easy it is to trigger back pain. For instance, you wouldn’t imagine that putting on weight can affect your back, but it does. And this is partially due to the way that this weight is distributed.
How can weight gain cause backache?
As a rule, when you put on weight it accumulates on your stomach, arms, thighs and for women on your breasts.
Now as you can imagine, this excess weight can have a detrimental affect on your posture as you will be carrying more weight on your front. And it does…
Causing your spine to become tilted and stressed unevenly (resulting in an unnatural curvature in your spine), excess weight on your stomach can also cause your pelvis to be pulled forward.
But this is not all that happens…
Whilst your back is pretty strong, there is only so much weight it can support before it begins to struggle. This means as you get bigger, your back has to work harder to support your frame and posture (as your muscles and ligaments are being strained), which in the long term can trigger sciatica and even a herniated disc.
What can I do?
Whether you are suffering from back pain or not, taking the steps to lose weight can make a drastic difference to your health. The key to succeeding with this weight loss is making sure you find the right balance.
1. Change your dietary habits
You are probably already familiar with this tip; however the only way to successfully lose weight is to make sure that you eat a balanced diet and exercise regularly.
Now, changing your dietary habits isn’t something you will be able to achieve over night (otherwise you will trigger unwanted cravings). However, as long as you strive to eat a balanced diet containing all your major foods groups, you can begin to lose weight. Here are a few tips to get you started:
- Aim to include 40% carbohydrates, 30% protein and 30% fats in each meal.
- Gradually wean yourself off high calorie foods e.g. if you currently eat chips 4 times a week, reduce it to 3 times for a few weeks, then 2 times and eventually only have chips once a week/every 2 weeks.
- Keep a food journal and track how many calories you are consuming. These are great as they help to highlight where your diet is going wrong so you can put in measures to prevent snacking.
- Create a calorie deficit of 500 calories. Once you know how many calories you consume a day (and how many calories you burn), try to create a calorie deficit of 500 calories a day. This will help you to experience average weight losses of 1lb per week. NOTE: to make this easier, try swapping your favourites foods for their low calorie alternatives.
2. Increase your physical activity
Getting more active can be easier said than done when you throw work and your family life into the mix. Finding 40 minutes every day to exercise can be hard. Yet physical activity is key to losing weight and offering your body joint pain relief.
If you are struggling to find time, why not try to do the following:
- Pick a time to exercise and keep to it. It is recommended that you try to slot it into the following times as it will be easier for you to stay motivated. Your options are: in the morning before you go to work (preferably make it the first thing you do); on your lunch break (a 40 minute walk every day can help you to burn hundreds of calories) or straight after work (preferably before you go home as once you are home, it will be harder for you to go back out and exercise)
- Go swimming or join a pilates or yoga class. Each of these particular exercises is good for toning your entire body as well as improving/strengthening your back and posture. These also only put a limited amount of strain on your back.
- Join with a friend or partner. Exercising can be lonely so get a friend or your partner to join you when you go for a walk, run, swim or to an aerobics class. Their encouragement will help to spur you on and stay motivated.
- Do your chores. No one likes to hover or do the gardening, yet each of these activities can help you to burn 100s of calories. For example would you believe hovering for an hour can burn 297 calories? Imagine what your other chores can help you to do.

When it comes to any weight loss plan, the easiest and healthiest way to lose weight is to eat right and exercise regularly.
Once you master these, you can confidently begin to see other positive chances in your life: increased confidence, improved energy levels, reduced joint and back pain, lower cholesterol and blood pressure, better fitting clothes… essentially everything you need to lead a healthier, happier and more importantly a pain free life.
So take the step to improve your health. With the right motivation you can lose those excess pounds for 2012.
This post was written for those looking for natural forms of
back pain relief.

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