You’ve Got To Move It Move It
Today I want to talk about exercise. Any successful healthy weight-loss plan must include a commitment to exercise. Moving more is good for you. It helps with your weight loss and improves your heart and lungs—and I gotta tell you—the endorphins released into your system through exercise are very pleasant.
I have learned that exercise can give your weight loss momentum. Let me explain. It is similar to a snowball rolling down a hill that grows larger, becomes heavier, and moves more quickly. Exercise produces more lean muscle tissue. Lean muscle helps the body burn more fat. The body uses two calories to maintain a pound of fat on your body each day, but one pound of lean muscle requires six calories a day. The more lean muscle you have the faster your body will burn excess fat. Muscle is more metabolically active than fat.
A study in the Journal of Applied Physiology (J Appl Physiol. 1997 Jan;82(1):298-304) showed that cardio workouts burn more calories than weight training. Though not as efficient at burning calories, the study suggests strength training increases metabolism. Metabolism is the rate at which your body uses energy, or burns calories (weightloss.about.com/od/backtobasics/a/blmetab.htm).
In addition, the benefits of weight training include:
• Prevents loss of lean body mass that happens from dieting and/or aging
• Weight training workouts burn calories
• Helps change your body composition, which helps shape your body and keep you healthy
• Strenghtens bones and connective tissue along with muscles
• Helps keep you strong and active as you get older
The bottom line is, strength training is important for almost any fitness goal, whether you want to lose fat, gain muscle or just get in better condition (exercise.about.com/od/exerciseworkouts/f/muscle.htm).
The way I see it, you want to use a diet plan that provides your body with well-balanced nutrition. Then you need to be more active and raise the rate your body uses energy, or burns calories (called your metabolic rate). I’ve also learned that you must be careful what foods you eat. You can gain nutrients from a Snickers candy bar, but how your body uses the candy is drastically different than gaining nutrition from fruits, vegetables, and lean protein.
Additionally, processed sugar actually slows down your metabolism. If you are working hard to lose weight through good nutrition and exercise, it doesn’t make sense to eat anything to sabotage your hard work. I’d like to share this explanation I found while surfing the net:
When you eat anything sweet or anything that is perceived as sweet like artificial sweeteners, the hypotalamus gland sends hormones to cause the pancreas to secrete more insulin. Then, because refined sugar basically overwhelms the blood stream, a hormone is sent to the pancreas to produce glucagon. Glucagon is a hormone that tells the liver (that is part of the endocrine system) to store glucose (the form sugar takes in your blood stream). These insulin/glucagon spikes cause the body to believe it is in a state of stress and needs to respond, so the adrenal glands fire and flood the body with cortisol, the stress hormone.
Cortisol is what gives muscles quick energy to respond to stress. The liver reprioritizes it’s functions when this happens and women stop reconjugating estrogen and stop making steroid hormones (sex hormones) and the adrenal glands become exhausted and you feel tired. Toxins are stored in fat tissue to protect your organs. As we age and eat cooked and processed foods, we produce less and less stomach acid and this causes our ability to digest food to diminish. This is why by the late 20’s we start putting on weight as “stored fat.” The fat tissue itself, called adipose tissue, acts like an endocrine organ because it makes a hormone called, Leptin. This hormone is responsible for the “utilization” of insulin and glucagon in the body and is produced based on what “type” of foods you are getting your calories from. If you eat primarily carbs, your fat tissue believes you are starving and it causes your METABOLISM TO SLOW DOWN. Sugar is a low density carb that does this in a big way. This is why people “plateau” when dieting. Fat, on the other hand is where the body gets “sustained” energy, unlike carbs that give quick, fleeting energy. Fat will not cause the metabolism to slow down like carbs do for this reason. This is why promoting these low fat diets are causing many problems and sickness and unhealthiness is the result.
So, if you eat good fats, like raw nuts and seeds, you will see a dramatic difference in your sustained energy and your weight would be much easier to manage.
(answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081231163239AAwakVe)
In review, don’t ignore the importance of exercise. I know when you are overweight, the last thing you feel like doing is to exercise. But, it is so important to your goal of improved health that you must find a plan that works for you. Start with walking more. Park your car a little farther away from the entrance to the grocery store. If you can manage, use the stairs instead of the elevator. Get a pedometer and measure how many steps you walk each day. Set a goal and work to increase your daily steps total.
If you are not ready for a heavy strength training workout at the gym, get a resistance band and start slow. There are many sites on the internet to help show you what to do and get you started. Simply put “resistance band workout” in your search criteria and you will have many good sites to choose from, including videos showing proper technique. As you lose weight you will feel like doing more. You will have more energy and your outlook towards exercise will change. Now I look forward to daily cardio and strength training several times a week.
Good luck to you as you move more and incorporate exercise into your health plan. Is a catalyst for change.
Kirk
