What if it's not too much fat that you are carrying around? What if it's excess water weight?

What is it's not too much fat that you are carrying around? What if it's excess water weight? - That's right. - Have you considered that it could be fluid retention that is your problem? If it's fluid retention it is a simple matter to reduce it. You need to eat less salt and salty food.

Your excess weight is likely to be water weight/fluid retention if you are one of the people who are vulnerable to salt, also known as sensitive to salt. The vulnerable groups include people who take or have taken certain prescribed steroids, including prednisone and prednisolone, or certain other prescribed drugs, women who take or have taken HRT or other oestrogen-containing drugs such as some contraceptive medications, people who take or have taken amitriptyline or other tricyclic antidepressants, or SSRIs like Prozac, people who take or have taken some other psychotropic/psychoactive drugs, pregnant mothers, PMT sufferers and people who ate salt as children.

If you fall into one of the vulnerable groups I have listed or if you ate a high salt diet as a child you will be sensitive to salt. People without this problem can eat salty foods without doing a lot of harm to themselves, because their kidneys will excrete the sodium which is excess to their requirements. But for people sensitive to salt, some of the excess sodium, along with the water it attracts, will enter their blood stream and not be excreted. So they carry extra weight - as water - around with them all the time. They also lose more heat from their bodies because the surface area of their body has increased with the added water, and the rate at which a body loses heat is proportional to its surface area. - They therefore need extra calories to do the extra work and to provide the extra heat. - So their appetite increases in order to obtain these extra calories. - So they may very well eat more to satisfy their genuine need for calories. - If what they eat is salty, then the cycle will repeat itself and they are likely to become obese.

To break the cycle and put the process into reverse, all that is necessary for them to do is to eat less salt. And eating extra potassium by way of fresh fruit and vegetables will accelerate the excretion of the sodium and water and speed up the weight loss. If you want to lose weight, eat less salt!

Have you gained weight from taking birth control medication (contraceptives)?

And do you want to lose that extra weight? But you are finding it difficult? - You may be surprised to learn that the sex hormones in those contraceptive medications are steroids, and that some of them have some of the same side-effects on the body as the drugs we more usually think of as steroids.

Oestrogen is the sex hormone in contraceptives that is causing your weight gain. And that weight gain is because the oestrogen is causing some salt sensitivity. That means that when you eat salt you gain some weight because the salt is causing your body to retain water. - You know - water weight. - If you cut down on salt and salty food you will excrete some of that water your body is holding in your blood vessels, and so you will weigh less. You will also feel better and have more energy without all that excess fluid to carry round with you everywhere...(o:

Read more about how to lose weight by eating less salt. And read more about steroids, HRT and other prescription drugs that cause salt sensitivity and water weight gain. And read about salt in food.

Lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better! See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.

HRT 'doubles risk of deadly skin cancer'

Women who take hormone replacement therapy to cope with the menopause could be doubling their risk of deadly skin cancer, according to new research. It found those taking HRT for more than six months at a time are twice as likely to get a malignant melanoma. The same study shows taking the pill can also increase the dangers, although to a lesser extent. Women on oral contraceptives for more than six months were 28 per cent more likely to develop a cancerous mole.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)

Have you gained weight since going onto birth control pills? - Do you want to know how to lose it?

The weight gain is because the hormone content is causing you to be sensitive to salt. - When you are sensitive to salt, you need to cut down on your intake of salt and salty food, e.g. ready meals and takeaways, because excess salt is being held in your body (sodium retention) and it is holding extra water in your body (fluid retention). - When you cut down on salt you will lose some of this excess salt and water by excreting it in the urine and so you will lose weight- safely, naturally, easily, without hunger or dieting. - Dieting is unnecessary, usually ineffective, and always harmful.

It is commonly accepted now, except by the 'experts', that less than 5% of dieters actually lose weight, and most gain weight as a result of dieting. - Even the ones who manage to lose weight do not usually improve their health. - See http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,11381,1515455,00.html for a report in The Guardian of Monday, June 27th 2005. It is about a huge research study of nearly 3000 people over a period of 18 years. The study found that overweight people who diet to reach a healthier weight are more likely to die young than those who remain fat. It also found that dieting causes physiological damage that in the long term can outweigh the benefits of the weight loss.

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See Sodium in foods and

prescribed steroids and HRT

The contraceptive Pill is outdated and leading to unwanted pregnancies and abortion as few women take it correctly, a leading expert said.

'Contraceptive Pill is outdated and does not work well', expert warns
Article in the Telegraph

Extracts:

"One in 12 women taking the Pill get pregnant each year because they miss so many tablets, Prof James Trussell, of Princeton University in America warned.

Women should instead use longer-lasting methods such as the implant or intra-uterine device (IUD) which can be fitted and forgotten, he said.

Half of all pregnancies in America are unintended and half of those happen because contraception failed or was not taken properly, the rest were not using any contraception.

No UK studies have ever been carried out but the rates are thought to be similar. Half of unintended pregnancies end in abortion.

Prof Trussell was speaking at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service conference in London and said few GPs offer long acting reversible contraceptives or are trained at fitting them, so most women end up using the Pill by default.

Also sexual health clinics where the methods are available are being closed down, either because of financial deficits in the NHS or just because it is a low priority, Prof Trussell said.

He said: "The Pill is an outdated method because it does not work well enough. It is very difficult for ordinary women to take a pill every single day. The beauty of the implant or the IUD is that you can forget about them."

"Ministers are 'insulting the intelligence' of British women by refusing to allow them to take medication to induce an abortion at home, experts said.

Current laws mean women seeking early abortions using drugs instead of surgery have to make two visits to an abortion clinic to take the two separate doses of medication.

Elsewhere in the world, including American and most of Europe, women take the first dose in the clinic and are given the second dose to take away and take at home 48 hours later.

"It implies British women are more stupid than the rest of the world," Prof Mitchell Creinin, of the University of Pittsburgh said at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service conference in London.

An amendment is expected to be tabled next month to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill to allow women to be prescribed the drugs in a licensed premises but for them to be administered elsewhere."

Some prescription drugs can cause breast tenderness. This is because of fluid retention. You need to cut down on salt intake.

Here are some of the drugs that can cause breast pain/tenderness/enlargement:

Birth control pills (oral contraceptives)
Corticosteroids, such as prednisone
Hormone therapy, such as HRT
Tricyclic antidepressants like amitriptyline

The pain/tenderness/enlargement/weight gain is because the blood vessels have swollen with excess sodium and water. - Reducing salt/sodium intake will reduce or remedy this problem. - See:

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html

Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Have you gained weight from taking HRT, e.g. Premarin, or other medication containing oestrogen, e.g. contraceptive tablets? - Here is what to do...

The weight you have gained is because of fluid retention. Oestrogen, as well as being a sex hormone, is also a steroid that like some other steroids causes your body to retain sodium along with accompanying water. - Reducing salt/sodium intake reduces fluid retention, so if you avoid eating salt and salty food you will easily lose weight by excreting some of the excess sodium and water in your urine.

Lose weight and improve your health in many ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

vulnerable groups

How to Lose weight!

Children and Obesity

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions and

http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/story.html - my 'political' page

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free.

Should women take a contraceptive pill that stops periods?

Pill that ends periods sparks health row - Independent

Extracts:

"The imminent launch of the first contraceptive pill which promises to free women from the constraints of menstruation has pitched specialists on both sides of the Atlantic into a battle over what is "natural" and safe.

Lybrel, the first pill designed to eliminate the fertility cycle, putting an end to the mood swings and discomfort associated with periods, is expected to win a licence from the Food and Drug Administration in the US this month. In the UK, where it will be marketed as Anya, the US manufacturer Wyeth has applied for a licence which it expects to be granted next year.

The drug is designed to be taken continually unlike other oral contraceptives which are taken for 21 days a month with a break of seven days during which the woman has her period, preserving, albeit artificially, the biological rhythm.

The argument about whether the latest lifestyle choice to be offered to women is good for their health has already begun. Writing in the British Medical Journal, Paula Derry, a health psychologist from Baltimore, questions the wisdom of menstrual suppression and argues it is unnatural and potentially damaging.

Long-term safety has not been established and the argument that menstruation is obsolete is "illogical and unscientific", she says.

Her stance is supported by research in the US which has found many women view their periods as symbols of fertility and health. Rather than loathe them, they have a complex love-hate relationship with them. "

"Is menstruation obsolete?

Yes, says Professor Anna Glasier, head of sexual health, Lothian

"When I took the pill I took it continuously. Who wouldn't? Who would want periods? The idea that menstruation is normal is wrong. Since time dawned most women have been pregnant or breast feeding or post-menopausal - so they didn't have periods. Also, the idea that the period you have when you are on the pill is natural is also wrong. The pill turns the ovaries off and the period you have is a fake. The thing to worry about is the increased risk of deep vein thrombosis on the pill - but there is no evidence that a seven-day break each month makes any difference."

No, says Paula Derry, health psychologist, Maryland, US

"If it is more common today to have monthly periods than in the past that doesn't mean it is unnatural. We know that menstruation is what naturally occurs when women don't become pregnant. A menstruating woman is a healthy, probably fertile woman - whereas unhealthy, malnourished or massively stressed women are more likely to skip periods. Menstrual suppression is unnatural. A drug chronically over-rides the physiological changes associated with the menstrual cycle creating a hormonal environment that is not found in nature." "

PMT problems can easily be lessened or cured by eating less salt/sodium. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/pmt.html

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)