This article is the second of a two-part series on exercise. The first part, which was posted on June 12, was entitled “If Sports Fans Got Off Their Couches…….”
Approximately 90 percent of Americans who go on a diet regain the weight they lost within five years.
In other words, most diets fail. Most diets fail because they’re based on the premise that eating less food will spur weight loss – and the dieters will have the discipline to not return to their old eating habits.
The “eat less, I will lose weight” premise is flawed because people who eat less, but do not exercise will also have a slower metabolism than they did previously. As they lose weight, they will lose fat and muscle. When they lose muscle, their metabolism slows down. Consequently, they will find it more and more difficult to lose weight over time – and will find it easier to gain weight if and when they stop dieting.
One of my favorite books, “The Complete Guide to Walking,” proved the point about metabolism when it compared the weight-loss efforts of a woman who ate 500 fewer calories per day than she did previously with the weight-loss efforts of a woman who ate 250 fewer calories per day than she did previously and burned via exercise 250 more calories per day than she did previously.
The Math suggests that the two weight-loss efforts should have identical results – they both should lose one pound per week because you lose one pound when you burn 3,500 more calories than you consume. The woman who exercised, though, lost significantly more weight than the diet-only woman because she burned more calories during the part of the day when she wasn’t exercising. In other words, Exercise Woman burned more calories than Diet Woman while they were both watching television, cleaning the house, working in the office, walking to the store, etc.
Exercise Woman’s metabolism sped up after she began her weight-loss program, while Diet Woman’s metabolism slowed down.
The bottom line is that people who want to lose weight should examine their everyday habits and focus on moving more rather than eating less. Besides, food is delicious. Who wants to eat less pizza? I don’t. Eating the same amount of pizza is OK. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
The truth is that you don’t need to start an exercise program to lose weight. You might lose weight by spending less time on sedentary activities such as watching television and spending more time on more vigorous activities. You also might lose weight by walking more rather than driving to places like the grocery store that you can walk to.
Harvard Health Publications’ “Calories burned in 30 minutes for people of three different weight" illustrates how you can lose weight.
Watching television burns 56 calories per hour on average in 155-pound people. Watching television six hours daily burns 336 calories on average in 155-pound people. But what if you watched television only three hours daily and did something more vigorous during those three hours?
A 155-pound person who spends one hour a day gardening (334 calories burned), one hour a day playing with children (298 calories burned), and one hour a day painting the house (372 calories burned) will burn an average of 1,004 calories daily rather than just 168 calories watching television for three hours. That’s 836 extra calories each day – or roughly almost one-quarter of a pound every day.
Of course, you might not have one hour of gardening or painting that can be done every day, but please look at the chart because there are innumerable outdoor, daily life, and home repair activities that can burn more calories than sitting and watching television.
The additional three hours of activity might also speed up your metabolism so you will burn more calories than the average person during those three hours of activity – and more calories during the day’s other 21 hours.
And walking is a spectacular activity that should be incorporated into your daily life. I walked half an hour to the office where I am writing this story and will walk half an hour home. I should take the bus, I’ve been told. In addition, I’ve walked a few miles to and from the grocery store for about 20 years, even though I had a car most of that time.
Walking 3.5 miles per hour burns an average of 298 calories per hour. Thus, I estimate, I’ve burned between 600 and 900 calories daily walking when I could have driven a car or rode the bus. That’s more than one pound of weight lost every week.
More walking = more pizza. Thus, more walking is a win-win activity for everyone.
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