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Without exercise, then, you are
what you eat. Over time, those extra calories will have a steady
impact on your weight and girth. But my goal is to make your diet
insignificant when it comes to weight. So I put all my focus on metabolism.
By concentrating on those things that increase metabolism –
such as exercise, increasing fluids, vitamins, and eating –
then burning up those extra calories every day is not difficult. I
want your metabolism so high you can never out-eat it. But understand
that while an active metabolism may allow you to eat most of the foods
you enjoy, maintaining good nutrition is still extremely important
for your general health and vitality. You will not feel strong and
energized; you will not get to your emotional goal if you ignore it.
Another
reason diets can never be effective is because they don’t
correct the underlying problem of a suppressed metabolism –
they don’t change your chemistry. In fact, they make the problem
much worse. Dieting results in the loss of muscle mass and water.
And it is the muscles that burn calories in the first place, which
becomes the chief determinant of metabolic rate. One pound of muscle
burns 50 calories. Typical weight loss from a sub caloric diet can
be 25 to 50 percent muscle, not fat. And if you’re losing
muscle mass, you’re losing metabolism. So once you quit the
diet and start eating normally again, your further depressed metabolism
will cause those lost pounds to accumulate quickly, usually exceeding
the starting weight and making you fatter than when you started.
Exercise is essential if you want to
get to your outcome – to feel powerful and energized, younger
and sexier. You cannot feel this way if you body is out of shape.
And besides these feelings, moderate exercise does amazing things
for the body, things no medication or otherwise could possibly accomplish.
Exercise decreases your risk for coronary artery
disease and certain kinds of cancer. Exercise decreases blood pressure
and PMS symptoms. Exercise increases bone strength and mass. Regular
exercise is the best drug for longevity. It can add years to your
life.
Exercise also does amazing things for your weight. Exercise increases
metabolic rate by building active muscle mass, which burns calories.
Exercise actually decreases appetite and increases neurotransmitter
levels naturally. Exercise curbs binge eating by reducing stress
and decreasing cortisol levels. Exercise is a daily dose of normalizing
neurotransmitters.
Patients lose weight immediately from the medication.
That’s gratification. Now when they ride their bikes or walk
their treadmills or glide their gliders they won’t step on
the scale to find they’ve gained weight. And they quickly
discover that the more they exercise, the better the medications
work. It’s an escalating cycle. The faster they lose, the
more they feel like exercising. The more they exercise, the faster
they lose. They also learn that when the body is in good shape,
exercise is not only satisfying – it’s addictive. Not
long into the program my patients describe the natural high they
achieve from intense workouts. And because they’re losing
significant weight relatively quickly, problems such as joint pain,
breathlessness, low stamina, and many of the other aches and pains
associated with obesity rapidly diminish, then disappear.
When exercise is combined with medication, the
majority of the weight loss is stored fat. Losing the fat and gaining
muscle is my primary goal, and should be yours too. It doesn’t
matter what your scale reading might be, it is the percent body
fat that causes the health risk.
The most important principle with exercise
is: Crawl before you walk, walk before you run.
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