health

Gaining Weight Can be Healthy

By Gailon Totheroh
CBN News Science & Medical Reporter

CBN.com – (CBN News) - Research shows exercise helps prevent and treat all the major diseases -- the body simply works better when put into motion. And frankly nutrition just is not enough as important as it is. In fact, exercise is more important than weight loss, according to a study led by Dr. Tim Wessel. The study found that even obese people can have a level of physical fitness that protects them from heart problems.

"As a physician of cardiovascular medicine,” Dr. Wessel says, “I'm concerned that the general public and health care providers are de-emphasizing physical fitness at a time when this should be something we're focusing on."

Celebrity fitness trainer Dino Nowak is the author of "The Final Makeover." His concern is that average people compare themselves to phony Tinseltown images.

Nowak remarks, "And they're comparing themselves to a magazine picture that was done wide awake, air-brushed, [with] makeup, perfect photo -- and it's not reality. And that's the blessing, I think, of living in Hollywood -- is to kind of share reality versus the illusion created by the media."

Along with Hollywood illusions, there are medical misconceptions.

Nowak says, "I have clients in L.A. that are a perfect size two or three. They're thin but we'll do a body fat test and they're 36-38 percent body fat. They're classified as obese but one would look at them never go, 'Oh, they're obese.'"

So whether you are physically fit and healthy is not necessarily connected to your weight, and has more to do with body fat.

CBN News Science & Medical Reporter Gailon Totheroh's body fat isn't terribly high but higher than it should be, so he started exercising more, like playing racquetball, which consumes a huge number of calories and helps increase the percent of body muscle mass."

And why is body muscle mass important?

Nowak says, "For example, a pound of body fat typically runs about 3-6 calories per day, a pound of muscle expends about 30-50 per day. So if your were to just increase your lean tissue by four pounds, you're increasing your metabolism by about 120 upward, to 200 calories per day at rest, so that begins to compound and snowball."

Wow, so muscles burn 10 times more calories than fat.

Nowak says that means with more muscle, a person will burn off even more fat, and his or her body will be running closer to the Manufacturer's specifications.

"And just really looking at the way God designed it,” Nowak comments. “We were meant for movement. I think that's one of the biggest problems is that we've gone to a society that looks at exercise per se, instead of enjoying activity and movement and play."

And what two kinds of exercise was the body made to do?

Aerobic exercise -- this gets your heart rate up to a level that promotes circulatory health

Resistance exercise, or strength training – this makes bulkier muscles that are more powerful and efficient.

And ladies, don't worry that you will end up with bodybuilder muscles. You’ll just get stronger muscles over the whole body, as you follow a varied exercise program.

Even if people only follow the tried and true program of regular, brisk walking, they will do themselves a world of good.

But Nowak says, adding resistance exercise is the best way to get those health-enhancing muscles.

That can be the resistance of traditional weights, or a variety of exercises that Nowak showed CBN News at a gym, but which could be done easily at home.

Some of the clever and inexpensive devices that Nowak demonstrates are "disc pillows" and high-tech variations of what really are big rubber bands.

Water exercises offer a unique opportunity to combine aerobics with resistance training, but remember, the two foundations of exercise can be combined with a little creativity at your home, at your workplace and outdoors.

So, in addition to specific exercises, what does Nowak recommend for shedding body fat? Well, first, recall that it is body fat that needs to go, and gaining muscle could actually mean a little weight gain simply because muscles weigh more than fat.

Nowak says, "Most people would have quit the program I had them on, because [one woman] gained four to five pounds but her clothes fit better, she lost inches, lost millimeters and that's the idea. You can't look at the scale anymore; it’s about what's happening inside your body."

So to get those things happening, Nowak says, you need to ditch the fad diets and go for God's simplicity.

"It's not that you have to be on this very rigorous workout,” Nowak instructs, “just 250 calories through exercise and a 250 reduction in intake. That combines for a 500-calorie deficit a day, 3,500 a week, a pound of fat a week."

Nowak says the key is consistency, a little bit regularly over a lifetime. For example:

--The 250 calories of less intake daily could come from paring down portion sizes by a mere 10 percent, or foregoing a soda or a doughnut.

--The 250 calories consumed in exercise could come from a variety of traditional exercises, or ones just concocted as a person thinks through the possibilities.

Even taking the stairs consistently at work can chip away at body fat and help people become what God intended them to be -- active, energetic and fulfilling God's purposes.

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