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 :)

"Excercise not Key to tackling obesity" - BBC news uk

Well well well,

This is not something new. Like I've written so many times in my blog previously, to have a healthy body, you need to eat right!

News in BBC UK today says that exercise is not Key to tackling Obesity. This doesn't mean exercise is useless, what it means is, you can't eat all you want even if you exercise.

complete news in the link -CLICK HERE TO READ THE NEWS

This is a scary statement, and needs to be told with some emphasis on what it really means.

It says that in the war against obesity.... you need to eat right. The enemy is excess CARBOHYDRATES and SUGAR.

"An obese person does not need to do one iota of exercise to lose weight, they just need to eat less" Dr Aseem Malhotra, Cardiologist

They said while activity was a key part of staving off diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and dementia, its impact on obesity was minimal.

So you see, I haven't been singing a deaf tune all this while. I've always led you to the proper and right path to get a healthy body.

Eat right, control your calories. Diet is key to fighting obesity. 

So Join me today, pick the right supplements and diet plan for a safe and sure weightloss. Remember, its the eating thats the key. everything else is a help. If you dont fix your eating, you can run till your knees hurt and you wont shed a kilo.

Shaklee - Always safe, always works, always green

Just to add on... exercise is not bad.. not at all. its good and you should do it. but exercise alone will not help.

Why you are not losing weight despite starving!

Today I would like to share some basic knowledge on Insulin.

For those of you who suffer from diabetes that is beyond oral medication control, I am sure you are very familiar with the word and the need of insulin. For the rest of you, maybe you've seen it, maybe you've heard of it by chance or from formal education. There are of course some of you who might not know much if not anything about this very important substance.

I would like to share today on getting to know insulin, its main functions and how it can affect your diet and weight.

Ok, the boring basics. Insulin is an endocrine hormone secreted by the pancreas. It spikes in responds to high glucose (sugar) level in your blood. Glucagon is its opposite partner. when sugar lever drops... Glucagon spikes.

Insulin drives sugars into cells to be stored. and when insulin drops and glucagon spikes.. cells use up its glycogen reserves for energy.

But that is just the superficial part of it.

Actually Insulin plays and important role on the utilisation of our fuels for either storage or oxidation to produce energy. this includes glycogen, lipid and protein. Unsteady levels of insulin will cause derangements in the process of fuel utilization.

so lets break it down.

INSULIN AND CARBS

Carbohydrates will break down into glucose at the end of the day. Insulin in the key to allow sugar to pass through the cell door and get stored as glycogen. every cell needs insulin except for your brain,nerve cell and liver. But. Insulin stimulates the liver to bank in as much glycogen as it can.

This results in a drop in sugar in the blood. Hence, Insulin will decrease as well.
Decrease in insulin will trigger use of alternative energy. The liver will also start break down glycogen.

INSULIN AND FAT!

so you must be wondering. why then do i gain so much weight as fat.. even if I only eat food high in sugar and carbs?

Actually the liver can only saturate upto 5% of its mass with glycogen. Once saturated, guess what, it begins to churn glucose into fatty acids. This is then exported from the liver as lipoproteins. Lipoproteins (fat + proteins) will release free fatty acids in the body where it is needed. Mainly will be taken up by the Adipose(fat) cells. so there you go, there is the culprit after all.

What else does insulin do? It inhibits usage of alternative fuel. Alternative meaning anything other than glucose. Insulin signals glucose to be stored in Adipocyte (fat cells), converted to glycerol and with the fatty acid, insulin signals the fat cells to produce triglycerides. basically, producing more FAT!!!

So basically, Insulin in a fat sparing agent. Not only does it signal body to use our primary fuel source, sugar, but it signals accumulation of FAT. converting sugar.. into FAT!

bottom line, spikes of insulin is not what you want for your wightloss - fatloss ambition.

SO WHAT NOW?

well, it is obvious isnt it. keep your carbs and sugar intake low and steady and this will in turn produce a steady low level on insulin in your body.

This is why the Low carb, diet works. you can eat as much as you want provided it doesnt contain sugar or carbs in it. be aware of course, this diet can burden your kidneys in the long run.

If you must take carbs and sugar, take them on regular times each day, and take food with LOW GI. Glycemic index. These are foods that are digested slowly and hence release sugar not in a big pulse, but rather a constant slow ooze. avoiding the unnecessary insulin spike which will lead to the unwanted effects mentioned above.

Diet preparations, weight loss meal replacements or shakes are mainly rich in proteins and low in GI. This is for the sole purpose of getting your body to use its fat storage, the stuff you wanna lose. body isn't so clever when it comes to burning alternative fuel. It will tend to burn protein as well.

PRESERVE YOUR MUSCLE.

Why do shakes contain mainly protein? well, one, would be to make you feel full and curb the cravings. but more importantly it prevents muscle wasting. Muscles are the main fuel users. If you work out, you create a demand to burn more fuel and at the same time, build more muscle. Especially if you do strength training. cardio burns fat, pumping iron bulk up the engine.

HOW ABOUT MEALS?

if you are serious at losing those unwanted fats, then you have to be serious at keeping your food routine tight.

Eat same time each day. keep your diet LOW GI, and avoid as much carbs and sugar as you can. this include the healthy choices of delicious fruits. pick fruits with lots of fiber and low sugar. like apples, pears and watermelon. they make you feel full without the exccess of sugar and carbs.

drink plain water, throughout the day. to burn alternative fuel, your body needs more fluids.

CONGRATS AND GOOD LUCK!

If you made it this far and could digest more than half of the info than good for you. You now have the knowledge to change your body and health.

wether you use this knowledge to your advantage or not is beyond me. Your life, Your choice, Your happiness. succeed or fail its all you. no one else.

"do not stop when you are tired, stop when you are finished" I dunno who said that, i read it somewhere on fb. but it rings true you know.

TAKE HOME MESSAGE:

1. Have a strict meal routine. keep your insulin levels steady.
2. Eat food with low GI. spikes of insulin is your enemy
3. If you can't keep up with meal demands, get Meal replacements, diet shakes. they are easy and fast.
4. Exercise so that you dont waste muscle that help burn the fat. bulk up if you want to see faster results.
5. Avoid taking  sugar at all cost. they are your primary enemy!