How To Win The War Against Fat

Our bodies seem to be very, very good at transforming food into fat. On the other hand, losing that fat sometimes seems like the hardest thing in the world. There are basically three ways to lose fat:

1. Decrease food intake and keep activity constant,

2. Increase activity and keep food intake constant, or

3. Combine both approaches - diet and exercise.

I'm sure a lot of readers out there are very good dieters. Time and again, we go on a fad diet, lose some weight, then put it right back on by returning to the poor eating habits that put on the fat in the first place. Believe it or not, food is most often not the real problem that leads to obesity. A recent study showed that only 3.2 percent of obese people had become obese by increased food consumption.

Inactivity was the cause of obesity in 67.5 percent of the cases examined.

Exercise, obviously, is the best thing you can do to reverse the adverse effects of inactivity. A good solid hour of exercise can burn 300 to 600 calories. An hour of exercise every day, combined with cutting 300 to 500 calories from your daily intake can result in a loss of one to two pounds per week. If you wanted to achieve the same results simply by dieting, you would need to erase 500 to 1,000 calories from your diet each day. A couple of things that must be kept in mind though: always consult a doctor before beginning an exercise program if you have been inactive for any significant period of time. Also, never drastically reduce food intake without consulting a doctor.

To find out whether you have some fat to lose, you need to find out how much of your total body mass is comprised of fatty tissue. A doctor can measure this. Don't rely on tables or charts that claim to provide "ideal weight" for a man or woman based upon height. These tables rarely take body type into account. A man who is six feet tall and weighs 200 pounds might be thirty to forty pounds overweight if he has a light skeletal frame. If he has a heavy frame, he may be at his ideal weight.

Those of us who have been inactive for awhile probably feel allergic to exercise. We think exercise and picture ourselves sweaty and panting, trying to catch our breath. In reality though, an ideal exercise program for you might call for exercise at no more than 60 percent capacity. This means a leisurely walk for an hour. Do this and you will not only burn fat through the exercise you did, but you will continue to burn fat and calories for a few hours afterwards without moving a muscle. How? During exercise, we raise our metabolism. Metabolism levels stay high even after exercise. We burn 7.5 to 28 percent more calories for at least six hours after exercise due to this increased metabolic rate. Over the course of a year, this post-exercise increased metabolic rate can lead to a loss of four to five pounds in and of itself.

Now you probably think that by increasing your metabolism with exercise you also increase your appetite. This isn't true. The appetite does not increase in proportion to moderate activity. Only exercise for more than an hour a day will increase your appetite. If you are over 50, you don't want to be exercising for more than an hour anyway. Believe it or not, studies have shown that previously sedentary animals, when exercised for half an hour to an hour each day, actually have a decrease in appetite.

Studies have also shown that how and when you eat might be as important as what you eat. Rats trained to eat their entire daily ration in one to two hours gained more weight than rats who nibbled at their food whenever they were hungry. Eating just one giant meal increased the rate at which food is converted into fat by twenty-five times.

Don't be discouraged at thinking that you have to lose 3,500 calories for every pound of fat. Think long term. You don't have to do it all at once. Just add a little bit of exercise time to every day's schedule. You will lose weight. The health benefits will last a lifetime.

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