“It’s true, the scale can only give you a numerical reflection of your relationship with gravity. It cannot measure beauty, talent, purpose, life force, possibility, strength, or love. Don’t give the scale more power than it has earned. Get off the scale and live your life. You are beautiful!” Steve Maraboli
Health Risks
Being overweight is associated with so many different health risks that include – diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, metabolic syndrome, cancer, degenerative disc disease, osteoarthritis, fatty liver disease and sleeping and reproductive issues. Carrying excess body weight can also lead to poor posture.
Swayback posture develops when the abdominal weight overpowers the weak stabilizing muscles in the lower back. Slouchback posture follows, when the weight of a heavy chest rounds us forward. This rounding, slouched posture can lead to forward head, fatty neck hump, worn spinal discs and osteoarthritis.
It’s understandable that those who are overweight have real concerns about their posture, and wish to address these concerns with specific posture exercises. I have found that overweight posture pupils struggle to get the most out of their posture exercises and find it frustrating, when they fail to see significant change.
Most posture exercise programs involve movements that put gentle, but compressive loads on the joints – joints that are already under pressure due to excess body weight. It’s crucial that the weight comes down before putting more stress and strain onto the knees, hips, and spinal discs and joints.
For many posture pupils this will be a disappointing truth, but if the goal is to correct your posture and get results that can be maintained over time, I have found this approach, to be the best way forward.
If you put all efforts into improving nutritional lifestyle and take on an easy win, like fast-paced daily walking, (off piste – avoid pavement and get onto the grass, which is kind on joints and makes the heart work harder) you will bring down your weight faster. Once your weight is within 25 pounds of your ideal, your body will be ready to begin a tailored posture correction program and one that you can easily maintain, until you get real results – flexible, upright, confident posture that lasts a lifetime!
