Dr. Mercola September 04 2002 2,146 views
One of the biggest challenges for dieters is keeping the weight off. Previous research has shown that the hormone leptin decreases food consumption while increasing fat metabolism and energy expenditure. Researchers delivered leptin into the brains of obese rats to determine whether an increase in energy expenditure alone would maintain, over an extended period of time, weight loss achieved through an initial food reduction. The researchers measured food consumption, body weight and energy expenditure for nearly five months.
They concluded that a reduction in food intake mediated the initial loss of body weight, however, only an increase in energy expenditure was necessary to maintain the reduced weight, even after food consumption returned to normal. The findings suggest that a continuation of reduced food consumption is not critical to maintain a reduced body weight as long as there is a sustained increase in energy expenditure.
Endocrinology August 2002 143: 3183
Although this study was done with rats, I believe there are profound implications for us humans with respect to the importance of exercise in weight maintenance. This study really confirms very nicely at a biochemical level that exercise appears more important than food restrictions for long-term weight maintenance.
It appears that you can lose weight by following the eating plan and reducing your grains, but the real key is keeping your weight off.
You’ll realize that large numbers of studies show that exercise prevents diseases like heart disease, cancer and diabetes. It follows that if you exercise you’ll increase your chances of success when you try to lose weight.
Exercise provides two major benefits for weight loss:
1. Exercise increases your metabolic rate. You’ll burn more calories while you sleep. 2. Exercise improves your insulin receptor sensitivity. Your insulin resistance will decrease and you’ll have lower insulin levels, which makes it much easier to burn fat.
1. Exercise increases your metabolic rate. You’ll burn more calories while you sleep.
2. Exercise improves your insulin receptor sensitivity. Your insulin resistance will decrease and you’ll have lower insulin levels, which makes it much easier to burn fat.
I would like to emphasize some key points on exercise that I believe will be enormously helpful in providing some practical guidelines so you can be successful with your program:
1. Listen to your body. If exercise makes you worse, you need to stop or modify your program. As your energy and health improve, you’ll likely be able to tolerate larger amounts of the aerobic exercise. 2. Hire a personal trainer. It helps to hire a personal trainer who can guide you through the specifics of a good exercise program. If you do use a personal trainer, please be aware that many don't understand my nutritional guidelines. I would suggest using my eating plan as your nutritional guide. 3. Stick with it. The fact that we need to exercise is not news to anyone. However, the big breakthrough is that we now have the new technologies of psychological acupressure techniques like EFT that can facilitate our ability to start and successfully stick with a long-term exercise program. You can go to my free EFT manual to learn how to use this incredible tool. 4. Do the right amount of exercise. You will need at least 30 minutes of exercise a day before you will start to experience any weight loss benefits. Large studies have shown that 60 minutes a day would be better. Ideally the exercise should be continuous, but it could be split up into two 30-minute sections. 5. Exercise at the right intensity. Most heavy people start with walking and that is an excellent choice, as it’s low-risk and inexpensive. The major problem with walking however is many people become fit relatively rapidly and they don't increase the intensity of the workouts as they become more fit. 6. Increase your intensity as you become more fit. It’s sometimes difficult to walk fast enough outside to get to this level of exertion. You can try race walking and www.racewalk.com has an excellent section on teaching you how to do that. However, if you use a treadmill you can easily increase the incline to improve the intensity of the walking. 7. Try running. Once you’ve achieved a healthy weight, you might try running. Running has been my personal favorite since 1968. I like it because it’s one of the most efficient and inexpensive ways to stay healthy. You don't require any equipment except a good pair of shoes, which will usually last about six months. 8. Be aware of weather limitations and find a creative solution. One of the downsides of any outside exercise is that you must cooperate with the weather. You can always use a treadmill, but that would mean the increased expense of a health club or equipment for your home. 9. Try an elliptical machine. Elliptical machines are generally less expensive and far quieter than treadmills and provide a complete lower body workout by rotating the use of the different muscle groups on your legs. However, you will have to be sure to use the elliptical that can incline throughout various levels. Some models have a fixed based and handles that allow you to exercise your arms, but I believe it is more helpful to exercise the different leg muscles as they are much larger than your arm muscles. The model I use is the Precor 546. The Precor 546 is a commercial piece of equipment that will last you a lifetime as it is designed to stand up to the rigors of a busy health club. I travel all over the world and when I go into a fitness center that doesn’t have the Precor brand elliptical I am saddened because I have never found an elliptical machine that was better than the Precor 546. The 546 model does not have the levers so you can use your arms. This is a good thing as the most powerful muscles in your body are in your legs. Unlike the models that allow you to use your arms, the 546 gives you a wide range of incline choices that allow you to fully workout all the different muscles in your legs. The model with the arms has a fixed base and will not allow as complete a workout of your legs. You can save your arm workouts for resistance weight training and I believe you will have a far better more comprehensive training effect. It is my impression that the Precor 546 is the single best piece of fitness equipment available anywhere in the world today. That is why I have owned a Precor machine for a number of years. This model features a unique ramp that changes the stride motion and allows you to train the different muscle groups. I normally suggest adjusting the resistance setting and frequency of steps per minute so one is just short of not having enough breath to carry on a conversation. This is the aerobic threshold that will produce cardiovascular benefits. You may think the price of the machine is a bit high but when you compare it to a treadmill is it right in the ballpark and in my estimation is a far better exercise for you. It has about 90% less noise than most treadmills so you can easily watch TV or watch videos while you workout (my favorite). This is close to impossible with many treadmills. Also the convenience of having one of these in your home is difficult to put a price on. But if you even value your time at $10 per hour and you wind up saving two hours of travel time per week by not having to go to your health club, you will cover the cost of the machine in a few years. Many of you reading this may earn far more than $10 an hour and save more than two hours per week in commuting time so your payback time will be well under one year. It is also difficult to place a value on how good you feel and all the diseases that you will prevent by owning one of these machines as, in my opinion, there simply isn’t a better piece of equipment to purchase to get you in good shape. How can you put a price on preventing a heart attack or fatal cancer? You may not realize it, but exercise has been clearly shown to reduce cancer rates. It probably does this by lowering insulin levels. So not only will you reduce cancer and heart attacks but you will also reduce nearly every single chronic degenerative disease. So do yourself a favor and try out a Precor 546, if you like it as much as I think you will reward yourself by getting one for you and your family so you can enjoy all the benefits of finally being in shape. 10. Be smart when selecting an exercise. If you are going to use exercise for weight loss you will want to consider a weight bearing exercise. It’s my experience that non-weight bearing exercises like swimming and bicycling are not as efficient or effective for weight loss. You will typically need to exercise four times as long in these activities to receive the same benefit of running or using an elliptical trainer. Since most of us are strapped for time, this may not be the avenue you wish to take. 11. Be careful. Swimming has the additional challenge of exposing you to large amounts of chlorine that are in most swimming pools. However you still have the option of swimming in the lake, river or ocean depending on the temperature of the water. If you decide to use bicycling you will need to be concerned about the risk of injury. You don't have to be wrong to be seriously hurt on a bike so please be sure and always wear your helmet.
1. Listen to your body. If exercise makes you worse, you need to stop or modify your program. As your energy and health improve, you’ll likely be able to tolerate larger amounts of the aerobic exercise.
2. Hire a personal trainer. It helps to hire a personal trainer who can guide you through the specifics of a good exercise program. If you do use a personal trainer, please be aware that many don't understand my nutritional guidelines. I would suggest using my eating plan as your nutritional guide.
3. Stick with it. The fact that we need to exercise is not news to anyone. However, the big breakthrough is that we now have the new technologies of psychological acupressure techniques like EFT that can facilitate our ability to start and successfully stick with a long-term exercise program. You can go to my free EFT manual to learn how to use this incredible tool.
4. Do the right amount of exercise. You will need at least 30 minutes of exercise a day before you will start to experience any weight loss benefits. Large studies have shown that 60 minutes a day would be better. Ideally the exercise should be continuous, but it could be split up into two 30-minute sections.
5. Exercise at the right intensity. Most heavy people start with walking and that is an excellent choice, as it’s low-risk and inexpensive. The major problem with walking however is many people become fit relatively rapidly and they don't increase the intensity of the workouts as they become more fit.
6. Increase your intensity as you become more fit. It’s sometimes difficult to walk fast enough outside to get to this level of exertion. You can try race walking and www.racewalk.com has an excellent section on teaching you how to do that. However, if you use a treadmill you can easily increase the incline to improve the intensity of the walking.
7. Try running. Once you’ve achieved a healthy weight, you might try running. Running has been my personal favorite since 1968. I like it because it’s one of the most efficient and inexpensive ways to stay healthy. You don't require any equipment except a good pair of shoes, which will usually last about six months.
8. Be aware of weather limitations and find a creative solution. One of the downsides of any outside exercise is that you must cooperate with the weather. You can always use a treadmill, but that would mean the increased expense of a health club or equipment for your home.
9. Try an elliptical machine. Elliptical machines are generally less expensive and far quieter than treadmills and provide a complete lower body workout by rotating the use of the different muscle groups on your legs. However, you will have to be sure to use the elliptical that can incline throughout various levels. Some models have a fixed based and handles that allow you to exercise your arms, but I believe it is more helpful to exercise the different leg muscles as they are much larger than your arm muscles. The model I use is the Precor 546.
The Precor 546 is a commercial piece of equipment that will last you a lifetime as it is designed to stand up to the rigors of a busy health club. I travel all over the world and when I go into a fitness center that doesn’t have the Precor brand elliptical I am saddened because I have never found an elliptical machine that was better than the Precor 546.
The 546 model does not have the levers so you can use your arms. This is a good thing as the most powerful muscles in your body are in your legs. Unlike the models that allow you to use your arms, the 546 gives you a wide range of incline choices that allow you to fully workout all the different muscles in your legs. The model with the arms has a fixed base and will not allow as complete a workout of your legs. You can save your arm workouts for resistance weight training and I believe you will have a far better more comprehensive training effect.
It is my impression that the Precor 546 is the single best piece of fitness equipment available anywhere in the world today. That is why I have owned a Precor machine for a number of years. This model features a unique ramp that changes the stride motion and allows you to train the different muscle groups. I normally suggest adjusting the resistance setting and frequency of steps per minute so one is just short of not having enough breath to carry on a conversation. This is the aerobic threshold that will produce cardiovascular benefits.
You may think the price of the machine is a bit high but when you compare it to a treadmill is it right in the ballpark and in my estimation is a far better exercise for you. It has about 90% less noise than most treadmills so you can easily watch TV or watch videos while you workout (my favorite). This is close to impossible with many treadmills.
Also the convenience of having one of these in your home is difficult to put a price on. But if you even value your time at $10 per hour and you wind up saving two hours of travel time per week by not having to go to your health club, you will cover the cost of the machine in a few years. Many of you reading this may earn far more than $10 an hour and save more than two hours per week in commuting time so your payback time will be well under one year.
It is also difficult to place a value on how good you feel and all the diseases that you will prevent by owning one of these machines as, in my opinion, there simply isn’t a better piece of equipment to purchase to get you in good shape. How can you put a price on preventing a heart attack or fatal cancer? You may not realize it, but exercise has been clearly shown to reduce cancer rates. It probably does this by lowering insulin levels.
So not only will you reduce cancer and heart attacks but you will also reduce nearly every single chronic degenerative disease. So do yourself a favor and try out a Precor 546, if you like it as much as I think you will reward yourself by getting one for you and your family so you can enjoy all the benefits of finally being in shape.
10. Be smart when selecting an exercise. If you are going to use exercise for weight loss you will want to consider a weight bearing exercise. It’s my experience that non-weight bearing exercises like swimming and bicycling are not as efficient or effective for weight loss. You will typically need to exercise four times as long in these activities to receive the same benefit of running or using an elliptical trainer. Since most of us are strapped for time, this may not be the avenue you wish to take.
11. Be careful. Swimming has the additional challenge of exposing you to large amounts of chlorine that are in most swimming pools. However you still have the option of swimming in the lake, river or ocean depending on the temperature of the water. If you decide to use bicycling you will need to be concerned about the risk of injury. You don't have to be wrong to be seriously hurt on a bike so please be sure and always wear your helmet.
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