EXERCISE

Exercise is necessary to achieve optimum health

• Exercise is usually used inappropriately.

• For example, people use exercise to help with weight loss.

• Most people, even those who try to exercise intensely, do not workout intensely enough to make a significant difference in their weight.

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Factors affecting using exercise for weight loss

 

First

• The number of calories that the typical person burns during a workout can be erased by merely eating a medium sized candy bar.

• You burn far fewer calories during a workout than you hope for.

• It takes a really intense workout to burn enough calories to make a significant difference in your weight.

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Second

• Unless you have learned to eat a lower calorie diet, most people are already overeating their exercise program such that exercising will not contribute to your weight loss.

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Third

• When you finish your workout, you are typically hungry.

• This usually leads to a reward of some kind of food that you really enjoy.

• You know that it is not good for you, especially if you are trying to lose weight. However, you worked out intensely so you deserve and can tolerate the additional calories.

• The reality is (see the first factor above), you probably just ate more calories than you used during your exercise session.

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Fourth

• Most people rely too heavily on exercise to lose weight.

• They have been told, from many sources including the government and medical system, that you need to include exercise in your weight loss program.

• Although there are great health benefits from exercise, exercise has no place in a weight loss program.

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Television shows such as the "Biggest Loser."

• Brutalize the participants by forcing them into a strict diet with many fewer calories than they are accustomed to eating.

• Throw them into an intense exercise program to force them to lose weight.

• This leaves the observer to believe that it takes intense dieting coupled with brutal exercise in order to lose weight.

• Nothing could be farther from the truth. This approach virtually never leads to permanent weight loss and/or a persistent healthy diet.

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There are many health benefits to exercise. These are related to what I call Physiologic Health.

• Our bodies are designed to be physically active, so it is very difficult for your body to function at its best without it.

• Appropriate physical activity can range from having to work hard in your employment to working out in a gym.

• The problem with using work as a physiologic stimulator is that it is usually of low intensity over long intervals.

• Especially in our modern society, the amount of physical stimulation that our bodies get from working is not sufficient to supply the needed physiological stimulation for optimum health.

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Very intense work.

• The problems with this scenario is that you stress your body excessively to the point that it cannot recover sufficiently from day to day.

• Over time, your body loses physiologic fitness.

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A major contributor to the loss of physiological fitness is your diet.

• Your diet supplies the nutrition that your body needs to function appropriately.

• When you stress your body without proper nutrition, it can have a much more deleterious effect on your physiological health than if you didn't provide it physical stimulation at all.

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A major reason for not using exercise as part of a diet plan.

• Unless you eat fairly healthily, you may actually cause your body more harm than good by exercising.

• This point is never stressed by any weight loss programs as their only concern is that you lose weight, not considering your overall health.

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Achieving optimum health.

• First, learn to eat healthily.

• Then exercise appropriately.

• That way, you will get a lot more benefit from your exercise and not take the risk of actually worsening your physiological health.

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Want to use exercise as part of your weight loss program?

• Don't start an exercise program until you have made your diet reasonably healthy.

• When you do start to exercise, do NOT eat additional calories.

• Keep your diet the same and use the few extra calories consumed by the exercise to help with your weight loss.

• In a few cases (very few), you may put yourself in a situation where you are losing weight faster than you should (more than 1-2 pounds per week).

• This results in you being too hungry with the probable result of binge eating.

• If you are the exception, simply add a few more calories to your diet to control your weight loss. DO NOT reward yourself with a high calorie reward, especially a non-nutritional reward.

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 The book "Lies Exposed!" or "Stop the BS"

• Contains a section on exercise.

• This information is not intended to be a full primer on exercise.

• It will educate you on correctly using exercise to achieve optimum health, which is what exercise is intended for.

• Even if you are a professional athlete, your exercise should be tailored to achieving optimum physiological health, which will allow you to achieve your maximum physical performance.

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Straight Shooter Health

• Currently does not offer assistance in establishing exercise programs.

• The resources required to offer this service is quite large and beyond the scope of our mission.

• We do offer assistance in understanding how to use exercise in achieving optimum physiological health and how to incorporate it into a weight loss program to maximize the benefits of exercise.

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If you want to learn how to optimize your nutritional and physiological health, whether you are interested in weight loss or not, schedule a free hour-long one-on-one telephone interview with Dr. Meline. He will be able to assess your goals and help you choose a coaching option that will benefit you most.