Health and Beauty:
Constipation and Weight Gain

ARTICLE ON HEALTH AND BEAUTY - CONSTIPATION AND WEIGHT GAIN
By Donovan Baldwin

Many people wanting to promote, and sell, their particular "health products" are often willing to use just about any scare tactic to sell their product or plan. As it often turns out, however, the "information" that they use to frighten people into buying their product is misleading, incomplete, or just plain false.

In all honesty, I cannot even always completely hold the advertiser or salesperson at fault, at least not completely, as they often are not aware of the facts themselves and are merely parroting the words they saw on the label, read in the promotional material, or heard an announcer or "spokesperson" use.

One popular area where this sort of thing crops up is in the the area of weight loss, and one common tactic which is used to sway people towards certain products is an apparent link between constipation and weight gain.

When you begin to observe what appears to be cause and effect relationships between things, you have to be very careful to realize that what may at first seem "apparent", or "obvious" is not always the correct answer.

For example, a few years ago, a company did a series of tests to prove that their fuel economy improvement gadget worked. Simply, they had drivers drive cars over a given route/track without and then with the fuel gizmo. When the drivers were driving with the gadget having been added to the car, they got significantly better gas mileage!

However, the test was challenged when it was learned that the drivers knew that they either had the thingie attached to their car or not. When the test was redone without telling the drivers whether or not the car they were driving had been fitted with the device, there was no significant difference between the two outcomes.

The interesting point is, that when the drivers were TOLD they had cars with the special device, THEY STILL GOT BETTER GAS MILEAGE, EVEN IF THE DEVICE HAD NOT BEEN INSTALLED!

In other words, when the drivers knew that they were "supposed" to be getting better gas mileage...they did. They unconsciously adopted driving habits which produced the anticipated outcome.

Now, I am not implying that if constipation and weight gain coexist that the sufferer is producing some sort of expected outcome. However, it cannot be deduced that simply because the two do coexist that one is the immediate cause of the other or that changing one will automatically change the other.

Many will have you believe that constipation and weight gain are linked BECAUSE constipation CAUSES weight gain. Their argument often is that more food is eaten than is excreted as waste under the best of circumstances, and therefore, if one is constipated, excess food will be stored as waste matter in the colon.

Actually, you would be closer to the truth to take a slightly different view and say that weight gain CAUSES CONSTIPATION.

Now, I am NOT saying that, but there definitely IS A LINK between constipation and weight gain!

The link is not that one causes the other, but is a result of the simple fact that lifestyle choices, coupled with inherited genetic predispositions can create both situations in the body at the same time. Several important factors in weight management are regular exercise, proper diet (i.e. nutrition...not doing without food, but eating a diet rich in fiber and other nutrients), hydration (drinking water), and proper rest. It is not a coincidence that these are also the same most important factors in preventing constipation.

Constipation and weight gain do not always go hand in hand. Constipation can be the result of several different factors. It can be caused temporarily by certain illnesses and certain medications, for example. Not everyone who is overweight also suffers from constipation.

The simplest way to combat constipation AND weight gain is to eat properly, get regular moderate exercise (walking is great), drink lots of water, and get eight hours of sleep a night.

Many things can be linked to constipation, or vice-versa, such as stress and constipation, but in most cases, the same remedy for constipation that I have mentioned also are good for the other condition as well. Exercise both relieves stress, and reduces constipation, for example.

Now, what about that stuff about waste matter in the colon and the whole colon-cleansing thing?

I'm not going to say that cleansing your colon occasionally won't make you feel any better. It just might! However, other than what you could easily move with some fresh fruits and vegetables and a brisk walk (and a few glasses of water), there is not any huge mass of waste matter causing to you to be overweight or unhealthy.

If you want to do the occasional colon cleanse, there are relatively safe colon health products, such as Bowtrol Colon Cleanse, which is a natural herbal colon cleansing treatment. Otherwise, just live a healthy lifestyle as we have talked about, and constipation and weight gain should not be much of a problem.

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Donovan Baldwin is a freelance SEO copywriter residing in the Dallas - Fort Worth, Texas area, and a University of West Florida alumnus.; He is a past member of Mensa and is retired from the U. S. Army after 21 years of service. In his career, he has held many managerial and supervisory positions. However, his main pleasures have long been writing, nature, health, and fitness. In the last few years, he has been able to combine these pleasures by writing poetry and articles on subjects such as health, fitness, weight lifting, yoga, weight loss, the environment, global warming, happiness, self improvement, and life. His blog on senior health and fitness can be found at Fitness-After-40.ws.
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P. S. If you want to learn more about why Diets Don't Work, please click here.