ACCORDING to Dr Ly Chenghuy, director of the LCC Medical and Health Magazine, two main things make people’s body weight increase.  One is eating fast food such as sandwiches, hamburgers or meat which containS a lot of saturated fat.

Another is the use of drugs including antibiotics and even aspirin, which can change the body’s appearance due to excessive water retention.

Dr Ly says that in cases of overeating the wise choice is to just limit how much or what we should eat for our daily meals. According to medical studies, fat is healthy and necessary but only in small amounts.  If excessive, fat can cause people to become overweight, according to Dr Ly. Moreover, people shouldn’t overload on ingredients like sugar because sweet flavours are a crucial factor in causing a chubby appearance. In the event that we cannot avoid using sugar, we can mix in small amounts only.

Diminishing weight by using weight loss pills or machines both can give effective results. For using weight loss pills, consumers should always discuss with a doctor first.

Ngorng Meng Heang, a high school student in Battambang province prefers using losing weight by an exercise machine.  So far she’s lost 2.5 kilos from a starting weight of 50 kilos.

“Using weight loss drugs did not give me any results at all,” she said.

“In ten days using the machine I felt that my weight do not gain, but I also had to watch my diet, especially my fat intak,.” she said..

Dr Ly said water plays an important role in creating blood to feed their brain system – and that if water was reduced from body – it would be impossible to produce blood.

In addition, Ouk Socheata, a freshman at Cambodia International Cooperation Institute, also revesled her weight-loss method.  She only ate two meals a day, breakfast and lunch, and then just drinks water in the evening – and no sweets.

“I felt exhausted and got dizzy since in my body seemed ran out of batteries,” she said.

“After dieting on meat, I was confront with stomach aches, so I decided to quit the diet to improve my condition. Otherwise, I cannot concentrate on my studies.” she explained.

As the result of giving up on the diet, Socheata gained her previous weight back by eating normal amounts –  and her sense of being able to focus on her studies has returned – although her appearance is chubby.

“Before, I wanted to have a slim body which would be suitable for any clothes. Nevertheless, I dropped out of the diet since it was affecting my health. Anyway, I still plan to lose weight again but maybe with the new strategy, she said.

Businesswoman Horn Sopheakna improved her health and lost weight at the same time following her attendance of a dancing class located in Toul Kork.

“When I danced, I observed that it helped me eliminate fat because dancing brings with it good emotions, especially with rock and roll, the cha-cha and the bambo”.

Sopheakna recognized that while she earlier wanted to lose weight by taking pills, she understood the effects and opted for dance exercise instead.

“Diet pills might bring my health down, so I prefer dancing to taking pills.”

Ky Bouhang, a Khmer herbal expert at the National Health Institute, realized that Khmer herbal remedies can also help weight loss by only using Elitoria Ternatea, known in Khmer as Anh Chhann Keav.  

His personal experiment with his co-workers showed that after drinking the herb for 15 to 20 days, he and his colleagues and him look and feel better.  He recalled that before using this flowers, his weight was around 80 to 85 Kg but has since reduced.

“We just pick up those flowers, from 5 to 10 stems, and then we make it like tea. Remember, we have to drink as soon as possible because hot water can make our body sweat.” he added.

“As I observed, if we overdose on the herb Elitoria ternatea,  the result can be a painful stomach,  but the body always seems to heat up.” he said.

“I dare not to say Khmer herbal might reduce fat as we have not sent such a kind of test to the Health Department to analyze whether we got beneficial results after using kind of herbal weight-loss method.”

Doctor Ly mentioned that there are many types of weight loss drugs.

“Diet pills can either help or harm people,” Dr. Ly said.

“No one but a doctor can prescribe a weight loss program because the wrong treatment can exacerbate diseases like low blood pressure and low cholesterol if they use diet pills without medical advice first.”