Fascinating! The chair is a killer. I will really have to watch this as my work is very sedentary.
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This subject comes up a lot in this particular section of this forum. I, for one, am glad of it. I think it can't be discussed too often.
This is true - exercise is not the ticket to fast weight loss! But that doesn't mean there is no benefit to exercising. So many people I know - many of them quite overweight but some of them healthy weights or even positively slender - will lament, "I hate to exercise". But our bodies were built for activity. If our ancestors sat around at home watching the clouds drift by, they would have starved, naked and exposed to the elements. We have an incredible system of muscles and nerves and bones that help us do all the things we want to do every day.
Starting in our very early twenties, this system of muscles, bones and nerves begins to slowly deteriorate so as not to use up unnecessary resources that are better left for the young. It's the biology of life - use it or lose it, quite literally! Muscle, bone and nerves are metabolically 'expensive'. It takes a lot of effort to continually breakdown and rebuild those tissues. Our body does this breakdown/rebuild constantly, every second of every day of our lives. When we are very young, this process happens quickly and there is more building/rebuilding than breakdown going on. Once our bodies become less focused on the reproduction cycle of life, the rebuilding slows down.
Women, especially, are at risk for this. Osteoporosis anyone? Your bones literally begin to melt away like snow in springtime, every day you do not do weight-bearing activities. Research after research after research has repeatedly shown that weight-lifting activity - in very mild intensity levels but done consistently at least 2 times per week - has a dramatically more beneficial effect on improving bone density in women over 30 than any of the terribly expensive medications that are 'out there'.
The same is true of arthritis pain and flexibility. Exercise improves those complaints more thoroughly than any medications.
Exercise does increase your over-all metabolism, slowly, over time, as well as your over-all muscle and bone mass. Muscle and bone is more expensive to 'keep' than fat.
It is NOT fast. But it is beneficial and lasts a long time. A person who is active and exercising regularly might have a resting BMR of 1600 calories while a sedentary person of the same height/weight would have a BMR of only 1200. That is 400 calories more per day that the active person can eat without gaining weight.
We, on this lifestyle, know that 400 calories is a dream!!
A person who is working on getting healthier over-all might use exercise as a way to distract herself from eating when bored. (I do this!) Or as a way to tone muscles and look fit as well as thin.
I shared a quote the last time this discussion went around. It was meaningful to me and lots of people liked it.
"Skinny people look good with clothes on. Fit people look good naked."
There is also a post somewhere in this forum that has photos of people of the same weight but very different body shapes. It was extremely motivational for me - hopefully someone else can find and share it as I'm in a hurry to leave my house this morning. It showed people in various phases of getting fit. One was a young woman who was exercising to loose weight, and it showed her at the various weights, and she looked her best when she had *gained* weight, but she had gone from being a little 'lumpy' around the hips at 125#, belly and thighs to being sleek and toned and fit at 130-something#.
A pound of muscle and a pound of fat weigh exactly the same - One pound. "What is heavier, a ton of bricks or a ton of feathers"? But muscle takes up a lot less room in your clothes and burns way more calories every second of every day than that same weight of fat.
Exercise. Your heart, lungs, bones and joints will thank you for it. And you'll love what you see in your mirror!
This is true - exercise is not the ticket to fast weight loss! But that doesn't mean there is no benefit to exercising. So many people I know - many of them quite overweight but some of them healthy weights or even positively slender - will lament, "I hate to exercise". But our bodies were built for activity. If our ancestors sat around at home watching the clouds drift by, they would have starved, naked and exposed to the elements. We have an incredible system of muscles and nerves and bones that help us do all the things we want to do every day.
Starting in our very early twenties, this system of muscles, bones and nerves begins to slowly deteriorate so as not to use up unnecessary resources that are better left for the young. It's the biology of life - use it or lose it, quite literally! Muscle, bone and nerves are metabolically 'expensive'. It takes a lot of effort to continually breakdown and rebuild those tissues. Our body does this breakdown/rebuild constantly, every second of every day of our lives. When we are very young, this process happens quickly and there is more building/rebuilding than breakdown going on. Once our bodies become less focused on the reproduction cycle of life, the rebuilding slows down.
Women, especially, are at risk for this. Osteoporosis anyone? Your bones literally begin to melt away like snow in springtime, every day you do not do weight-bearing activities. Research after research after research has repeatedly shown that weight-lifting activity - in very mild intensity levels but done consistently at least 2 times per week - has a dramatically more beneficial effect on improving bone density in women over 30 than any of the terribly expensive medications that are 'out there'.
The same is true of arthritis pain and flexibility. Exercise improves those complaints more thoroughly than any medications.
Exercise does increase your over-all metabolism, slowly, over time, as well as your over-all muscle and bone mass. Muscle and bone is more expensive to 'keep' than fat.
It is NOT fast. But it is beneficial and lasts a long time. A person who is active and exercising regularly might have a resting BMR of 1600 calories while a sedentary person of the same height/weight would have a BMR of only 1200. That is 400 calories more per day that the active person can eat without gaining weight.
We, on this lifestyle, know that 400 calories is a dream!!
A person who is working on getting healthier over-all might use exercise as a way to distract herself from eating when bored. (I do this!) Or as a way to tone muscles and look fit as well as thin.
I shared a quote the last time this discussion went around. It was meaningful to me and lots of people liked it.
"Skinny people look good with clothes on. Fit people look good naked."
There is also a post somewhere in this forum that has photos of people of the same weight but very different body shapes. It was extremely motivational for me - hopefully someone else can find and share it as I'm in a hurry to leave my house this morning. It showed people in various phases of getting fit. One was a young woman who was exercising to loose weight, and it showed her at the various weights, and she looked her best when she had *gained* weight, but she had gone from being a little 'lumpy' around the hips at 125#, belly and thighs to being sleek and toned and fit at 130-something#.
A pound of muscle and a pound of fat weigh exactly the same - One pound. "What is heavier, a ton of bricks or a ton of feathers"? But muscle takes up a lot less room in your clothes and burns way more calories every second of every day than that same weight of fat.
Exercise. Your heart, lungs, bones and joints will thank you for it. And you'll love what you see in your mirror!
Great post shanti!!
I loved the post but it's easier said than done. A lot of people do not exercise for very valid reasons. Myself included, and while I would love to be more active the price I pay for it is too high.
I am hoping to loose some weight first so that the exercise I am hoping to start will not be causing as much pain as it currently does.
I am hoping to loose some weight first so that the exercise I am hoping to start will not be causing as much pain as it currently does.
Here Here Shanti!
I have FMS so I have to be very careful with exercise. I agree that using exercise as a way to bank calories for treats is a huge mistake but it makes a lot of difference to metabolism. Even a small amount of resistance work (weights) will increase your sensitivity to insulin and help reverse Type2 diabetes.
I started out with the lightest weights I could get and often only managed about 3 reps. I just kept on and added a rep when I could manage it. Now I'm onto the middle size of my son's small weights and do 10 reps and 3 cycles. I also do a couple of sessions of Wii Fit a week. When I started that I could only do 5mins of the simplest exercise but now I'm up to 30mins. If I don't exercise my fasting glucose runs at around 5.8mmol. OK, I know that's tons better than when it was in the diabetic range but doing a few weights several days a week will drop it to around 4.7!
There is very little in the way of research into the actual pathology of FMS but I was told by a physio that its been found that we have an abnormality of the capillaries in the skeletal muscles. This means that we don't get a good rate of exchange of oxygen/waste products so exercise needs to be done slowly and gently or you risk muscle damage but you can still do it even if it takes ages! When I first started my centre of gravity on the Wii was way out and I was using 2 crutches. Now its just slightly off centre and I use 1 stick but only for balance now, not for support. I heartily recommend exercise and that's not something I ever thought I'd say!
I have FMS so I have to be very careful with exercise. I agree that using exercise as a way to bank calories for treats is a huge mistake but it makes a lot of difference to metabolism. Even a small amount of resistance work (weights) will increase your sensitivity to insulin and help reverse Type2 diabetes.
I started out with the lightest weights I could get and often only managed about 3 reps. I just kept on and added a rep when I could manage it. Now I'm onto the middle size of my son's small weights and do 10 reps and 3 cycles. I also do a couple of sessions of Wii Fit a week. When I started that I could only do 5mins of the simplest exercise but now I'm up to 30mins. If I don't exercise my fasting glucose runs at around 5.8mmol. OK, I know that's tons better than when it was in the diabetic range but doing a few weights several days a week will drop it to around 4.7!
There is very little in the way of research into the actual pathology of FMS but I was told by a physio that its been found that we have an abnormality of the capillaries in the skeletal muscles. This means that we don't get a good rate of exchange of oxygen/waste products so exercise needs to be done slowly and gently or you risk muscle damage but you can still do it even if it takes ages! When I first started my centre of gravity on the Wii was way out and I was using 2 crutches. Now its just slightly off centre and I use 1 stick but only for balance now, not for support. I heartily recommend exercise and that's not something I ever thought I'd say!
Shanti wrote: ... There is also a post somewhere in this forum that has photos of people of the same weight but very different body shapes. It was extremely motivational for me - hopefully someone else can find and share it as I'm in a hurry to leave my house this morning. It showed people in various phases of getting fit. One was a young woman who was exercising to loose weight, and it showed her at the various weights, and she looked her best when she had *gained* weight, but she had gone from being a little 'lumpy' around the hips at 125#, belly and thighs to being sleek and toned and fit at 130-something#.
This one?
the-5-2-lab-f10/why-exercise-part-2-fat-vs-muscle-vs-bmi-t7367.html
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