New Year’s Fitness Resolution
Jan 1st, 2010 by Giselle
Are you a cyclic exerciser? Do you have sporadic episodes of pushing yourself too hard on new exercise programs and burning out? Overall, you never stay on any program very long. If this sounds like you, this article is for you.
If you are like the millions of sedentary people out there who are going to begin an exercise program after New Year’s Day, here’s the bad news for you. It may be worse to have started and stopped than never have begun at all!
Occasional exercisers, who push themselves to the limits of endurance, get bored and chuck in the towel may be putting their health in unnecessary jeopardy. A study by Professor Judith Stern at the University of California, Davis, showed that exercised rats taken off their regime soon overate and gained weight like the sedentary rats. Not a surprising outcome you might say but this bit of the study might make you sit up and take notice. The blood test results of the exercised rats showed much poorer biochemical profile than the sedentary rats with much higher percentage body fat!
Therefore if you are gearing up for your New Year’s Fitness Resolution only to give it all up by February, my advice is don’t bother. Some weight gain may be the least of your concerns!
Reference
Animals on an exercise program: J.S. Stern and E. A. Applegate, “Exercise Termination Effects on Food Intake, Plasma Insulin and Adipose Tissue Lipoprotein Lipase Activity in the Osborne-Mendel Rat,” Metabolism, 1987, 36, pp. 709-714.
P. Lowney, V. M. Lee, R.J. Hansen, et al., “The Effects of Exercise, Detraining, Starvation and Refeeding on the Lipogenic Capacity of the Osborne-Mendel Rat,” American Journal of Physiology, 1988, 254, pp. 648-654.
This definately sounds like me! I guess this another case of ‘slow and steady wins the race!”
Moderation is a virtue. Walk the middle path consistently. With repetition, you cannot help but generate results that your heart so desire. This is particularly applicable in the area if eating. When you get your behaviour around food right, you cannot help but be your perfect body weight!