Weight Loss: The Exercise Trap
Read anything about weight loss and you will see something about exercise. It might be referred to as “physical activity”, but that’s just a codeword. They mean exercise.
Actually, many people have tried exercise and given up on it because it just didn’t seem to work for one reason or another. Here are some explanations of why someone might think that exercise ISN’T working, when it IS!
THE BEGINNING OF THE EXERCISE PROGRAM FOR WEIGHT MANAGEMENT
Exercise is activity, movement you might say. People have been moving all their lives, so they know how to do it, right? Well, if you are just talking about “getting some exercise”, you might be right. However,
...soccer game. He placed a cold icy compress to his injury immediately afterwards but the pain persisted. He visited his doctor and found out that he had torn his Anterior Cruciate Ligament, the tissue that connects the two major bones ...
At the beginning of a weight loss program, the person has probably been sedentary for some time and has experienced an overall deterioration in the body’s ability to deal with, or react favorably to, physical activity. At this point, almost any activity above the normal level becomes “exercise” for this individual. Over time, the body will adjust to the new level of activity and assume a new homeostasis, or overall balance of physical ability, fat, muscle, body weight, and metabolism. It then becomes time to adjust the activity upwards in order to arrive at a new balance. Once an acceptable
...achieved without overtraining or injury. A training program that has you at the identical training intensities and volumes, week in and week out, is not a periodized training program. A very basic example of periodization would be "base training", during ...
Unfortunately, people tend to be a little ignorant on the subject of exercise and sabotage themselves at the start of their weight loss program through several different mechanisms. Beginners usually:
Try to do too much
Don’t do enough
Don’t increase the level
Do the wrong exercises
Have unrealistic expectations
Don’t understand what exercise is going to do
Some of these items cross lines, so it is difficult to talk about one without talking about another one or two. For example, if someone has unrealistic expectations, they may try to do too much or too little. If they do not understand
...this step and suffer the consequences afterward. Consulting your physician will help you to foresee any potential health problems arising from your increased physical exertion. Your doctor should also be able to recommend the exercises that are best for your ...
Let’s briefly talk about the situations above.
TOO MUCH EXERCISE
This can cause you to fail in many ways. You can strain muscles, make yourself feel sick, or even injure yourself. After a day or two of too much exercise, your body and your brain will be screaming at you to “knock it off!” To be effective for weight
...to start from a stop and take the truck around the corner. At the other two corners they could practice downshifting and making the turn on the move. If they seemed to be in control on the track, I took ...
TOO LITTLE EXERCISE
As I mentioned above, for the sedentary individual, almost any activity will be classified as “enough exercise” at first. However, the body soon adapts to this small unit of activity and settles in at a new level, usually without really exhibiting much in the way of weight lost.
INCREASE THE LEVEL OF EXERCISE
Once the body has achieved its new level of “fitness” relative to the starting point, it becomes necessary to increase the intensity
...the muscles of the body. Strength training involves moving your muscles against some kind of resistance such as machines, free weights, tubing or even your own body weight. Unlike aerobic exercise, these exercises should always be done slowly and with ...
THE WRONG EXERCISES
Exercises can be divided roughly into three groups. In my high school days (don’t ask how long ago) we would talk about strength, endurance, and flexibility. These days you hear things like resistance training, cardiovascular training…and flexibility. As pointed out, at the beginning, almost any movement will qualify for pretty near all three types. As you progress, you will have to separate out each and, for the
...days a week. The Progression: The only alterations in the program will be the REST period. The following template will utilize a 6 Week Training Program. Everyone will start at Week 1 and work their way to Week 6. Weeks ...
UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS
Exercise works, but it generally works from the inside out. While someone who is overweight may experience an initial weight loss, most of what is happening is going to take time. If you want to look in the mirror in a couple of days or step on the scale and see obvious evidence of weight loss, you are bound to
...blackmail yourself every time you "go on a diet", and we won't even go into what happens with your cortisol levels. If you are trying to exist and subsist on foods you don't like, and avoiding the ones you do, ...
EXERCISE’S LITTLE SURPRISE
This actually happened to my wife. She was trying to lose weight and began exercising. A few days later, I could tell that she was experiencing benefits. She was more active, perkier, her complexion was glowing, she was walking around the house singing more than usual, and she looked “tighter” to me. One night we were talking, and she was going on
...will include exercise along with a healthy, smart diet, yet not everyone does this right away. Of course, it is ideal to diet and exercise from the beginning of a diet plan, some people may feel overwhelmed by taking on ...
She had stepped on the scale and her weight had GONE UP since the last time she had weighed herself.
Even though I had explained to her what was going to happen, like most people who have tried and tried to lose weight, her immediate reaction was that her exercise program “wasn’t
...are at, and a single blast of exercise will not change matters...only make them worse, probably. To get you started with your exercise program whether for weight loss or just for fitness and health, here are a few tips. 1. ...
We will leave aside the fact that everybody’s weight fluctuates from day to day and from hour to hour. If you are checking your weight daily, you are setting yourself up for failure. If you MUST weigh yourself, do it once a month or even once every two months. If you have been eating properly during that time and doing your exercise, increasing it as you achieve each new level of ability, you will have lost at least a few pounds.
What got her, and a lot of other people, is a simple physiological process which was, in a few days, going to work in her favor.
...program you read in the magazine might or might not work for you for several reasons. The good news, however, is that you can easily come up with your own tailor-made walking program which should work just as well. Many ...
Remember how my wife was saying that her clothes were looser? That’s because she was burning fat and adding lean muscle mass.
...to focus on larger, more visible objects, like stationary boats, bridges or houses on the shore. Try to line these up as close as possible to your swim course, and you'll have a much easier time staying on target. 4. ...
If you are going to start a weight loss program, make sure you learn a little bit about exercise and use that in addition to monitoring your nutritional intake.
Donovan Baldwin is a Dallas area writer. A graduate of the University Of West Florida (1973) with a BA in accounting, he is a member of Mensa and has held several managerial positions. After retiring from the U. S. Army in 1995, he became interested in internet marketing and developed various online businesses. He has been writing
...how hard you are working a number of ways. First, you can take your heart rate which for moderate activity should be between 70 - 85% of your maximum heart rate. You can find your maximum heart rate by starting ...