Exercise to Burn Calories??? You have got to be kidding me!

Welcome to another episode of fun filled facts.

This morning I was pleasantly surprised by a facebook friend who brought up the issue of Fructose and why its the mother of all evil in the fight against obesity and Metabolic syndrome.

Another day about fructose, I've only got a few minutes today to rattle down in this blog so I better make it nifty and quick.

Exercise... we all know it, we all heard of it and we know its supposedly good for you. It is.. no doubt, very good for you.

But do you know why exercise is good for you?

People always say... "wanna lose weight? go exercise". so does this mean that added activity means added calories burn... well.. yes  of course, but if you ever exercised to burn calories you would know that it takes about an hour to burn the calories of just one cookie!! pretty discouraging isnt it. Imagine how much you need to run to burn a big mac or a full serving of nasi lemak!

here are some examples on how much calories does common exercises burn off...

common food calories

You need to walk for 3 hours just to burn one roti John!

absurd!

But time and time again we still hear exercise is good for you. And especially important if you wanna lose weight. now why is that? if you follow math and the laws of thermodynamics...(what you put in equals what you burn.. and if you you dont burn you gain as fat) then the premise is flawed.

Humans are never as easy as 1+1=2... or 2-1=1... if only.

Its a whole bunch of metabolic issues that get screwed up in the first place. If you have a healthy metabolism, east balanced and live and average lifestyle.. chances are.. you wont be obese.

so lets take a look on how Exercise "fixes" your metabolic glitches and help you get that dream curves you always wanted.

Numero UNO (number one)

1. Exercise leads to improved insulin sensitivity.

Remember i wrote an article back then (why you are not losing weight despite starving). what insulin does to you. how you dont want spikes... but instead a steady ooze.. spikes, big spikes, and many spikes lead to insulin resistance.. when this happens.. you need more insulin to get the same response. it burdens your insulin factory- the pancrease. sugar starts to saturate your blood... so... TADAAA.. you got diabetes. This is what you dont want

but with exercise...you get toned muscles and that leads to better insulin sensitivity

How? dont you worry bout the biochemistry stuff. just trust me that it works. if you really wanna know, google exercise  and GLUT4

This is good news... it means that even if you have fallen down the rabbit hole and got yourself in a metabolic mess.. there is still hope yet for you and everybody. exercise reverses insulin resistance. so sugar gets uptaked and processed into energy.

Numero DOS (number 2)

Exercise leads to stress reduction. 

Exercise reduces the stress hormone cortisol that is the culprit... how... Take a look at this

The following is a typical example of how the stress response operates as its intended survival mechanism:

1. An individual is faced with a stressor.

2. A complex hormonal cascade ensues, and the adrenals secrete cortisol.

3. Cortisol prepares the body for a fight-or-flight response by flooding it with glucose, supplying an immediate energy source to large muscles.

4. Cortisol inhibits insulin production in an attempt to prevent glucose from being stored, favoring its immediate use.

5. Cortisol narrows the arteries while the epinephrine increases heart rate, both of which force blood to pump harder and faster.

6. The individual addresses and resolves the situation.

7. Hormone levels return to normal.

Imagine the tiger is your boss!

The problem is.. we live a life of chronic stress. flight or fight response is constant. We stress out to finish our assignment, then we stress out to present the assignment, then we stress out bout meeting our boss, only later to stress out after work facing the traffic jam. and the list goes on.

as you can see from the description about, flooding of glucose and blocking our insulin is not favourable conditions. its suppose to be temporary..but it isnt.

so chronic stress leads to chronic elevated cortisol levels.. which leads to 

- insulin and sugar imbalance - diabetes, and increased appetite

-weight gain and obesity - mobilising fat from storage to under the muscles and into your abs.

-immune suppression

-gastrointestinal problems

-cardiovascular problems 

-fertility problems

But the good news, exercise can help tackle this problem.

Amazing, this shows that exercise cuts cortisol levels in half!

and last but not least TRES (three)

The one we like alot about exercise is that it increases our metabolism!

If you ever studied physiology or biochemistry, you know we get energy from the krebs cycle or.. known also as the citric acid cycle. 

in our cells we have alot of power plants called mitochondria. They produce ATP. the substance of life.

Mitochondria is a wonderful subject to talk about on its own.. but I will save it for another day.

anyways.. execise make mitochondria more effficient and work faster. so, you can burn off your energy before you need to store them as fat. how awesome is that!

Take Home message:

Exercise. Take the time to do some moderate to high intensity exercise to get this wonderful benefits of exercise.

when you are able to tackle the glitches in your metabolism, your body will sort the rest out. 

if you go on diets after diets, starve yourself, and binge. yo yo your diet. you will do more harm than good. because you are not fixing the problem. Its like when there is a leak in the pipe, stopping the water is temporary measures.. eventually you need to resume the use and when you switch on the water.. it will leak. better is to off the water, fix the pipe.. and life goes on smoothly.

but remember, just like my article - Exercise not key to losing weight by BBC, If you plan to lose weight.. you need to fix your diet! 

Good Luck! 

HOT is just an exercise away :)