Lose Weight And Get Healthy Without Exercise??

Is this possible?

I guess that losing fat would be part of the picture of health. But can you truly be healthy and lose weight without exercise? I was reading a health blog recently that said exercise was not necessary for weight loss. Kim Klaver says, "Yes, I used to think exercise should be on the list to lose weight also. Only then I learned it may not be necessary for weight loss. Healthy, yes, to move around for circulation and energy...but for weight loss?"
What do the rest of you think?

There was a six month study that was published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism that examined the effects of diet alone (25 percent fewer calories consumed) versus diet plus exercise (12.5 percent fewer calories consumed and 12.5 percent more calories burned) in overweight but otherwise healthy adults. Researchers hypothesized that the diet plus exercise group would lose more body fat, but results showed equal amounts of weight and fat lost in both groups.

Most diets are based on calorie restriction or deprivation. The theory is that eating fewer calories than one uses, will equal weight loss. When you do this without any exercise, you could lose more than fat. You might be losing bone and muscle as well.

It is kind of funny that they only reported the results of fat loss over a six month period. 95% of all people who take a diet pill or go on a calorie restricted diet will gain all of their weight back in a year or two. Where are these same people today? I wonder if any of them experienced some of the other results of a calorie restricted diet? These would be things like:

* Weight gain.

* Depression.* Food cravings.* Feeling tired and listless.* Constant hunger.* Reduced interest in sex.* Chronic fatigue.* Hypothyroidism.* Hormone imbalance.* Scaly skin or eczema.* Premature wrinkling of the skin.* Dandruff or dull, lifeless hair.* Mood swings.

* Chronic yeast infections.* Poor immune system- frequent colds or respiratory illnesses.* Digestive problems.

That certainly is not a way to get your health back.

On the other hand, another study reported in the Journal of The American Medical Association showed that women who exercised around three hours per week (without dieting) lost 6.9% of their body fat around their middle.

Here are a few other articles that talk about weight loss and the effects of exercise vs. diet.

Older People Who Diet Without Exercising Lose Valuable Muscle Mass

Weighing Benefits Of Exercise, Diets: Both Work For Weight Loss, But Dieters Also Lose Muscle

Exercise and weight-loss

It is a fact. You can lose weight with diet alone. People do it all the time. It might surprise you to learn what that weight consists of. It is not just fat. Bone and muscle can be a part of this equation as well. Here is an article that talks about that:

Weight Loss Through Calorie Restriction, But Not Exercise, May Lead To Bone Loss

What if you are you are spending 5 or more hours a week on the treadmill or exercise bike, you are restricting calories through diet and you find yourself getting poor results. You might even be GAINING weight! That's what happened to me. Read my story by going to my post on "Is Your Scale Broken?"

The definition of "insanity" is:

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results

If you have been yo-yo dieting and can't seem to keep the weight off, you need to do something else.

If you have taken diet pills, weakened your immune system, spent hours on the toilet and gained all your weight back, you need to do get a new plan.

If you have spent hour after hour sweating on a treadmill or bike and have little or nothing to show for it (weightloss), why would you want to continue doing something that is evidently not working?

Here are a few suggestions for effective weight loss:

1. Change the way you eat. Learning how to eat is preferable to learning how to diet. Forget counting calories and carbohydrates. Go low-glycemic.

• The High-Glycemic Trap. Eating high-glycemic foods can sabotage even the best of diet plans because the resulting spike and subsequent drop in blood sugar leads to a more rapid return to feelings of hunger.
• Solution: For optimal nutrition, our bodies need a balanced variety of nutrients, including the right types of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats.

Carbohydrates such as white bread, white flour, pasta, white rice, and potatoes release their sugars rapidly (high-glycemic foods) and increase the blood sugars faster than if you were slapping table sugar on your tongue. Foods such as green beans, rye bread, whole apples, and cauliflower release their sugars slowly (low-glycemic foods). This rapid rise in blood sugar after a high glycemic meal stimulates the release of insulin from the pancreas, which is needed to control the blood sugar level. The blood sugar drops and our body’s crave more calories and more high-glycemic foods.We simply keep repeating this pattern over and over—day after day. Medical studies are now showing us that this type of diet causes us to become less and less sensitive to our own insulin (insulin resistance). It is a lot like crying "wolf" all of the time—we are simply stimulating the release of insulin time after time.

An estimated 24% of the adults in the U.S. have insulin resistance, also known as Syndrome X or more recently the Metabolic Syndrome.
When Is A Calorie No Longer A Calorie?
When insulin resistance is involved, a calorie is not merely a calorie any more. You can exercise and starve yourself all you want. The fact is, your fat cells start acting like a sponge and soak up all the glucose and efficiently change it into fat no matter how many calories you try to burn. The concept of "a calorie in and a calorie out" that has been the mainstay of weight loss therapy throughout the past century needs to change. When you begin to recognize the effect that insulin resistance throws into this equation, a calorie is no longer just a calorie.
Insulin resistance leads to Metabolic Syndrome (Syndrome X) and can finally lead to full blown diabetes. Unless you can find a way to "reverse the tracks" on insulin resistance and get back to normal, you simply will not be able to lose weight even with the most aggressive diets. In this state, the body is resistant to almost any weight loss program being advocated today. Only a program designed to reverse insulin resistance will successfully "flip the switch back again."


2. Change your exercise routine - If you are losing weight with your current exercise routine and are satisfied with your progress, stop here. Don't read any further.

How many miles have you logged on the treadmill, eliptical or stationary bike, only to discover that your weight loss efforts are just not paying off like you want them too. Listen, too much aerobics burns muscle! Take a look at the vast majority of women who take aerobics classes after work: do they ever transform their physiques? Rarely.

Interval Training - Interval training has been shown to be the most effective cardiovascular training method for improving cardiovascular endurance, sport-specific performance, boosting metabolic rate, and burning fat! You might already be doing this but are you doing it in a way that will bring optimal results?? Click here to read an article called,

The interval training mistake virtually everyone makes when they're trying to burn fat..

Some of the summary points of this article

Two groups of women burned 300 calories per workout session. The ones who did interval training increased fitness levels by 13 %. The women who did steady boring cardio increased fitness levels by 0%

Changes in body fat were also greater in subjects using interval training.

According to the research team, "... even if caloric expenditure during exercise is equal, higher intensity exercise may further aid weight loss due to an acute increase in energy expenditure up to 24 hours following exercise."

These findings have been confirmed by researchers from the University of Alabama, who showed that 24-hour energy expenditure was 160 calories greater in subjects performing high-intensity interval training rather than continuous exercise. In other words, the interval training group of women continued to burn 160 more calories in the 24 hour period following their initial workout. Amazing!

Which is better for fat loss? Long or short intervals? Shorter is better. Two groups worked out at different intervals. The first one worked out for 6 seconds @100% effort, followed by 9 second rest periods. The second group worked out for 24 seconds @100% effort, followed with 36-second rest periods.
3 x more fat calories were burned during short intervals.

If you are out riding your bike or on the stationary bike, here is a good workout for you. Warm up by easy riding for 10 minutes before you start:INTERVAL TRAINING PROGRAM

Cardio equipment: stationary or spinning bike

Purpose: burning fat

Interval training protocol: 10 sec @ 100% : 30 sec @ 60% x 18 = 12 minutes

Ensure that you use a flywheel resistance that prevents you from bouncing up and down on the seat. Thus, you should feel a good amount of resistance during the 10-second work period. You can lower the resistance if you like during the 30-second recovery. This only takes 12 minutes!

2. Resistance Training -

Aerobic exercise may burn a few hundred extra calories for dinner, but for every additional pound of muscle you gain, your body burns around 50 extra calories every day of the week. 7 days x 50 calories= 350 calories. Most of that happens while you sleep!

Research has shown that regular resistance training can increase your Basal Metabolic Rate by up to 15%. So for someone burning 2000 calories per day, that's a potential 300 extra calories, more than a Mars bar, burned every single day.

Resistance exercise can reduce bone deterioration and build bone mass, preventing osteoporosis.

Working your muscles can also inhibit the affects of sarcopenia, the age related loss of muscle mass, strength and function. After the age of thirty there is a loss of 3-5% of muscle mass per decade, making day to day tasks gradually harder to perform and slowing down metabolism - increasing the risk of weight gain.

Weight training has been proven to have a positive affect on insulin resistance, resting metabolism, blood pressure, body fat and gastrointestinal transit time, factors that are linked to illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

Always make your workout about quality over quantity to get effective weight loss results. Resistance training, when done correctly, allows you to lose inches fast, see results almost immediately and boost your metabolism to burn more fat and calories every day.

Is Your Scale Broken?

I was thin most of my life and then it hit me. I started gaining weight around my middle, my thighs, chest and neck. Even my face became fat! I went to my doctor and asked him what I could do. He said, "Exercise more and eat less." Well, duh! I was expecting something a little more profound than that. I followed his advice and came back in a month. When I got on the scale, I weighed MORE! How could this be, doc? He said that when I increased my exercise, it must have made me hungrier and I must have eaten more. I don't think so. When I was younger, all I had to do was think about losing weight and it would come right off (fast). Why was it so tough now? It's a simple formula, isn't it? Burn more calories than you take in. I had done that all my life and it always worked before. What had changed?

I did not know it but I had put my body on a high-glycemic roller coaster ride. For many years, it was not a problem. My body seemed to handled it just fine with no telling symptoms. Then, all of the sudden, I started putting on 10-15 pounds a year. I was always tired in the afternoon and I found that my memory was not as good as it had been before. The results of the roller coaster had finally caught up with me.


Here's how the glycemic roller coaster works. In a healthy person, blood sugars work best in a narrow range. The glucose levels should be maintained in the body between 70 to 150 mg/dl. In 1981, Dr. David Jenkins discovered that some foods will spike your blood sugar higher than others. In the chart below, you can see what happens when you spike your blood sugar. When it gets too high, your body protects itself by releasing a fat-storage hormone called insulin. A few hours after a high-glycemic meal, your blood sugars go below the normal range. This is dangerous, so your body protects itself again by producing cortisol and adrenaline in an attempt to bring your blood sugars back up to a normal level. This is usually when you crave another high-glycemic meal. The roller coaster starts all over again.














Over the years, this kind of insulin abuse leads to insulin resistance. Your body compensates by making more and more insulin. In turn, your muscles begin to reject the glucose sent their way. Normally, 85 to 90% of all the glucose produced after eating a meal goes to the muscle cells to be either utilized for energy or stored as glycogen for immediate energy reserve in the muscle. This means that only 10-15% of the glucose ends up in our fat cells. If the insulin and glucagon levels are normal, there is a nice balance of fat being produced and broken down, and no weight gain occurs.

It Starts In The Muscle
When insulin resistance develops, muscle cells start rejecting a majority of the glucose following a meal and it is redirected to our fat cells. It is like a train switching tracks and going in a different direction. This is when the unexplained fat starts to develop around your middle at an alarming rate.

When Is A Calorie No Longer A Calorie?
When insulin resistance is involved, a calorie is not merely a calorie any more. You can exercise and starve yourself all you want. The fact is, your fat cells start acting like a sponge and soak up all the glucose and efficiently change it into fat no matter how many calories you try to burn. The concept of "a calorie in and a calorie out" that has been the mainstay of weight loss therapy throughout the past century needs to change. When you begin to recognize the effect that insulin resistance throws into this equation, a calorie is no longer just a calorie.
Insulin resistance leads to Metabolic Syndrome (Syndrome X) and can finally lead to full blown diabetes. Unless you can find a way to "reverse the tracks" on insulin resistance and get back to normal, you simply will not be able to lose weight even with the most aggressive diets. In this state, the body is resistant to almost any weight loss program being advocated today. Only a program designed to reverse insulin resistance will successfully "flip the switch back again."

Here is a video of Dr. Ray Strand explaining how this all happens.



Why Care About Blood Sugar?
If you're not diabetic, you probably haven't given much thought to your blood sugar, but are some compelling reasons why you should care:

• You should care if you find yourself getting sluggish or tired every afternoon.


• You should care if you reach for cookies, candy or cola when you need a shot of energy.


• You should care if you find yourself hungry late at night and raiding the refrigerator.


• You should care if your attempts at weight loss have yielded little or no success.


• You should care if you've noticed your memory or vision slipping in recent years.

These are all warning signs of blood sugar imbalance. Blood sugar is to your body what gasoline is to your car – fuel. Every cell in your body depends on it for the energy to stay alive and function. Whether you're a diabetic or not, your goal is to keep your blood sugar tank full, but not too full. Without balanced blood sugar, in addition to the health problems above, you may be increasing the risk for diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer.


How Does The Glycemic Index Work?


The glycemic index (GI) ranks foods by how they affect your blood sugar levels.

• Low-GI foods (less than 55) produce a gradual rise in blood sugar that's easy on the body.


• Foods between 55 and 70 are intermediate-GI foods


• Foods with high-GI numbers (more than 70) make blood sugar and insulin levels spike fast, which is a health threat.

Examples of high glycemic foods: White bread, white rice, white potatoes, soda pop, some fruit juices and most sugars.

Examples of low glycemic foods: Walnuts, peanuts, most fresh fruits and vegetables, chicken, turkey, tea (unsweetened), sugars like xylitol and stevia.


Research suggests keeping blood sugar from spiking pays off – low-GI foods stave off heart disease, prevent type 2 diabetes, help you evade serious side effects if you have diabetes, curb your appetite so you lose weight, and help boost energy.

The Science Behind The Glycemic Index
A study published in the November 2003 Journal of Pediatrics
showed that children who ate low-GI, high-fiber breakfasts were less hungry and ate less for lunch than kids eating a breakfast of refined sugary cereals. This is the first study to observe such an effect in a group of normal and overweight children and adds to the growing body of evidence that low-GI foods may have an important role in weight control and obesity management.

A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluded that people who eat refined grains stripped of fiber are more likely to gain weight and be overweight compared to people eating high-fiber whole grains.

GlycemicIndex and Serum High-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol Concentration Among US Adults
Dietary glycemic index, an indicator of the ability of the carbohydrate to raise blood glucose levels, and glycemic load, the product of glycemic index and carbohydrate intake, have been positively related to risk of coronary heart disease
Arch Intern Med.+2001;161:572-576.

State of the Art Reviews: Glycemic Index, Obesity, and Chronic Disease.
Diets based on carbohydrate foods that are more slowly digested and absorbed (ie, low glycemic index diets) have been independently linked to reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and some types of cancer. Although ongoing research is needed, the current findings, together with the fact that there are no demonstrated negative effects of a low glycemic index diet, suggest that the glycemic index should be an important consideration in the dietary management and prevention of obesity and chronic disease.
American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, Vol. 2, No. 2, 142-150 (2008)

Glycemic index, glycemic load, and chronic disease risk --a meta-analysis of observational studies
Low-GI and/or low-GL diets are independently associated with a reduced risk of certain chronic diseases. In diabetes and heart disease, the protection is comparable with that seen for whole grain and high fiber intakes. The findings support the hypothesis that *higherpostprandial glycemia is a universal mechanism for disease progression.
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol.87, No. 3, 627-637, March 2008

Association between Carbohydrate Intake and Serum Lipids
Results of this study suggest that there is a complex and predominantly unfavorable effect of increased intake of highly processed carbohydrate on lipid profile, which may have implications for metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and coronary heart disease. Further studies in the form of randomized controlled trials are required to investigate these associations and determine the implications for lipid management.
Journal of the American College of Nutrition, Vol. 25, No. 2, 155-163 (2006)

Potato and french fry consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes in women
Nurses health study findings suggest a modest positive association between the consumption of potatoes and the risk of type 2 diabetes in women. This association was more pronounced when potatoes were substituted or whole grains .
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 83, No. 2, 284-290, February 2006

FastFood, Central Nervous System Insulin Resistance, and Obesity
Dramatic increases in fast food consumption over the past 30 years have occurred in parallel with the twin epidemics of obesity and insulin resistance. Some of the properties of fast food, including its high glycemic index and its fatty acid composition, induce hyperinsulinemia and the development of insulin resistance, both peripherally (increasing energy deposition into fat), and centrally. Of course, fast food is merely the most extreme example of what has become the typical Western diet, so this phenomenon has implications for all patients with weight gain. Hyperinsulinemia is the primary initiator of CNS insulin resistance, which may in part be responsible for leptin resistance. This promotes reduced energy. Therefore, it is our contention that fast food, based on all its inherent properties discussed, must not be viewed as a marker, but rather as a primary etiologic agent in the genesis of the current obesity epidemic.
(+Arteriosclerosis,Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology.+ 2005;25:2451.)© 2005 American Heart Association, Inc.