Weight Loss Tips

The Role of Exercise in Weight Loss

Mathematically you can design an exercise schedule for yourself that burns enough calories to lose 1 to 2 pounds a week. While this works on paper, the level of exercise commitment such a regimen requires is not sustainable for the vast majority of people, especially if it is started all at once. Several panels of experts have looked at all of the evidence and reached the conclusion that while exercise is extremely important, it does not lead to significant weight loss on its own.

This does not mean that it is a waste of time to exercise. Exercise is one of the healthiest things that you can do for yourself. Even a moderate activity like walking for thirty minutes every day at a comfortable pace will burn an additional 200 calories. True, this is not enough activity to cause a dramatic drop in your weight, but it will give your weight loss a boost. Additionally, the few hundred calories that are burned with regular physical activity compensate for adding a bit more food to the eating plan during weight loss. That can make the difference between a diet that feels as if it’s depriving and a weight-loss program that is livable.

It is important to have realistic expectations about what exercise can and cannot do for weight loss. During the early days and weeks of weight loss, scheduling exercise is a way to help organize the day. About 200 to 300 calories burned during exercise can give weight loss a bit of a push. Exercise also helps boost mood and helps control stress, as noted earlier in the chapter. At a time when living a healthier lifestyle is foremost in your mind, physical activity can be a bright spot in the day.

So watch out for the trap in thinking that exercise alone will be enough for weight loss—that is a setup for disappointment. People who expect a lot of weight loss from exercise alone may become so discouraged that they give up their goal of losing weight or stop exercising altogether.

Weight Gain Is Also Due to Overeating

While reduced physical activity is a significant contributor to weight gain, we are also eating more. The average American adult eats about 300 more calories per day than in 1970. In studies that have looked at where those calories are coming from, mixed grain dishes like pizza and tacos and calorie-containing beverages except milk top the list.

Experts agree – the combination of eating more and moving less is behind the weight gain of the past thirty years.

Weight loss and weight gain are explained by the balance between calories in and calories out. You gain weight if you take in more calories than you burn, and you lose weight if you burn more calories than you take in.

To lose 1 pound, you need to create a calorie deficit of 3,500 calories. Over a week, this translates into 500 calories a day. You can create this calorie deficit through a combination of increased physical activity and cutting back on food. But how much can exercise contribute? Can it be an effective stand-alone weight-loss solution?

Exercise alone as a weight-loss method is particularly ineffective without

paying attention to food intake, and increasing activity is not a free pass to ignore eating habits. People who begin an exercise program often overlook the food side of the calories in/calories out equation. Some people even increase the amount of food they eat because they think they are burning more calories than they really are. The end result – weight gain rather than weight loss!

Going to the gym without a similar effort on the food front is sure to backfire.

Numerous research studies show that it is common for people who are trying to lose weight to overestimate their physical activity—they think that they worked longer and harder than they really did. People also underestimate the amount of food or calories they are eating. So the difference between calories in from food and calories out from exercise is smaller than they think. It is all too easy to overeat any time spent in exercise. For example, it takes about an hour on the treadmill for a 170-pound man to burn off a medium-size bagel (without butter or cream cheese), a few cookies, or a donut. A 150-pound woman doing a 30-minute workout at a circuit training gym like Curves burns about 150 calories, or the equivalent of a 12-ounce glass of orange juice. That’s not a lot of food.

A Closer Look at Weight and the Metabolic Syndrome and Cancer

Many people have never even heard of the metabolic syndrome, cancer also known as Syndrome X. Until recently, most physicians had never heard of the

metabolic syndrome either. Yet this condition – a combination  of blood lipid abnormalities, high blood pressure, and elevated blood sugar—affects almost one-quarter of the adult population in the United States. The major underlying cause of the metabolic syndrome is obesity, in particular, increased abdominal fat.

Five different conditions make up the metabolic syndrome:

1. High blood triglycerides

2. Low HDL cholesterol

3. High blood pressure

4. Elevated blood sugar

5. Increased waist circumference (as mentioned earlier in this chapter, greater than 40 inches in men and greater than 35 inches in women)

The metabolic syndrome is rapidly becoming a significant medical problem because it increases so many risk factors for heart disease and diabetes. Weight loss is the only effective treatment for this condition.

Do those extra few pounds really matter?

As weight goes out of the healthy range, risk increases for

• Heart disease
• High blood pressure
• Stroke
• Diabetes
• Several forms of cancer
• Metabolic syndrome (Syndrome X)
• Gallbladder disease
• Gout

A Closer Look at Weight and Cancer

Recent studies from the National Cancer Institute and other research institutions suggest that over 20% of all cancer is related to overweight or obesity. For years, researchers have commented that certain forms of cancer with a link to hormones (for example, breast and endometrial cancer in women, prostate cancer in men) are associated with weight gain, overweight, and obesity. As summarized in a government report on overweight and obesity, obesity increases the risk of breast cancer after menopause because body fat produces the hormone estrogen. Even weight gain not to the point of obesity can be a problem: gaining more than 20 pounds between age 18 and midlife doubles a woman’s breast cancer risk. The risk of colon cancer and other gastrointestinal tract cancers that do not appear to have a connection to hormones also goes up as one’s weight increases.

A Closer Look at Over Weight and Diabetes

Perhaps the strongest association between weight gain, metabolic abnormalities, and disease risk is found with type 2 diabetes. (Type 1 diabetes typically affects younger people and is caused by the pancreas not producing insulin.) A majority of people who have type 2 diabetes are also overweight, and the incidence of type 2 diabetes is increasing as the population becomes more overweight.

About 90% of people with diabetes have type II diabetes, which develops when the insulin-producing pancreas cannot keep up with the body’s need for insulin, a hormone that helps blood sugar enter cells. With weight gain, cells in the body do not respond properly to insulin, causing an unhealthy rise in blood sugar levels. This is known as insulin resistance. The pancreas produces insulin, but the insulin no longer works effectively.

Weight gain dramatically increases diabetes risk. The risk goes up with weight increases after age 18. The risk also increases about 25% for every unit increase in BMI over 22. One study estimated that more than one-quarter of new cases of type 2 diabetes could be attributed to a weight gain of 11 pounds or more. If we eliminate adult weight gain and obesity, we could eliminate over 80% of all type 2 diabetes. It is not surprising that one of the first treatment recommendations for type 2 diabetes is to lose weight.

The link between weight loss and diabetes prevention is particularly compelling. In the Diabetes Prevention Program, a lifestyle program that was conducted at several research institutions and included weight loss and physical activity components, participants dramatically reduced their risk of developing diabetes with a weight loss of just 7%. The results of this lifestyle program were similar to those observed in people on medication.

A Closer Look at Weight and Heart Disease

Heart disease is the leading killer of both men and women; 54% of all deaths result from heart disease. Being overweight or obese or having too much abdominal fat are strongly associated with heart disease risk factors including an increase in total and LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood pressure. Overweight, obesity, and abdominal fat increase the risk of diabetes, which is a heart disease risk factor.

Being overweight also directly affects risk of heart disease – if your BMI is in the overweight range, your heart disease risk doubles compared to people with BMIs in the healthy weight range. If your BMI is in the obese category, your heart disease risk quadruples. Losing weight reduces the risk of heart disease.

A Closer Look at Weight and High Blood Pressure

If we could eliminate overweight and obesity in our country, we could eliminate between 40% and 70% of the medical diagnoses of high blood pressure. Societies where people don’t gain much weight as they get older do not experience this increase in high blood pressure. The first thing a doctor tells an overweight or obese patient who has high blood pressure is to lose weight. Often this is enough to get his or her blood pressure under control even without any blood pressure medication.

A Closer Look at Weight and Other Cardiovascular Problems

Increased weight is associated with increased risk of congestive heart failure, a frequent complication of obesity and a major cause of death. Obesity changes the heart size and structure, preventing it from working properly.

Obesity also dramatically increases the risk of ischemic stroke, which is like a heart attack that happens in the brain. Compared to a woman with a BMI in the healthy range, a woman with a BMI greater than 27 has a 75% higher risk of ischemic stroke, and a woman with a BMI greater than 32 has a 137% higher risk. Losing weight helps reduce the risk of both of these problems.