Diet and Exercise

 

The body consumes units of energy called calories. The body then uses these calories whenever physical motion is called for (exercise). If the body consumes more calories than it needs, it stores the extra calories (fat). If the body needs more calories than have been consumed, it uses the stored fat. Therefore, to gain weight, eat more and exercise less. To lose weight, eat less and exercise more. That, in a nutshell, is the secret to weight gain and/or weight loss.

In general, as a society, we are overweight. We eat far more than we need to, and exercise much less than we should. Food is much more plentiful (in general) than it was for our ancestors, particularly in a high calory/ high fat form. In general, we do much less physical work than our ancestors.  

The single most important fact to remember about what  we eat is this: FOOD IS FUEL. Don’t  think about great taste, glorious presentation, or fantastic texture. Using food as a form of celebration, to give us comfort, or as entertainment gets us away from it’s basic function.  Food is fuel. If you think it this way makes it easier to deal with.

This next paragraph will get me in lots of trouble, but it is nonetheless true. Entire industries surrounding food now exist with the basic purpose of killing us (slowly, with pork fat on our upper lip). The Food Network is dedicated to highlight food that is deadly! Most restaurant meals are the same – high in fat (particularly saturated fat) and high calory.Fast food (spelled sideways is fats food) is even worse.  High fat, high calory, tastes great – but deadly! Why? Because fat and sugar taste great! Consumers want food that tastes great, so the food industry provides it.

Lets look at one example in detail – the Wendys Baconator sandwich. I use this example as I used to have a great fondness for the Baconator – you could say it was close to my heart. One Baconator sandwich has about 840 calories, (as well as 23 grams of saturated fat) You would need to walk for about 8 1/2 hours to use  that many calories. Maybe you don’t have that much time. Maybe you only have 45 minutes. You would need to cut your Baconator  into 8, and throw away 7/8ths of it , then go for your 45 minute walk afterward. This presumes that you would consume no other calories that day. I am not saying don’t eat the Baconator. I am saying that you need to understand the caloric consequences of that decision.

This is by no means the only such example. Pizza = poison! French Fries = calorie sticks. Alfredo sauce = heart attack in a jar. I once worked for a fast food outlet called “Chicken on the Run”. We not only deep fried the  breaded chicken (high in saturated fat) in oil (high in saturated fat) we did it in a pressure cooker – which had the effect of  squeezing the oil right into the meat. I remember the oil running out of it when you bit into a piece.

 So what is the solution?

First, read labels. Most packaged “food” is high in calories. Avoid it! Second understand the relationship between calories consumed and exercise.

Some key concepts:

Control of portion size

Reduce or eliminate saturated fat

Exercise more, eat less  

More to come…