Monday 15 October 2012

The D-Word: delinking exercise.

A CCE can strike without warning!
Every morning I heave my tremendous bulk around the Heath for about an hour of brisk walking.

Up until recently I did this as part of my weight loss programme. The theory is sound, eat LESS calories, burn MORE calories LOSE more weight.

The trouble with this approach is that the moment you have a CCE (Catastrophic Cake Encounter) and gain weight you lose all incentive to continue to exercise. 'What's the point of dragging yourself round the circuit if you remain the same porky bastard as before?' 

The answer, according to the New Scientist, is that exercise is good for you regardless of whether you lose weight or not. In fact a fit fat person (not an oxymoron apparently) is better off than an unfit thin person - take that you skinny wretch!

But how can this be? I hear you cry. What follows is a summery of the summery of the research as outlined in New Scientist 25th August 2012 page 39.

The most robust evidence comes from the Exercise is Medicine Initiative pioneered by the American College of Sports Medicine. Their baseline for physical activity was 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity (brisk walking etc) or 75 minutes of vigorous activity (running, swimming etc) a week. That's 2 and a half hours a WEEK!

The reasons, the detail is in the article, is because exercise; flushes all manner of shit out of your system reducing the risk of heart attacks by 30-50%. It alters the structure of fatty triglyceride particles (bad for you) making it easier for the body to break them down. Lowers the chance of developing type 2 diabetes by 58% (by helping the body deal with glucose in various ways) and helps burn off excess sugar.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exercise is good for you - we get it - so what?

 You have to de-link exercise from weight loss. The exercise is doing you a ton of good regardless of whether you shed a single kilo or not. Thus diet failure (and all diets like all political careers end in failure) is not an excuse to stop exercising. So now when I'm struggling up Kite Hill I no longer tell myself that I'm doing it to lose weight I tell myself I'm doing it so I can outlive those thin bastards who sit in front of the TV all day.

Two and half hours a week - please, I spent more time on twitter over the last two days than that.





1 comment:

Evil Edna said...

I discovered that I enjoy half killing my self with jogging at the same time that I rediscovered baking and making cookie -fail.I may round but with yoga and jogging I'm really bendy too!EE