Obesity :: Common facts about obesity & exercise

One misconception many people have about exercise. Most people think that the more you exercise, the hungrier you will become and the more you will eat. Actually, in some ways, exercise is an appetite supressent. Exercise stimulates production of glucagons, which raises the blood sugar level, which reduces symptoms of hunger. Therefore, exercise is helpful in controlling eating if we exercise before a meal.

Spot Reduction-

Another misconception is the concept of spot reducing; there is really no such thing. A person can spot build a muscle, but one cannot spot reduce the fat. The only way to remove fat from the specific areas of the body is through plastic surgery. Otherwise, the only method of reducing the amount of fat on your body is to exercise and to consume fewer calories. Therefore, the best type of exercise for weight loss is the exercise that steadily consumes the most calories- and that?s aerobic exercise. Vigorous aerobic exercise is a better method of consuming calories than, say leg lifts or sit-ups. In general, it burns more calories per minute and most will perform an aerobic exercise much longer than they will a spot exercise.

Another reason spot reducing isn?t feasible is that fat is in a dynamic process with the body- certainly not nearly as dynamic as muscle, but nonetheless, dynamic. This means that fat is deposited and removed on daily basis all over the body. By exercising your thighs, however, there is no gurantee that the body will choose to burn up the fat in that area. So, what you are really exercising and affecting
Is the thigh muscle.

Starvarion Diets-

It is common myth that skipping will be help in faster weight reduction. Research has proven that skipping meals and resorting to starvation diet will propel your body into a – starvation/shutdown – mode of metabolism. By lowering and metabolism, this type of diet actually makes it more difficult for your system to burn off stored fat and much easier to gain back even more that you lost! One of the fundamentals of survival is to maintain a small supply of standby energy to live off of during adverse conditions such as famines. This involves storing of reserve of fat in the body.

In general, people need atleast 1,000 calories daily in order to function normally, even if they are sedantry. And depending on age, body type, and activity level, many people need twice as many calories. The body cannot switch from receiving 1,500 or 2,000 calories per day to suddenly receiving only 500 calories per day without experiencing a pretty good jolt to the system.

But the reason we can temporarily adjust to a zero intake of calories is that our metabolism almost immediately changes into a state akin to hibernation. Metabolically speaking, our energy producing system start shutting down.

This kind of metabolism also begins converting most of the food that we consume into fat. Normally, our bodies use much of our food intake to repair body tissues and to convert into a ready energy source. Confrontated with a starvation situation, however, our systems want to store fat because, ounce for ounce, fat contains more calories than does muscle tissue. This it is a richer energy richer source.

Simply reduce your caloric intake to below 1,000 or 900 calories, or significantly reduce the number of calories your body is accustomed to receiving, and within a day or two your metabolism will lower and change. Within a week, your system will be locked tightly into a decreased basal metabolic rate. The body first convets any incoming food into fat in order to build up an emergency energy source.

This decrease in the metabolic rate, combined with a lack of any ready energy coming into the body in the form of an adequate supply of food, produces a host of unpleasent symptoms. These include fatigue, light-headedness, weakness, occasional nausea and a lack of enthusiasm for life. Even after several days on the kind of diet that increses the ketones in the blood, a person?s mental processes are often impaired and slowed down.

Another condition produced by stavation diet is ketosis. Although ketosis may reduce your appetite, it also makes you weakand reduces your ability to exercise. Starvation ketosis occurs when there is a serious lack of glucose in the blood, forcing the body to depend too heavily on its fat reserves for energy.

Another disadvantage of starvation diets is that they cause a loss of protein. One reason this occurs is that specific cells in the body, including the brain cells and some of the bone marrow, require glucose for survival. At first these cells can utilize the glycogen and stored in the liver. But after a day or two, the liver runs out of glycogen and starts converting protein-which means your muscles to glucose. The longer you stay on a starvation diet, the more muscle the body will be forced to use as a source of blood sugar for your brain.

The only way to counteract this phenomenon is to eat enough calories to prevent your body from switching to the starvation-metabolism made.

Another reason starvation diets are a disaster is that, in the long run, you?ll actually gain back more fat than you had before the diet. There are two main causes of this. First, the body goes into a starvation metabolism. Secondly, the calories they are immediately converted into and stored as fat. This might actually leave you fatter than before because you will be gaining back fat.

Constantly going on and off such starvation diet is stressful to your heart and liver. Research has shown that frequent weight losses and gains will increase the amount of blood fat and cholestrol in the blood stream, which probably contribute to the risk of atherosclerosis and heart diseases.

For instance, if you skip your breakfast, about 17 or 18 hr pass without you?re feeding your body. This easily corresponds to the beginning of a fast. In addition, upon waking, your blood probably contains only between 80 and 120 milligrams of glucose in each 100 millilitres of blood. If you don?t eat soon, your cells will have to begin drawing from the glycogen reserves stored in the liver in order to maintain that blood sugar level. But as the glycogen stores are used up your glucose level may eventually fall below 70 milligrams, which will trigger a strong hunger response and possibly a craving for sweets to bring the glucose level up to normal.

Eating five or six mini meals per day is the best plan of action. By spreading your total caloric intake throughout the day, you can keep your energy level high and your metabolism active. Eating smaller meals won?t stress your digestive system, earlier.

In addition, eating smaller meals won?t place as many demands on your pancreas and other relatedorgans as they work to maintain a proper insulin balance. That?s why this mini-meal eating schedule is best management.


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