Movement Sufficiency NOT Calorie Deficiency

Do you want to reduce your body fat? If so, then you must focus on getting a sufficient amount of exercise rather than only decreasing your food intake. This is critically important! Studies published in Internationally recognized scientific journals as well as my own personal experience from years of exercise and nutrition counseling have led me to understanding an interesting and significant relationship between lack of physical activity and body fat. Not surprisingly, the more sedentary you are, the more body fat you will carry.

I strongly recommend that if you want to lose weight, you should increase your activity as your first strategy. Even being more physically active in general (such as climbing the stairs instead of taking the elevator, mowing your lawn with a push mower instead of a riding mower, moving around instead of sitting still, sitting instead of lying down and even showing some excitement and enthusiasm instead of boredom), will all help to burn calories and reduce body fat more effectively than slashing your food intake with crash diets.

Consider this: A half-hour aerobic workout accounts for far less energy expenditure than our minute-to-minute movement patterns that accumulate over a daytime in the office or at home, including things as simple as washing your dishes by hand instead of using a dishwasher. It all adds up.

It seems that almost everyone has lost sight of the value of being physically active. What happened? I'll tell you - the diet industry happened!

Millions of Americans are trying to lose weight, spending approximately $30 billion plus a year on diet programs and diet products. Often, they do lose some weight. But if you check with the same people five years later, you will find that nearly all of them have regained whatever weight they lost! I recently read about a national panel that sought data to determine if any commercial diet program could prove long-term success. Not a single program could do so.

Being overweight, and especially being obese, predisposes you to a number of diseases and serious health problems, and it's now a known fact that when caloric intake is excessive, guess what happens to the excess? It's stored as body fat.

Elevated blood sugar is one of primary culprits, because most people are sedentary while eating an excess of carbohydrates, of both the simple and complex variety. When this happens, a cascade of hormonal actions occurs in order to maintain balance in the body. The more this eating pattern continues the more fat you accumulate and the more difficult the fat becomes to remove. I cannot emphasize enough the need for human movement - exercise sufficiency - above calorie deficiency!

The lack of movement has many negative effects on your body. For example: a lack of movement causes many negative effects on your joints, ligaments, bones, muscles and your heart such as shrinking of the joint capsules, increased compression loading on your joints, decreased thickness of collagen fibers for failure rate of your ligaments, decreased bone density and bone spurs, decreased muscle mass, decreased mitochondrial content, decreased thickening of collagen fibers for your muscles, decreased maximal heart rate decreased the O2 Max for your heart.

According to Seaman and the Journal of medical physical therapy, "The two main promoters of degeneration are repetitive strain and sedentary lifestyle."

People who diet without exercising often get fatter over time. Although your weight may initially drop while dieting, such weight loss can usually be attributed to elimination of excess fluid. As stated above, when the weight returns, it comes back as fat and more stubborn fat.

As you lose weight via diet only, your body's calorie burning furnace is reduced. What happens is your physiology interprets the dramatic decrease calories and moves on its innate starvation instincts. To avoid getting fatter over time, increase your metabolism by exercising regularly.

In one of my recent articles, I talked about walking as one of the best exercises for strengthening bones, controlling weight, toning the leg muscles, maintaining good posture and improving positive self-concept. Increasing your daily movement can be as simple as walking more.

Another great way to reduce body fat is by resistance training. There are many types of resistance training that are very effective at building muscle (and muscle burns body fat). These programs can be fun and engaging at the same time.

One program I highly recommend is what I call" the spin routine." The routine incorporates all different movement patterns, aerobic and interval training, in addition to resistance training. This type of routine really burns fat. For example: 3 minutes of aerobic training (alter variety and intensity) and 2-3 resistance exercises done in a row with no rest. Repeat the cycle as many times as you wish.

When it comes to good health and weight loss, exercise and diet are inter-related. Exercising without maintaining a balanced diet is no more beneficial than dieting while remaining inactive. However, decreasing calories taken in from food is not the same thing as increase calories burned through exercise. Movement sufficiency, not calorie deficiency has far greater power to get you lean and healthy for life.

Copyright 2006 Personal Fitness Developement

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