Reading Can Be Depressing
July 11th 2007 12:30
I've really got to stop reading. You can get very depressed sometimes when you read the facts and the myths that have been planted in your mind start to totter. Here are a couple of items I read just this week:
Some researchers had the idea to MRI the bodies of people who did not appear obese. What they found was that many people who appear to the naked eye as of a healthy weight have significant fat deposits distributed throughout their bodies. In other words some of those who are not obese on the surface are perilously close to it and are not immune to the bad effects of body fat. I would venture to guess that the 20's and 30's crowd who do not have anything like fat looking bodies are steadily adding to these internal deposits and as their metabolism slowly with age they will fatten up externally pretty rapidly. I would also speculate that those who look fine and do not exercise are prime members of this inside fat crowd.Even if you sit all day and seriously watch what you are eating you may be not be doing enough.
The second study was even more sobering.People 40-75 were enrolled in a study in which they were induced to do one hour of aerobic exercise six days a week for a year. That's roughly three hundred hours of exercise. What would you expect the results to be. Unless they went ape on their eating I would expect that these folks would lose tens of pounds over the year. In fact in this particular study the average person lost five. That's right-5!
So, as sad as these studies are they at least alert us to the task we have at hand, if we want anything like fitness in our lives. I'm afraid that we will have to face the fact that eating junk is having a bad effect on us even if it doesn't show. It also seems apparent that exercise is not a pancaea per se and will not really fight the effects of bad eating unless its done properly. Apparently chugging down the road isn't the whole answer. People do impove their fitness,though. We will keep working on it. Your servant, as always.
Some researchers had the idea to MRI the bodies of people who did not appear obese. What they found was that many people who appear to the naked eye as of a healthy weight have significant fat deposits distributed throughout their bodies. In other words some of those who are not obese on the surface are perilously close to it and are not immune to the bad effects of body fat. I would venture to guess that the 20's and 30's crowd who do not have anything like fat looking bodies are steadily adding to these internal deposits and as their metabolism slowly with age they will fatten up externally pretty rapidly. I would also speculate that those who look fine and do not exercise are prime members of this inside fat crowd.Even if you sit all day and seriously watch what you are eating you may be not be doing enough.
The second study was even more sobering.People 40-75 were enrolled in a study in which they were induced to do one hour of aerobic exercise six days a week for a year. That's roughly three hundred hours of exercise. What would you expect the results to be. Unless they went ape on their eating I would expect that these folks would lose tens of pounds over the year. In fact in this particular study the average person lost five. That's right-5!
So, as sad as these studies are they at least alert us to the task we have at hand, if we want anything like fitness in our lives. I'm afraid that we will have to face the fact that eating junk is having a bad effect on us even if it doesn't show. It also seems apparent that exercise is not a pancaea per se and will not really fight the effects of bad eating unless its done properly. Apparently chugging down the road isn't the whole answer. People do impove their fitness,though. We will keep working on it. Your servant, as always.
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