ALL ABOUT FITNESS

Fat or Fitness

Are you 35 plus?
Do you tire often and easily?
Is your W/Ws > 1.0? (Where Ws is
Standard Weight for a given height).
Is your waist / hip ratio > 0.9?

If you have answered in the affirmative to any of these questions,                                                         it is high-time you begin on some exercise to Keep Fit!

Remember -

Fitness is LOST if you exercise for two days or less in a week!
Fitness is MAINTAINED if you exercise three days a week!
Fitness is IMPROVED if you exercise six days a week!

Facts you should know

Fat people eat less than the skinny ones
Fat people have an internal chemistry that adapts to a low-calorie intake.
Fat people gain weight when they overindulge!

Start Exercising and Keep Fit!

Healthy Individual = Healthy Organisation = Healthy Nation

Is losing weight or gaining weight your problem?

·  Diets do not work for only losing weight.

·  Losing weight is not the basic problem, the problem is gaining weight.

·  Fat people gain weight easily and quickly.

·  A fat person’s body adjusts to the making of excess fat.

·  Yes, people who have excess fat should go on a diet to get rid of the fat and change their internal chemistry through regular exercise so that fewer calories are converted to fat.

Fat storing propensity

• It is not right to say that the reason for becoming overweight is either eating too much or exercising too little or both. It is mainly due to internal body chemistry.
• We are not merely passive reservoirs or tanks where input is more calories and output is less calories. We are in fact, active metabolizing machines, each different in some way and each handling calories differently.
• 60 - 70% of the energy that the muscles need when one is resting is supplied by fat.
• Storage of fat is a natural body function.
• Fat people have a greater propensity for storing fat and less than the normal propensity for burning it.
• Fitness is a vicious cycle - the more the fat one has, the body chemistry or metabolism changes to favour the build up of more fat.

What is the maximum fat content for a fit person?

• Your weight = fat + lean body mass.
• The more fat you have, the better you will be able to float in a swimming pool! But it is of no good to your health.
• In contrast to fat, lean muscle and bone do not float.
• If weighed underwater, it is the skinny people who weigh more. Dense is beautiful like gold.
• People with 25% fat can float easily in a swimming pool.
• People with 20% fat can float easily while breathing.
• People with 15% fat will sink very slowly even with a chest-full of air.
• People with 13% fat readily sink even in salt water.
• Maximum fat content allowable
  • For healthy men 15% to 20%
  • For healthy women 22% to 25%
• Larger bones and more muscle can carry more fat without exceeding the limits.

Over-fat without getting overweight

• One may become over-fat without getting overweight.
• As we grow, our muscles gradually become less dense less lean and more fatty, due to reducing physical activities.
• Work is not exercise. Daily routine work never stresses more than 50% of the muscles. Unused 50% of the muscle can waste away giving way to fat in the long run.
• One can make no realistic determination of own fatness by referring to weight.
• Overweight is tolerable, but over-fat is not.
• If one has left active sports-life, after taking to a job, then the muscles are slowly but surely converting to fat, i.e. getting fatter but not heavier.

To avoid gaining fat, start exercising! Like food, exercise should become an essential item in our daily routine.

The Correct Weight

• The correct weight of a person depends on several factors, namely, the size of the bones, width of the shoulder, age, height and body type.
• But the ‘correct weight’ is really quite ambiguous.
• A person’s correct weight’ changes with the change in lean mass.
• If one’s weight is 60 Kg. then the maximum fat content should be 9Kg. for a male (15%) and 13.2 Kg. for female (22%). The difference should be the lean body mass (LBM) for efficient working.
• Fat is calorie, so the fat people cannot consume calories. LBM burns up the calories.
• Therefore, for ideal maximum weight, we have to start with the active metabolizing tissue we have i.e. in LBM and calculate the amount of fat we could add on to our LBM.
• Exercise increases the lean body mass.

Cure for Fat

• It isn’t so much excess fat, as the lack of athletically trained muscles, that is the cause of obesity.
• The ultimate cure for obesity is exercise.
• Brisk walk for 30-40 minutes daily is the most efficient way of removing fat for people at 35 plus. One can take a glass    or two of water early in the morning, but certainly not tea or coffee before the walk.
• The walk has to be continuous and steady.
• The heart beat per minute should be increased to the “training rate”, which takes about eight minutes of warm-up.
• Then walk at that rate for twelve minutes.
• Finally cool down the heart rate for next ten minutes.
• Stretching exercises in the beginning help to get warmed up before walking.

How hard should one exercise?

• As you work your muscles, the oxygen demand goes up and the heart beats faster.
• The older you are, the slower your heart beats during maximum exercise.
• For regular, everyday, efficient exercise we should work only hard enough to make our hearts go at 80% of the maximum for our age.
• If you are terribly out of shape at forty years range, you can easily drive your pulse to 146 by just moderate walking.
• If you are in a better shape, you might have to walk briskly or jog to get 146 beats per minute.
• If you are lean and athletic, you may have to run at a fast pace to reach the same heart rate.
• Never combine your walking with others.
• Determine your correct exercise “Training Heart Rate” from the table and continue the steady exercise for twelve minutes. Don’t forget to warm-up and cool down.

How to determine your correct Heart Rate?

Resting Head Rate (HR)

• First check your resting heart rate.
• An average heart beats seventy two times per minute. Take your pulse as soon as you wake up.
• If your morning heart rate is above 85 or erratic, see the doctor before starting any exercise.

Maximum Heart Rate (HM)

• Maximum Heart Rate = 220 - your age
• This is the fastest your heart can beat for your age.

Do not exercise at this rate !!!!!!!

Training Heart Rate ( H)

Training Heart Rate = Resting Heart Rate 65% x (Max. Heart Rate- Resting Heart Rate)

• HT = HR  + 65% x (HM-HR)

e.g.: A forty-year-old has a resting rate of 70. His training heart rate is 70 + 65% x (180-70) = 142.0. When this person exercises, he should maintain a heart rate of 142-144 beats per minute.

When you exercise, check your pulse immediately at the end of the exercise. Count it for 6 seconds and multiply by 10. If it is going 10 or more beats slower than your calculated training rate, your exercise is not hard enough. If it is going 10 or more beats faster, slow down your speed. Remember we are working with time, not racing against it.

Check Your Measurements Now
 

Is Intense Exercise better than Moderate Exercise?

• Intense exercise will overheat the muscles, doing more damage than good if the body isn’t ready for that.
• If one wants fast improvement, one should rather exercise moderately for a longer period.
• In intense exercise one is also likely to lose muscle, if not combined with a proper diet.
• After the age of forty, it is recommended that exercise be changed on alternate days to involve all the muscles in the system and to avoid exercising the same muscles often.
• Give time for the muscles to repair between exercises.

If one is in a hurry to get in shape “Exercise longer not harder” and Never exceed your training heart rate!

How to take an exercise pulse?

• Your pulse is a much more accurate measurement of your health than your weight.
• Men’s average resting pulse is about 72 and for women it is about 80.
• As one becomes physically fit, the resting pulse rate drops.
• You can find your pulse on the thumb side of the wrist or on the side of the neck.
• Once you have found the pulse, count it for exactly 6 seconds and multiply by ten.
• One can take the pulse several times during the day to get the average resting pulse.
• If you exercise correctly and long enough, the heart muscles will get stronger and it will soon pump slower, while pumping more blood at each stroke.
• If you want to take your training pulse, stop and do a quick 6second count. When you first start any exercise stop many times to check the exercise pulse until you know exactly how hard to do the exercise to get the correct pulse rate.

Which exercise to choose?

• Many people begin an exercise programme, only to give up after a few weeks.
• Reason is the selection of an exercise not suited for themselves and over exercise by running/jogging etc.
• Walking is an excellent exercise for all ages. It is not as strenuous to the knees and joints as jogging.
• Just be sure the walk is brisk enough to maintain your heart rate at your training heart rate (for 35 plus, it is around 140.
• If you feel brisk walking is not enough to drive your pulse to the training heart rate, try to carry some weight like a back-pack.
• Jogging! Running is recommended for young and fit people.
• A stress electro - cardiogram is recommended for thirty five plus before starting jogging/running.
• Your fat loss (in turn weight loss) will be faster in jogging / running.
• Stationary cycling and swimming is also considered a good exercise for reducing fat and also for a change of routine brisk walk.

Heart Recovery Rate and Health Indication

• A valuable criterion of physical fitness is heart recovery rate after exercise which is an important health indicator.
• Heart rate slows down after the exercise in two stages.
• First there is a sharp drop from 140 to 100 BPM (beats per minute) within a minute. It stays there for few minutes (say 2 to 3 minutes) and then gradually drops to original resting heart rate.
• The first drop in heart rate, immediately after the exercise is most meaningful in judging the health condition.
• Recovery rate can be calculated by taking the pulse for 6 seconds immediately at the end of an exercise and then again for 6 seconds exactly one minute later.

Recovery Rate = (Exercise pulse - 1 minute pulse)/10

How to ascertain obesity?

Testing your body weight index (BWI)

Body weight index (BWI) is a very easy method of ascertaining obesity.

Divide your weight (W) in Kg. by the square of your height in meters, i.e.

• BWI 20-25 - considered normal
• BWI 26-30 - considered excess weight
• BWI > 30   - considered obese

Testing your abdominal obesity index (AOl)

• Measure the waist and hip with a measuring tape.
• Calculate the waist to hip ratio.
• For men an index of < 0.9 is considered normal.
• For women an index of < 0.85  is considered normal.

Body Composition

There are several ways of having the Body Composition assessed - underwater weighing, skin-fold measurements, ultrasound testing, electrical impedance, to name a few.

But now there is a simple chart based on thousands of these tests that allows you to get an accurate estimate of your body fat percentage. To use the chart, locate your body weight on the Weight scale and draw a straight line from there to your waist size (measured at your belly button) on the opposite scale. Your estimated percentage of body fat is the point at which the line the diagonal scale in the middle of the chart.

What changes - weight or shape?

Unless one is quite a lot over-fat, there will be little, if any, reduction in total weight. In fact, one may gain weight.

The fat will be converted into muscle and muscle is much heavier than fat. What does change is the SHAPE.

The diet has little effect on the fat inside the muscles and nothing happens to the muscle shape. As one exercises, the ultra
- muscular fat is removed and the muscle will go back to its original long, lean shape.

Normally the shape merely changes to a smaller version of what it was before the loss. As one exercises, the shape changes
from big pear to a little pear, change will be less.
 

Precautions for exercising

• Muscle and muscle enzymes can increase when a person exercises properly on a day-to-day basis.
• If one exercises too long and strenuously, the body will not be able to re-synthesize the protein lost, by the next session.
• The energy demand will always take precedence over protein bio-synthesis.

Is it possible to reduce fat from particular spots?

• Most people feel fat concentrates in specific areas and that it can be got rid of with super exercise. But this is not true.
• In women, the fat concentrates on the hips and thighs and in men, around the midsection.
• Passive spot reducers include belly-belts and rollers in health clubs and in other methods they use heated belts, sweat-suits etc.
• Heat and pressure drive the water out of the tissues and they lose inches but within hours the tissues get back to original shape.
• Most of the time the weight loss will actually be water loss from the body.
• People who try to do sit-ups, leg-rises and donkey-kicks beyond their capacity, with the aim of spot reduction, work their poor muscles to death.
• When large sets of muscles of the body are exercised, fat will be drawn from all parts of the body to meet the energy requirement.

Work and Exercise - do they produce same results?

• Very few calories are used during any exercise.
• But exercise changes the metabolic rate, increases the amount of muscle, raises the level of calorie-consuming enzymes inside the muscle and increases the burning of fats.
• Sustained exercise at 80% of maximum heart rate is very efficient at bringing about the changes.
• Physical work is a form of exercise but it is not sufficient to make the changes in our body.
• The work one does may cause the heart to beat faster, but work rarely sustains long enough to get any benefits.
• Work is non-aerobic like weight-lifting or sprinting. It is too low or too high in intensity or too short in duration.
• Work usually makes demands on only one set of muscles but aerobic walking summons all the muscles of the body, including the heart muscles.
• Metabolically, even the arms get conditioned during aerobic walking.
• Aerobic walking will get you in condition for work, but work will not get you in condition for exercise.

Sensible and Insensible Exercise

• “Insensible Exercise’ is unconscious muscular activity -carried out without being aware of it.
• Fit people often get involved in exercise without sensing that they are doing exercise at all.
• Though twenty minutes of jogging burns only 180 calories equivalent to one glass of milk, exercise changes the body so that we burn more calories throughout the day during routine work.
• Physically fit people have slightly elevated metabolism which burns more calories at rest than in fat people.
• Normally, fat people tend to be more inactive than fit ones and unconsciously find ways to get the same job done with less movement.
• Fit people are inclined towards insensible exercise and fat people towards sensing their exercise.
• Exercise for a few minutes a day has far-reaching effects by altering our insensible exercise for the rest of the day.

Understanding fat, carbohydrate and protein interaction

• Fat, carbohydrate and protein are the only sources of calories in the diet.
• The various weight-loss diets consist of an endless list of manipulations of just these three foods.
• Once digested and in the blood stream, the body readily converts one to another.
• The liver is so sensitive to the body’s needs of all the three and it starts converting very quickly if one eats an unbalanced diet.
• Fat is never converted into protein or carbohydrate, whereas protein and carbohydrate can be converted to fat.
• The only thing the body can do with fat is burn it up in the muscle.
• Protein can be converted into glucose which can be used by muscle. The brain mainly uses two-thirds of the glucose in the blood.
• If one endangers blood glucose supply in any way (over exercising) the powerful body function will convert protein into glucose.
• Liver holds stored glycogen and converts protein into glucose.
• High protein diet to reduce fat has the danger of overburdening the kidney.
• Similarly over exercising instead of building muscles will break the muscles into glucose for blood sugar.

What happens when one eats too much protein?

• One cannot repair any more tissue than that which needs repair.
• When amino acids are not needed, they are sent to the liver where they are de-aminated and then converted into fat.
• The process of de-amination is stressful to the body.
• During de-amination the nitrogen that is released from amino acids is quickly converted into ammonia.
• Ammonia is very toxic to the body and in turn is changed to urea.
• Urea is also toxic and to eliminate it from the body, it must be diluted into urine.
• If the protein content is about 12 to 13% of the total calorie intake, the body can very easily get rid of the urea.
• But if it is more, then one needs enormous amounts of water to dilute it. The body will take from its own tissue and kidney has to work overtime to get rid of the urea.
• In high protein diet the weight loss is only water loss. Not reduction of fat.

• So exercise is a must to get rid of the fat

Balanced diet

• One can get enough protein in the diet along with a good balance of carbohydrates and vitamins.
• The thumb rule is to eat two servings (3 ounces) of protein-rich split peas, dried beans, lentils etc.
• For non-vegetarians, low fat meats such as chicken and fish may be recommended. Best avoided for proven reasons.
• In addition, have two servings (one cup each) of non-fat or low fat milk or a milk substitute such as curd, yogurt or cheese.
• Balance these high protein foods with carbohydrates by eating four servings of fruits or vegetables each day and four servings of rice and cereals.
• One serving is just 3/4 cup filled with small size pieces.
• It is almost impossible not to get fat in foods we eat which is very much present in nuts and other seeds we take.
• The essence of the whole exercise is to have a well balanced diet.

• So eat well and exercise longer.

Do muscles burn fat or glucose?

• Muscles use mainly the fat for energy.
• Nearly 70% of the energy need of muscles is met by fat and only 30% by glucose.
• We burn fat all the time even while we are not exercising.
• Fat can be burned, metabolized or oxidized and there is no better source of energy for your body than fat.
• Fat is such an efficient, beautifully stored energy source which we never run out of even though we burn it all the time.
• Glucose is like a twig, it burns easily but fat is like a log; it is hard to get started but once started it burns for a long time, giving off lots of heat. Continuous walk for thirty minutes plays an important role here.
• Glucose is good for quick energy which is required during a sprint or short distance running etc.
• Fat people should exercise moderately but for a longer period to burn the fat.

Fat storage and its advantage

• All living things, including plants, have to store a certain amount of food for the days when they cannot find or make food.
• Carbohydrates are stored only by plants which are stationary and all mobile animals store in the form of fat. Fat contains twice as many calories per gram as carbohydrates.
• Fat can be packed into a small space and the fat cell can contain up to 85% fat and 15% is used by water-based life function of the cell.
• Carbohydrate stored in the form of glycogen needs larger space and glycogen occupies only 15% of the cell space. So a mobile creature is far better off with this marvellous invention called fat.
• Almost everything you eat can be converted into fat and fat people are particularly efficient at doing this.
• The ability to store food is like having a good bank balance.
• Body visualizes fat as a physiological safety mechanism.
• 15 % fat for men and 20% for the women of their total weight are the optimum limits for efficient and effective working.

Is it advisable to reduce weight by fasting?

• If the body is stressed by fasting, it will try to hoard extra fat when it is made available.
• Fasting to reduce weight will encourage the body to become fatter.
• Fasting once in a week or a fortnight or a month will certainly help the body to cleanse the toxins and give total rest to the digestive system.
• Never make the mistake of eating one meal a day (23 hour fast). But spread those calories over the day in five to six meals.
• Otherwise when you go off the diet, the body is set to gain heavy weight.

• So exercise is the only way to knock off the fat from all over the body and stay healthy. All hats off to slim people! But you need exercise to keep fit.

Know all about carbohydrates

• Recommended percentage of daily calories for good health is Carbohydrates 65%, Fat 23% and Protein 12%.
• Starch in rice, wheat etc., is only the beginning of the complex carbohydrates.
• But there is cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignifl which are only partly digested. These form the roughage.
• Eating more roughage means absorbing more carbohydrates.
• All carbohydrates after intestine digestion become simple carbohydrate called glucose. Some carbohydrates breaks down very quickly, some very slowly and some (like cellulose) not at all.
• Complex carbohydrates will become blood glucose very slowly while the simple sugars such as maltose, lactose in milk and table sugar will become blood glucose almost immediately.
• Avoid simple carbohydrates because it causes our blood glucose levels to fluctuate too quickly.
• Adding bran to the food to increase the roughage should be avoided.
• Eat whole wheat, unspoiled rice, ragi etc., unrefined conditions close to the way it is grown.
• Only then you get all the carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals associated with it.

Benefits of eating whole grain without polishing (cooked properly, of course).

a. Calorific value is decreased by the roughage.

b. Roughage is hard to chew, thus decreasing the tendency to overeat.

c. Roughage gives some protective effect to the digestive tract.

d. One can eat the vitamins with their food as nature intended.

e. The simple sugars give taste but are delayed in their entrance to blood stream.

Chew the food very well and feel the sweetness of rice, chappathi etc. Bon Appetite with Carbohydrates and balanced protein and fat.

How much Fat do we eat?

• Overall percentage of fat consumption is increased in developed countries mainly due to high-grade meat.
• Fat in India is mainly consumed in the form of edible oils used for frying foods.
• Milk products including sweets taken daily can add excess fat in the long run.
• Unsaturated fats, although they decrease blood cholesterol, can increase the cholesterol in the arterial valves, artery walls and other body tissues.
• It would be best to decrease all fat intake.
• Again I emphasize no fat at all because you have enough fat hidden inside your food.
• Eat very less meat and meat products - better to be a vegetarian. Decrease the use of fat in cooking - Indians from the North to specially note.
• Oils, margarines and fat that we use in food preparation is similar to refined sugar in food value.
• Ground nut or coconut has reasonable food value, but when we squeeze the oil out, we leave most of the nutrition behind and are left with pure fat.
• These fats and oils are almost pure grease and we don’t need them.
• Unfortunately, sugars and fats make food tasty.

• "if you want to stay fit and healthy, do not indulge excessively in sweets and fats. "

How energy is produced inside a Muscle?

• Glucose from carbohydrates, fatty acids from fats, and amino-acids from proteins are burned inside muscle cells to get energy.
• Cellular burning is more like taking a building apart! It is a careful procedure requiring special tools and detonators at every step. In our body, those tools are called enzymes.
• Literally, hundreds of enzymes are needed in each cell and each one is quite different from the other.
• Each enzyme is made of protein.
• They are large, complex molecules that cannot pass through the wall of a cell.
• So, the only way enzymes increase in a muscle is when the DNA makes more enzymes inside a cell.
• This is called enzyme biosynthesis and takes place only if you eat adequately, if your cells aren’t sick and if you exercise to stimulate the DNA to go to work.
• DNA (de-oxyribonucleic acid) contains the blue print of our total body and dictates the cells how to behave, what to manufacture, what to seek, what to avoid etc. DNA can be compared to an architect.
• The RNA (Ribo Nucleic acid) can be compared to the builder who constructs the house.
• Millions of cells die each second and millions are born and this process continues till the end except for the brain cells.
• The cells manufacture more than 600 enzymes. Cellular enzymes build complex hormones and disease fighting antibodies.

Muscle Enzymes

• Exercise alters muscle metabolism in such a way that fit people can eat more without making more fat.
• Muscle is unique in its ability to produce sudden bursts of energy.
• Brain cells use twice as many calories during intense thinking as during sleep.
• But muscle cells may increase their energy demand fifty-fold over a split second depending on rest or intense physical work.
• Nutrients that have filtered into the cells from the blood will supply the source of energy.
• However only in the muscle cells one can find enzymeS competent to metabolize the nutrients so quickly.
• Muscle has special enzymes enabling it to burn up tremendous amount of calories in short periods.
• Muscle is the only tissue with enzymes that are specialised for sudden increase in calorie burning. This alone is sufficient check to keep our muscles in good tone.

Insulin in-sensitivity

• Fatness is a Vicious circle. As one gets fat, the body changes to favour getting all the more fatter.
• Eating carbohydrates causes a rise in blood sugar, followed by a rise in blood insulin, which the pancreas produces to handle the sugar.
• Since fat persons tissues are insensitive to their own insulin, these responses are abnormally high.
• All body cells are impervious to glucose until insulin comes along and stimulates them to open certain pores, which then allows the entrance of glucose.
• As one gets fat, one’s muscles get out of shape. They lose their ability to respond to insulin. This means glucose can enter the muscle cells very slowly.
• Since muscles account for 30-50% of the body, blood glucose levels remain elevated longer after a meal.
• This means extra glucose is circulating around the blood stream looking for some cells to enter.
• So what kind of cells does a fat person have in abundance? Yes!! Fat cells! Sugar is dumped to fat cells.
• When the muscle cells reject the glucose, the fat tissue becomes a glucose sink.
• You can ask “So what?” Glucose becomes the skeleton for fat formation.
• Glucose  --> Glycerol +  3 Fat molecules = Triglyceride

The paradox then is that the person with the least need for more fat, makes it the fastest.

 
E-mail: info@acupressureclub.org