Calling all couch potatoes: if you're not getting regular exercise, you aren't following the Atkins Nutritional Approach. it's that simple. You must make a commitment to physical activity as well as change the way you eat-end take nutritional supplements. Doing one without the other is like riding a bike with fiat tires, it's a lot more difficult.
Why Exercise?
In case you need convincing, I'm going to build the case for how important exercise is and how integral it is to your new lifestyle. First, you should know that being active is critical to your good healtli. A report from the Global Burden of Disease project-a massive research effort that studied disease and death around the globe—Ancluded physical inactivity among the most important risk factors threatening global health. The second thing you Should know is that regular physical activity has been proven to contribute significantly to each of the Atkins principles: weight loss, weight maintenance, health and prevention, now I submit my evidence. We'll look at the first two together. weight Loss and Weight Maintenance It's one of the basic laws of the universe: if you use more calories than yon consume, you lose weight. (You sharpeyed readers might say, "Whoa, I thought we didn't have to worry about calories." That's true, but it's a great way, here, to illustrate an important point.)
For example: Without changing the way you eat, say you burned an extra 250 calories per day, which a 150-ponnd person could accomplish by walking for about forty-five minutes at a pace of three miles per hour. If yon did this for two weeks, you would create a deficit of 3500 calories and thinly lose I pound of body weight. In addition to enabling weight loss, exercise keeps the pounds off. Research shows that most people who maintain weight loss exercise regulady, while most people who gain weight back do not.
Exercise is like a buy-two, get-one-free proposition. Not only does it elevate your metabolic rate while you're exercising, but it keeps your calorie-burning meter cranked up for significant periods after you're through. This means that you continue burning calories at a good clip even though you've stopped moving. Similarly, when you increase your muscle mass, you increase the amount of energy your body naturally expends just to keep functioning-even at rest.
Good Health
By building endurance, flexibility and muscle strength, regular exercise contributes to the health of your muscles, bones and joints, in addition to improving your cardiovascular health. All of this means you'll be less likely to injure yourself and you'll have greater energy and stamina. In the long mm, it will help to ensure greater self-sufficiency in later years.
It also increases your likeUhood of living into those later years. One important study, called the College Alumni Health Study, followed graduates of Harvard University and the of Pennsylvania for years. They found that men between the ages of 45 and 84 who expended just 1000 calories a week-engaging in activities ranging from tennis to gardening-had a twenty to thirty percent reduced risk of dying from all causes when compared to with less-active lifestyles. And those who had even greater calorie expenditures reduced their risk still further.
Exercise comes with another subtle but powerful health benefit: By now, you understand the dangers of insulin resistance and the importance of curbing the overproduction of insulin. (If you don't, refer to Chaper 5 for a refresher.) Regular exercise results in a more efficient use of glucose at the cellular level, and this in mm reduces the output of insulin by the pancreas. It's just plain healthy to get moving.
Finally, many studies have shown that regular exercise appears to elevate mood and reduce depression and anxiety. In a Swedish study of thirty-four hundred people, those who exercised at least two to three times a week showed significantly less depression, anger, "cynical distrust" and stress than did people who exercised less frequently or not at all. The frequent exercisers also showed higher levels of coherence and stronger feelings of social integrntion.4 Sounds good, doesn't it? And ns if those benefits aren't enough in themselves, think about how often those feelings of depression or anger are the ones that lead you to overeat. You'll kill two birds with one stone if you can reduce them.
Disense Prevention
Physical activity has important positive effects on virtually all of the body's systems: musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, respiratory and endocrine. These effects result in reduced risks ofcoronary heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, colon cancer and Type H diabetes. As more exercise and discase research accumulates, we'H iihely find many other conditions that may be prevented with regular exercise.
Probably the most compelling evidence out there has to do with exercise's ability to help our hearts: In the famous Honolulu Heart Program study of twenty-six hundred men ages 71 to 93, researchers found a fifteen percent decrease in risk of heart disease for every half mile walked per day. The men who walked one and a half miles or more per day bad less than half the rate of heart disease compared to those who walked less than a quarter mile per day.50thex studies have had similarly amazing results.
Have I made my case? So why is it that sixty percent of us don't get regular exercise? Here are some of the excuses I hear most often:
· "I don't have time" Oh, how often I've heard this one. Listen, folks, if you sleep eight hours a night, you have sixteen waking hours a day. Subtract eight hours for working and two for eating and personal hygiene and you still have six hours left. In those six hours, there is no way you can't find half an hour for exercise. For other things that are important to you, you simply find or make time, and this should be the same!
· "I'm too old? If you're over a hundred, call me for a special consultation to discuss the possibility of your not exercising. The rest of you, get up out of your rocking chairs!
· "I'm not In good health" This is a reason to begin slowly and proceed cautiously, rAn exercise lin)gram can be tailored to any condition and even the frailest person can start at a level appropriate to his or her condition. If you still have the use of your limbs, you can exercise.
· "I'm too lazy" This is usually the real reason, and I can hardly criticize you with a straight face since, for much of my life, l've been guilty myself. The solution for you may be what worked for me: Find an exercise you really like (in my case, tennis) and build your fitness program around that. I even find it easier to do some things I don't like at all—such as jogging and weight-training—because I tell myself they'll help my tennis game. If you find the sport or activity you enjoy, you'll look forward to doing it instead of thinking of it ns a chore.
Transforming Your Inner Couch Potato
Here are ten gmat tips to make being active an everpresent part of your life:
1. Park far from the ertrance to the mall, grocery store, your office or friend's house.
2. Don't leave your shopping cart in the parking lot; return it to the store.
3. Contract and relax all your muscles when you sit down.
4. Use music to pep you up during exercise and household chores so you'll pick up the pace and get your blood pumping.
5. Lay out the next day's workout clothes every night before going to bed.
6. Keep a log of all your activity—including household chores and walking.
7. Have an exercise plan for rainy days and when traveling.
8. For the first few months, do less than you think you can. It will keep you coming back for more while also helping you avoid injury,
9. Get in the habit of taking the stairs instead of the elevator or esoalator.
10. Dance with your apouse, with your kids, with a friend—or even by yourself when you're alone in the house.
How Much Exercise Do You Need?
It may not be as much as yon think. Tho Surgeon General's 1996 report on physical activity and health states: "Physical activity need nm be strenuons to achieve health benefits? Thc report recommends that people of all ages get a minimum of thirty minutes of physical activity of modcrate intensity (such as brisk walking) on most, if not all, days of the week. The report also says that, for most people, it's even better to exercise harder and longer.
I recommend that your daily minimum of thirty minutes of physical activity take place all at once because it will get your fat-burning engine into a sustained mode. However, for those of you who absolutely cannot or will not do it all at once, the following provides some benefits, although results will take longer to achieve: Try three ten-minute sessions (or two fifteen-minute sessions) of moderately intense activity. For example, do ten minutes of sit-ups, leg Ii.tis, stretching and arm exercises in the morning; take a brisk ten-minute walk at lunchtime; rake some leaves and do a bit of vigorous house or yard work for ten minutes before dinner and... you've done it!(See also "Transforming Your Inner Couch Potato" on page 290).
Another way to organize your exercise is to count the calories you bum (you know I'm not going to ask you to count the calories you consume!) According to renowned researcher and founder of the College Alurni Health Study Ralph Paffenbarger in his book LifeFit: An Effective Exercise Program for Optimal Health and a Longer Life, you should expend 1,500 to 2,000 calories per week for the greatest health benefiL7 Check the caloric expenditure tables on pages 298-300 and draw up your plan.
An important note: The American College of Sports Medicine recommends that you include weight-bearing exercise in your workouts two to three (non-consecufive) clays a week. It's recommended that you do one set each of eight to twelve exercises that address most of the major muscles in the body. The correct amount of resistance for yon is that which will cause fatigue at eight to twelve repetitions. Once yon can do twelve reps, step up the amount of resistance. If you don't have access to a gym, yon cmn usa inexpensive, lightweight dumbbells or resistance bands, If yon go this route, get yourself a book or video that shows proper form for exercising with free weights (or bands), so you don't injure yourself and get the most out of your workout.
Two Kinds of Exercise
The best exercise programs combine aerobic and anaerobic activity.
· Aerobic exercise is any activity tha· increases your heart rate and causes you to consume more oxygen. Every cell in your body requires a constant supply of oxygen, and if you've been a couch potato for years, many of those cells are being deprived. This is why I can assure you: Once you accustom yourself to a regular routine of aerobic exercise, you will begin to feel better than you did before.
If it's been a long time since you did any vigorous activity, I urge you to get some professional advice, from both your doctor and a certified fitness expert. It's important that you start slowly and learn how to stretch, warm up and cool dorm in order to avoid injury. You also may want to try an exercise trampoline. This is a gentle way to increase the stress on your bones and send a signal to the vertebrae to lay down more calcium along the stress-bearing planes.
Exercise such as walking, golf, doubles tennis, horse-back riding, ping-pong and dancing may only mildly increase the pumping action of your heart, but they are still tremendous unprovements for a former nonexerciser. If you fall into that category, walking is the best way to begin. I know many of my readers are people who haven't walked more than two blocks in years. These ale the individuals who will notice the greatest change in how they feel Walk five blocks. Then try six.
If it's hard on you today, take comfort in the certainty that the stiffness will ease, your breathing will improve and relaxing endorphins will be released into your body. And before you know it; you'H be walking a mile. Moving can and will feel good—it's actually what your body was built to do and wants! Remember, Mother Nature did not design us for our sedentary modem lifestyle. Anaerobic exercise is any type of physical raCtivity that isn't significantly aerobic. This includes exercise that builds muscle mass, such as weight-lifting and other types of training such as resistance and isometrics. Building muscle mass does not mean becoming one of those bulging body builders. If you keep at it, you will begin to notice a gradual sculpting taking place under your skin—and I guarantee you're going to like how it looks. But if vanity doesn't drive you to take up some weight-beating exercise, maybe the fear of frailty will. It is this type of exercise that helps stave off the loss of bone density that accompanies aging. This is why resistance training is so important to prevent osteoporosis.
The Myth of Carb-Loading
You've probably heard of marathoners and other elite athletes inhaling gargantuan amounts of pasta before big endurance events, often referred to as "carb-loading." It turns out that "fat-loading" may be more effective. More scientific research is required; however, studies on both animals and humans have suggested that a fat-rich diet may increase endurance. A 1994 study compared the effects of a highcarb/low-fat diet and a high-fat/Low-carb diet on two groups of trained cyclists. During high-intensity exercise, the groups performed equally well; during prolonged, moderate-intensity exercise, endurance was significantly enhanced among the cyclists on the high-fat/low-carb regimen? Two other studles on humans suggest that increasing dietary fat from fifteen percent to forty-two percent increases maximum oxygen consumption and endurance capacity. My review of the published research suggests to me that increases in dietary fat may be beneficial—not only for general health, but also for physical endurance.
How Your New Eating Habits Will Help
On low-fat and low-caloric diets, people can do serious harm to themselves by overexercising. When the body isn't getting enough protein from food, it turns to its only source of non-dietary protein: muscle. The body will actually begin to consume its own healthy muscle tissue, If you think this happens only to starving people in developing countries, you're wrong. Do you know someone who eats half a bagel and fruit for breakfast and a salad and diet soda for lunch? And then goes to the gym fight after work? Where is her body going to find the proteinto fuel her for those forty-five minutes on the stair-climbing machine? It will turn to the very muscles she's trying to build and tone—not to the fat cells she thinks she's burning.
The other benefit of a controlled carb nutrition program is that your metabolism won't go into starvation mode when you start exercising. Consider this: When you restrict calories and increase exercise, your body reacts just as it would when we were cavemen. As far as your body knows, it thinks there's a famine g&'ng on out there and—by unfortunate coincidonce—some bear must be chasing you at the same time. Your body goes into survival mode and wisely sends out an all-Systems alert to conserve resources. It literally tums your metabolism down a notch.
If you instead give your body all the protein and fat it desires, your body will know thai food is plentiful. It will then accept your runing, walking, stair-climbing or bicycling and leave your metabolism to hum along, and maybe even step up its pace.
Find Your Comfort Zone
Before you embark on any new exereise plan, be sure to eonsuit your physician. That done, review these plans and find the one that describes you best. Or work up an individualized program with your physician or a certified fitness trainer. You'll need to learn how to measure your pulse as well as calculate your Target Heart Rate (THR) zone. (See "Find Your Target Heart Rate Zone" on page 298.)
PLAN 1: JOHNNY GO LIGHTLY
Criteria:
· You are over the age of 50.
· Your body mass index (BMI) is greater than 35 (check the BMI chart in Chapter 13).
· Your current level of physical activity is either none or very little.
· You have been diagnosed with heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, severe asthma or severe arthritis. (Again, you must get a physician's approval before begining this exercise plan. See also "Safety Counts! on pages 297-298.)
Choose one or more activities from or similar to the ones listed below and do them for ten minutes each, two days a week.
· Walking on a flat surface
· Leisure bicycling
· Basic stretching
· Yoga
· Light swimming
· Beginner water aerobics Increase your workout time by three minutes each week, and adda third day when you reach week three.
PLAN 2: LIGHT 'IV' LIVELY
Criteria:
· You are 35 to 50 years old.
· Your BMI is greater than 30 but less than 35 (check the BMI chart in Chapter 13).
· Your current activity level is minimal.
Choose one or more activities from or similar to the ones listed below and do them for fifteen minutes each, three days a week.
· Brisk walking
· Lap swimming
· Training using an elliptical trainer
· Low-impact aerobics
· Hiking
· Tennis
· Beginner martial arts
· Dancing
· Roller skating/ice skating
Increase your workout time by three minutes each week, and add a fourth day when you reach week four.
PLAN 3: GO FOR THE BURN
Criteria:
· You are under 35 years old.
· Your BMI is less than 30 (check the BMI chart in Chapter 13).
· Your current activity level is moderate.
Choose one or more activities from or similar to the ones listed below and do them for twenty minutes each, three days a week.
· Basketball
· Jogging
· Racquetball
· Squash
· Inline skating
· Jumping rope
· Cross-country skiing
· Spinning
Increase your workout time by five minutes each week, and add a fourth day when you reach week four.
Note: The end goal is the same for everyone. Work up to thirty minutes of moderately intense physical activity most days a week, (Forty-five minutes is even better.)Your muscles need rest and recovery time, so the optimum frequency is five times a week.
Remember, exercise is the natural companion to weight loss. If you increase your muscle mass, you can also eat more.
Safety Counts!
· Caution: Whatever your physical condition, you must see a doctor before initiating a new exercise program.
· Check your. pulse frequently so you do not exceed your maximum heart rate, and make sure you can talk at all times during your workout. If you find you cannot speak without a great deal of effort, decrease your intensity.
· Warm up and cool down. Start and end your workout gradually, with a reduced-intensity version of whatever activity you're doing.
· Stretch all your muscte groups as part of your warm up and your coot down.
· Stay hydrated. The heavier you am, the more water your body needs, especially before, dudng and after exercise. Drink before you feel thirsty.
· Don't exercise on an empty stomach. But don't eat for one hour before light exercise or for two hours before strenuous exercise.
Find Your Target Heart Rate Zone
Here's how to calculate your Target Heart Rate zone: Subtract your age from the number 220, then take sixty and seventy percent of that number. Mathematically, the formula works out as follow3: (220-age) x .60 and (220-age)×.70 = THR zone. So the sample calculation for a 58-year-old woman would be:
220-58=162×.60=97 and 162×.70 = 113
This woman should keep her pulse between 97 and 113 beats per minute while exercising. Very overweight people should be especially careful because they may reach the high end of their zone quite quickly.
Calorie Expenditure
Take Your Pick. Each of the following activities done for the stated time periods burns about 150 calories:
· Washing/waxing a .car for forty-five to sixty minutes
· Washing windows for forty-five to sixty minutes
· Playing volleyball for forty-five minutes
· Playing touch football for thirty to forty-five minutes
· Gardening for thirty to forty-five rninutes
· Wheeling oneself in a wheelchair for thirty to forty minutes
· Walking one and three-quarter miles in thirty-five minutes at a rate of twenty minutes per mile
· Basketball (shooting baskets) for thirty minutes
· Bicycling five miles in thirty minutes
· Dancing fast (social) for thirty minutes
· Pushing a stroller one and a half miles in thirty minutes
· Raking leaves for thirty minutes
· Walking two miles in thirty minutes at fifteen minutes per mile
· Doing water aerobics for thirty minutes
· Swimming laps for twenty minutes
· Playing wheelchair basketball for twenty minutes
· Playing basketball (a game) for fifteen to twenty minutes
· Bicycling four miles in fifteen minutes
· Jumping rope for fifteen minutes
· Running one and a half miles in fifteen minutes at ten minutes a mile
· Shoveling snow for fifteen minutes
· Stair-walking for fifteen minutes
Note that the number of calories burned is based on men and' women of average size with average muscle mass. A smaller person or one with less than average muscle mass will bum fewer calories. Source: "Physical Activity and Health. A Report of the Surgeon General," July 1996.
Number of Calories Burned in 30 Minutes
Your weight 110120130145110170185200210
In poundl 115 125 140 150 165 175 190 205
Basketball 210 230 260 280 310 330 360 380 405
Gardening
(digging) 190 215 235 260 280 300 325 350 370
Gardening
(raking) 80 90 100 110 120 130 140 150 160
Golf 130 145 160 175 190 205 220 235 250
Ironing 50 55 60 65 70 80 85 90 95
Running
(11-min mile) 205 230 250 275 300 325 350 375 400 Running
(8-min.mile) 325 355 395 425 460 495 530 570 600
Swimming 255 285 315 345 375 405 435 465 500
Tennis 165 185 205 220 245 260 285 300 320
Walking 120 135 150 160 175 190 205 220 230
Weightraining 175 195 215 235 260 280 300 320 '345
Source: www. healthology. com "Weight loss and Physical Activity," by Bruce Rector, MD.
TIPS:
· Find an exercise buddy.
· Rotate activities,
· Do not exercise more than five times a week.
· To avoid boredom, keep your brain occupied with a book or music.