If you want to live a longer life, a recent study published in iScience shows that it's more important to focus on exercise than weight loss. Glenn Gaesser, a professor of exercise physiology at Arizona State University in Phoenix, and Siddhartha Angadi, a professor of education and kinesiology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, reviewed more than 200 relevant meta-analyses and individual studies, which included tens of thousands of men and women. They told The New York Times they wanted to know if someone would benefit more from losing weight or from physical activity.

"Compared head-to-head, the magnitude of benefit was far greater from improving fitness than from losing weight," Dr. Gaesser told the The New York Times. Both professors found that the risk of premature death was lowered by 30 percent or more in "sedentary, obese men and woman" who started exercising. Alternatively, if people with higher weights dieted and lost weight, some studies showed the risk of dying young dropped by 16 percent, but some studies showed that losing weight through dieting showed no decrease in mortality rates at all.

In their research, they also found that those who yo-yo dieted, in the cycle of losing and regaining weight, had "metabolic problems like diabetes, high cholesterol, and lower life expectancy." But those conditions may be combatted through exercise. Working out can also help people lose the visceral fat that can raise a person's risk for Type 2 Diabetes, heart disease, and other conditions, even if the person's weight doesn't really change. Exercise can also improve insulin resistance.

The major takeaway from this study is that "you do not need to lose weight to be healthy," said Dr. Gaesser. "You will be better off, in terms of mortality risk, by increasing your physical activity and fitness than by intentionally losing weight."

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Want to Live Longer? New Study Shows You Should Focus More on Exercise Than Weight Loss - POPSUGAR

We know that selecting the best breakfast foods for weight loss can be, well, overwhelming, to say the least.

Do you eat carbs for breakfast or do you avoid them at all costs? Is it better to have healthy fats in the morning or should you stick with low-fat foods? These are the questions we are inundated with when trying to find the best breakfast foods that will help our weight loss goals, and it can be frustrating to feel like we don't have the answers!

To get to the bottom of this, we asked Courtney D'Angelo, MS, RD author at Fit Healthy Momma, and Trista Best MPH, RD, LD at Balance One Supplements, to give us the final verdict on the best weight loss foods to eat for breakfast.

Read to learn what they chose, and for more healthy eating tips, check out The 7 Healthiest Foods to Eat Right Now.

Fiber is a key ingredient in starting your morning off right, so you can't really discuss healthy breakfast food without first talking about oatmeal.

"Oatmeal is jam-packed with soluble and insoluble fiber, which helps you feel full for longer periods of time and plays a major role in digestive health by keeping the digestive tract flowing and your system clean," says D'Angelo.

Although oatmeal is one of the healthiest breakfast options out there, some people are still afraid of eating carbohydrates when they're trying to lose weight. But Best reminds us that not all carbs should be feared!

"It is commonly assumed that carbohydrates prevent weight loss, but a high-quality, whole-grain carb like oatmeal is a great addition to a diet for weight loss, especially as the first meal of the day," says Best/

Best does, however, recommend staying away from mixing your oatmeal with butter, full-fat milk, refined sugar, or other calorie-dense toppings if you're wanting to stick to your weight loss goals.

RELATED: This Dietitian Says There's One Breakfast That Can Improve Your Gut Health

Eggs are an excellent breakfast for weight loss because they are high in protein, but low in calories.

"Protein is another important macronutrient to get in first thing in the morning that will keep you full and satisfied, which may help you avoid tricky breakfast baked goods or high-fat breakfast meats," says Best.

One study published inHormone Research and Paediatricsfound that after a 3-month trial, 156 obese adolescents ate fewer calories at lunchtime after consuming a high-protein egg breakfast in the morning, resulting in weight loss at the end of the trial. The study logged that the participants could have experienced increased satiety and decreased appetite hormones resulting in their success.

D'Angelo says that "along with high levels of protein, egg yolks contain other healthy nutrients like calcium and antioxidants, which can aid in weight loss by improving the digestive system."

Here areWays Eating Eggs Can Help You Lose Weight.

Yogurt is a great breakfast staple when you're on the journey of losing weight, but it's important to be careful with the type of yogurt you choose and what you add to it.

"Yogurt is usually full of protein and can take longer to digest than simple carbohydrates, but just make sure you choose one with little to no added sugar, like a Greek or Icelandic yogurt," says D'Angelo.

Best agrees, saying "a morning yogurt parfait made with whole-grain granola, natural sweetener, and fresh fruit will give you protein, healthy fats, and antioxidants, keeping you fuller longer and preventing overeating or a sugar crash later on."

Here areThe 20 Best and Worst Greek Yogurts, According to Dietitians.

It can be difficult to incorporate fresh veggies into your breakfast, especially when you're already eating oatmeal, eggs, or yogurt. But Best argues that adding vegetables to your morning routine can help your weight loss efforts.

"Vegetables are low in calories but high in important nutrients that can help you lose weight like B vitamins, fiber, and other fat-soluble vitamins," says Best.

Not only that, but vegetables can also provide nutrients while keeping you satisfied for longer periods of time.

"We get a feeling of satiety when our stomach's stretch receptors are activated and signal to our brain that we are full, which means that a meal high in nutrient-dense, low-calorie foods like vegetables will help us to feel full without as many calories being consumed," says Best.

To incorporate more veggies into your breakfast, try making an omelet and adding in spinach, mushrooms, or bell peppers.

D'Angelo loves using almond butter in her breakfast because of the nutrients it contains.

"Almond butter is high in fiber, protein, antioxidants, and the good fats (monounsaturated fats)," says D'Angelo. "Nuts, in general, are great for weight loss as studies show that people who eat nuts feel fuller longer than those who don't."

She recommends adding almond butter to oatmeal, toast, bagels, or a breakfast smoothie.

D'Angelo also believes that smoothies can be great breakfast choices to help you lose weight.

"With a protein powder smoothie, you're getting a lot of protein and fewer calories," says D'Angelo. "Try mixing in your favorite powder with healthy fruits for fiber, protein, and antioxidants to help keep you full throughout the morning."

You can even start by blending up one of these22 High Protein Smoothie Recipes from Diet and Fitness Experts. Then, be sure to read these next for more tips:

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The Verdict on the Best Weight Loss Foods To Eat for Breakfast | Eat This Not That - Eat This, Not That

Hair loss that results from weight loss is a temporary condition that occurs when a person loses weight through restrictive dieting or weight loss surgery. Stress on the body or nutrient deficiencies may be the cause.

This type of hair loss is generally known as telogen effluvium, and it is a common cause of hair loss. It typically occurs about 34 months after rapid weight loss and lasts for up to 6 months.

Not all hair that falls out is hair loss. It is normal to lose about 50100 hairs per day, according to the American Academy of Dermatology. This is known as hair shedding.

During telogen effluvium, however, much more hair falls out.

Some causes of telogen effluvium can include:

Telogen effluvium generally subsides within 69 months as the body adjusts to the changes.

Telogen effluvium following weight loss is sometimes the result of nutrient deficiencies in the diet and the cumulative effects of weight loss on the body. This is particularly the case if the weight loss is due to crash dieting, weight loss surgery, or restrictive dieting.

Proper nutrition is vital to the formation of healthy hair shafts and the promotion of hair growth. Some studies suggest that diets low in iron and zinc may be more likely to induce hair loss. Other nutrients that may affect hair growth include fatty acids, selenium, and vitamin D.

Hair shafts undergo several cycles during their lifetime. These are as follows:

Hair loss happens when stress on the body triggers the hairs to stop growing and enter the catagen phase too early. They will go on to the telogen phase and fall out prematurely.

Although weight loss surgery can lead to reduced overall weight, it can also cause nutrient deficiencies that may lead to hair loss.

For example, one 2018 study involving 50 people who underwent sleeve gastrectomy observed hair loss in more than half.

Also, one 2021 study involving 112 women who underwent sleeve gastrectomy found that nearly 75% of them experienced hair loss. Of those who reported the condition, nearly 80% said that it started 34 months after surgery.

Hair loss due to weight loss is neither dangerous nor permanent. Generally, the body adjusts within a few months, and hair production resumes.

However, the nutrient deficiencies of a restrictive weight loss regimen can be damaging. For example, reducing the amount of iron in the diet can lead to iron deficiency anemia, which has several serious health complications.

Iron deficiency anemia can lead to:

Additionally, severe calorie restriction can lead to malnutrition and accompanying issues, such as decreased muscle function, cardiorespiratory problems, stomach issues, suppressed immunity, and depression and anxiety.

Telogen effluvium after weight loss can be the result of nutrient deficiencies or losing a lot of weight too quickly.

Prevention and treatment of telogen effluvium focus on proper nutrition and diet. Maintaining a balanced diet while avoiding crash diets and quick fixes is important to long-term weight loss success as well as avoiding telogen effluvium.

If someone is already experiencing telogen effluvium but is no longer trying to lose weight, they will most likely find that the condition resolves in time once they address their nutrient deficiencies through diet and, if necessary, supplementation.

A person should look for a paced, balanced diet that provides the essential micronutrients and macronutrients that the body needs each day to function.

Individuals should consult a licensed nutritionist if they are unsure what the proper levels of these micronutrients and macronutrients are.

If following a limited diet, be sure to include foods rich in iron and zinc. Look for:

Hair loss after weight loss is a common occurrence that may be the result of stress on the body or nutrient deficiencies.

Experts generally refer to this as telogen effluvium. Telogen effluvium begins about 3 months after the initial weight loss.

The condition is usually the result of nutrient deficiencies that arise from severely restrictive dieting or weight loss surgery. It will generally resolve within about 6 months as the body adjusts to the weight loss.

To treat telogen effluvium, a doctor may recommend adjusting the diet to add iron, zinc, and other essential nutrients if a person has a clinical deficiency. At present, there is a lack of research to support the use of supplementation to treat telogen effluvium if a person does not have a nutrient deficiency.

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Hair loss after weight loss: Causes, risks, and prevention - Medical News Today

Siddhartha Angadi is a Professor in the Department of Kinesiology at UVA a man devoted to understanding the relationship between weight, exercise and health.

Im a cardiovascular exercise physiologist," he explains. "I look at the effects and interactions of everything from exercise to diet and drugs, health and disease primarily looking at cardiovascular conditions where obesity is a risk factor.

And this month he and a colleague at Arizona State University shared findings from a massive review of studies on weight and fitness.

We have about 225 references in this article. It was a beast, Angadi says.

His findings were so surprising that theyve attracted attention from around the world.

We got contacted by Swedish public radio yesterday!" he recalls. "It happened the instant it came out of embargo at 11 a.m.

What he and Professor Glenn Gaesser concluded was that overweight and obese people can be fit and that reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer more than losing weight.

When you exercise and improve your cardiovascular fitness or if you just improve your physical activity, you observe considerable improvements in your health status, disease status and reductions in your risk of mortality, Angadi says.

The studies assessed patient health based on blood pressure, insulin sensitivity, cholesterol levels, artery function and something called VO2 Max.

We measured the oxygen going in, the oxygen coming out, and we can get a measure of what your whole bodys oxygen consumption is, and its an incredibly powerful tool for predicting the risk of mortality and disease in a lot of populations.

The conclusion that exercise can reduce the risk of disease and death associated with obesityis good news, Angadi says, because few people can lose weight and keep it off.

If you look at the long-term success rate of weight loss attempts, they are extraordinarily poor.

Angadi points out that a tendency to weight gain may be inherited, and the body may resist weight loss.

If you ask the average person on the street why people fail and losing weight and keeping it off they would probably say its because people cheat or they cant stick to their diet or their exercise program, whereas what we really know is when youre obese, you have differences in your physiological regulation of body weight. When you start losing weight, your body adapts its metabolism to deal with this reduction in calories, and thats a large reason why people regain the weight that they lost in the first place. Even the hormones that tell you when to eat and stop eating, they dont work as advertised after you stop losing weight.

And frankly, he adds, repeated weight loss and gain can lead to muscle loss, fatty liver disease and diabetes.

You know yoyo dieting -- what we call chronic weight instability -- also raises your risk forbad health outcomes.

Doctors say adults should do 150-300 minutes of moderate intensity physical activity or 75-150 minutes of vigorous exercise each week, but the study authors say just getting off the couch, taking short walks can be beneficial.

Meanwhile, UVA scientists say they have identified 14 genes that can cause weight gain in humans and three that prevent it. That paves the way for treatments that could help people to stay slim.

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UVA Scientists Say Exercise Is Better Than Weight Loss to Prevent Diseases and Death - WVTF

For better health and a longer life span, exercise is more important than weight loss, especially if you are overweight or obese, according to an interesting new review of the relationships among fitness, weight, heart health and longevity.

The study, which analysed the results of hundreds of previous studies of weight loss and workouts in men and women, found that obese people typically lower their risks of heart disease and premature death far more by gaining fitness than by dropping weight or dieting.

The review adds to mounting evidence that most of us can be healthy at any weight, if we are also active enough.

I have written frequently about the science of exercise and weight loss, much of which is, frankly, dispiriting, if your goal is to be thinner. This past research overwhelmingly shows that people who start to exercise rarely lose much, if any, weight, unless they also cut back substantially on food intake. Exercise simply burns too few calories, in general, to aid in weight reduction. We also tend to compensate for some portion of the meager caloric outlay from exercise by eating more afterward or moving less, or unconsciously dialing back on our bodies metabolic operations to reduce overall daily energy expenditure.

Glenn Gaesser, a professor of exercise physiology at Arizona State University in Phoenix, is well-versed in the inadequacies of workouts for fat loss. For decades, he has been studying the effects of physical activity on peoples body compositions and metabolisms, as well as their endurance, with a particular focus on people who are obese. Much of his past research has underscored the futility of workouts for weight loss. In a 2015 experiment he oversaw, for instance, 81 sedentary, overweight women began a new routine of walking three times a week for 30 minutes. After 12 weeks, a few of them had shed some body fat, but 55 of them had gained weight.

In other studies from Prof Gaessers lab, though, overweight and obese people with significant health problems, including high blood pressure, poor cholesterol profiles or insulin resistance, a marker for Type 2 diabetes, showed considerable improvements in those conditions after they started exercising, whether they dropped any weight or not. Seeing these results, Prof Gaesser began to wonder if fitness might enable overweight people to enjoy sound metabolic health, whatever their body mass numbers, and potentially live just as long as thinner people or even longer, if the slender people happened to be out of shape.

So, for the new study, which was published this month in iScience, he and his colleague Siddhartha Angadi, a professor of education and kinesiology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, began scouring research databases for past studies related to dieting, exercise, fitness, metabolic health and longevity. They were especially interested in meta-analyses, which pool and analyze data from multiple past studies, allowing researchers to look at results from far more people than in most individual studies of weight loss or exercise, which tend to be small-scale.

They wound up with more than 200 relevant meta-analyses and individual studies. Then they set out to see what all of this research, involving tens of thousands of men and women, most of them obese, indicated about the relative benefits of losing weight or getting fit for improving metabolisms and longevity. In effect, they asked whether someone who is heavy gets more health bang from losing weight or getting up and moving.

The contest, they found, was not close.

Compared head-to-head, the magnitude of benefit was far greater from improving fitness than from losing weight, Prof Gaesser said.

As a whole, the studies they cite show that sedentary, obese men and women who begin to exercise and improve their fitness can lower their risk of premature death by as much as 30 per cent or more, even if their weight does not budge. This improvement generally puts them at lower risk of early death than people who are considered to be of normal weight but out of shape, Prof Gaesser said.

On the other hand, if heavy people lose weight by dieting (not illness), their statistical risk of dying young typically drops by about 16 per cent, but not in all studies. Some of the research cited in the new review finds that weight loss among obese people does not decrease mortality risks at all.

The new review was not designed to determine precisely how exercise or weight loss affect longevity in people with obesity, though. But in many of the studies they looked at, Prof Gaesser said, people who shed pounds by dieting regained them, then tried again, a yo-yo approach to weight loss that often contributes to metabolic problems such as diabetes and high cholesterol and lower life expectancy.

On the other hand, exercise combats those same conditions, he said. It may also, unexpectedly, remake peoples fat stores. People with obesity usually lose some visceral fat when they exercise, he said, even if their overall weight loss is negligible. Visceral fat, which collects deep inside our bodies, raises risks for Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and other conditions.

A few of the studies they cite find that exercise likewise alters molecular signaling inside other fat cells in ways that may improve insulin resistance, no matter how much weight someone carries. It looks like exercise makes fat more fit, Prof Gaesser said.

The primary takeaway of the new review, Gaesser concluded, is that you do not need to lose weight to be healthy. You will be better off, in terms of mortality risk, by increasing your physical activity and fitness than by intentionally losing weight, he said. This article originally appeared in The New York Times

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Study shows you do not have to lose weight to be healthy - The Irish Times