Burning Calories and Losing Weight with Regular Exercise
About the time that you’ve graduated from college, married and started your first career, you begin to notice small, insidious changes in your weight. The average sedentary individual will experience an annual 1% slowdown in their metabolism between the ages of 25 and 50. That’s a 20% decline by middle-age. If you think of your metabolic rate as the “idling speed” of your body, even if you maintain the same body weight over the years, you will gradually becoming more obese.
Your total body weight is generally compartmentalized into two major components: fat and fat-free tissue. We’re all pretty familiar with fat tissue. It’s the stuff that prevents you from getting into last year’s bathing suit. Fat-free tissue is everything else: muscle, bone, blood, connective tissue, etc. Fat-free tissue can be thought of as metabolically active tissue: it burns calories. Fat does not; it’s just along for the ride. So, whenever you think about weight control, the goal is to maintain as much of your fat-free tissue as possible, while eliminating fat.
People also store body fat in a couple of different ways. Generally, men tend to store fat around their mid-section (the ANDROID type, or Apple shape). Women tend to store fat below their waist (the GYNOID type, or Pear shape). Recent studies have indicated that there is a higher associated risk for heart disease in the android fat-storers.
There are three common approaches to weight reduction: diet only, exercise only and the combination of diet and exercise. A number of things happen to your body, depending on which approach you decide to take.
Studies have shown that people who choose to lose weight through the diet only approach will lose weight; but not necessarily much fat. In fact, much of the weight that you lose in the beginning is water. That’s why you experience such dramatic weight losses in the beginning and have so much difficulty losing weight later. In addition to losing water, you begin losing fat-free tissue; up to 25%. Anyone that’s lost a lot of weight over a short period of time can attest to the gaunt look that results; you just don’t look healthy. As you continue to lose fat-free tissue (active tissue), your metabolism begins to slow down. Your body interprets the loss in fat-free tissue as a reduced demand to expend calories. Thus begins the vicious downward cycle.
If you choose to use the exercise only approach, you will also lose weight, only at a slower rate. By regularly exercising, you begin to build more active, lean tissue. Lean tissue starts burning more stored fat, and the weight gradually comes off. But very slowly.
The best method, the one universally accepted by most healthcare professionals is through a combination of diet and exercise. Through the combined approach, you expend calories while slowly eliminating the fat stored by the body. The more you exercise, the more fat-free tissue develops and the higher demand for expended fuel (fat). As you can see, the diet only approach results in a downward cycle while the combined approach results in an upward cycle. Upward is better. There are other advantages as well.
Healthcare professionals usually recommend a slow, gradual weight loss of 1 pound per week. Each pound of fat is the equivalent of 3500 stored calories. If you divide 3500 by 7 days in a week, you will somehow need to lose/expend 500 calories a day. Should be easy. There are more than 500 calories just in a Big Mac. If you choose the more conservative approach, you can reduce your total daily caloric intake by 250 calories and exercise an equivalent 250 calories.
Less than one-third (31.8 percent) of U.S. adults get regular leisure-time physical activity (defined as light or moderate activity five times or more per week for 30 minutes or more each time and/or vigorous activity three times or more per week for 20 minutes or more each time). About 10 percent of adults do no physical activity at all in their leisure time.[27]
Many people feel that carrying excessive weight indicates a lack of willpower, poor self-concept or deep-seated psychological problems, when in fact, excessive weight gain represents a complex interaction of cultural, social, genetic, physiological, behavioral and psychological factors. Some these factors are more difficult to control than others.
According to data from the 1999-2000 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), nearly two-thirds of adults in the United States are overweight, and 30 percent are obese [8]. The 1985 National Institute of Health’s Consensus Conference on the Health Risks of Obesity, defined obesity as having more than 20% above the age and sex adjusted standard for body fat. Obesity constitutes increased risks for type II diabetes mellitus, high blood pressure, high serum cholesterol, high serum triglycerides (all primary risk factors for coronary heart disease), osteoarthritis, sleep apnea and various forms of cancer. Approximately 300,000 adult deaths in the United States each year are attributable to unhealthy dietary habits and physical inactivity or sedentary behavior [7].
So while you’re passing on that English muffin with extra cream cheese, think about making a pass to your local gym!
