Dreamliner
08-01-2012, 12:26 PM
Yes, I know; sounds heretical. But activity levels have not declined since 1980. And the average energy expenditure of an American is on par with mammals in the wild.
On a personal level, roughly half my clients were already exercising when they came to me, complaining about not being able to lose weight. And as a specific example, when I asked a morbidly-obese, middle-aged client to wear a pedometer for 72 hours, so as to gauge general activity, she averaged 7,000 steps a day.
Yes, yes, there are some Americans who are total slugs and could easily afford to incorporate increasing activity into their lifestyle. And I think you all know how I feel about everybody getting a little bit of basic strength training.
But back to my morbidly obese client - and the central problem - quite obviously, inactivity wasn't the reason for her obesity. Her food journal suggested that she was getting enough calories to fuel a male athlete half her age.
Plus, exercising a lot can make you hungry and will almost certainly lead to reward eating. Even more problematic, if you become accustomed to engaging in prodigious levels of exercise, will you be willing and able to radically dial back food consumption if you have to curtail exercising ?
Another good reason to monitor activity levels (again, I understand that some could afford to be more active): lesser levels of activity enable you to acclimate yourself by how little food is required to nourish the human body. When you're an exercise hound, energy activity can vary wildly, day-to-day, and make it difficult to calibrate caloric needs.
Finally, I doubt that we're a good deal less active than our primitive ancestors. Seriously, did they endeavor to exhaust themselves through activity, as we do, for 'health benefits' ? Of course not. I gather that they sought to conserve energy. I suspect that they exerted themselves when crises were thrust upon them.
Let the teeth-gnashing and fist-waving begin!
PS: I'm not telling anyone not to go for it, not to 'scratch the itch.' I understand all that and can relate. I'm just sayin ...
On a personal level, roughly half my clients were already exercising when they came to me, complaining about not being able to lose weight. And as a specific example, when I asked a morbidly-obese, middle-aged client to wear a pedometer for 72 hours, so as to gauge general activity, she averaged 7,000 steps a day.
Yes, yes, there are some Americans who are total slugs and could easily afford to incorporate increasing activity into their lifestyle. And I think you all know how I feel about everybody getting a little bit of basic strength training.
But back to my morbidly obese client - and the central problem - quite obviously, inactivity wasn't the reason for her obesity. Her food journal suggested that she was getting enough calories to fuel a male athlete half her age.
Plus, exercising a lot can make you hungry and will almost certainly lead to reward eating. Even more problematic, if you become accustomed to engaging in prodigious levels of exercise, will you be willing and able to radically dial back food consumption if you have to curtail exercising ?
Another good reason to monitor activity levels (again, I understand that some could afford to be more active): lesser levels of activity enable you to acclimate yourself by how little food is required to nourish the human body. When you're an exercise hound, energy activity can vary wildly, day-to-day, and make it difficult to calibrate caloric needs.
Finally, I doubt that we're a good deal less active than our primitive ancestors. Seriously, did they endeavor to exhaust themselves through activity, as we do, for 'health benefits' ? Of course not. I gather that they sought to conserve energy. I suspect that they exerted themselves when crises were thrust upon them.
Let the teeth-gnashing and fist-waving begin!
PS: I'm not telling anyone not to go for it, not to 'scratch the itch.' I understand all that and can relate. I'm just sayin ...