Posted on 04/06/2010 10:06:03 PM PDT by neverdem
Losing weight is difficult, and keeping it off may be even harder. So Harvard researchers set out to determine exactly how much physical activity women need in midlife to avoid gaining weight as they age.
The researchers found that an hour of moderate activity a day — including such recreational activities as brisk walking, leisurely bicycling, ballroom dancing and playing with children — prevented women of normal weight from gaining more than five pounds over any three-year period. Half that amount of vigorous activity, like running, jogging or fast biking, will do the trick as well, they said.
Women who got the same amount of exercise but were heavier to start with were not able to avoid gaining weight, however. Neither were women of normal weight who got less than seven hours a week of moderate activity, according to the study, published in the March 24 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Doesn’t it depend upon the intake of calories at the front end?
More than anything else activity increases the metabolism. Most calories are burned not through exercise but by the natural workings of the body.
As soon as I get to the words “Harvard researchers” I know it’s a grant scam.
Ideally one shouldn’t just exercise once a day for weight loss. If you exercise before you go to work in the morning, take a walk instead of going out at lunchtime, and then do some weight-bearing exercise after work, you’ll lose. But few people are willing to do this; they’d rather say, “I just can’t lose weight” and give up.
I have no idea...
Right.
I shed some pounds once in a Weight Watchers program a couple decades ago. The amount of exercise it called for in conjunction with its diet program was quite mild. A single mile and a quarter walk every other day.
Yep. More intake that output is gonna get ya nowhere!
Easiest diet in the world is don’t eat after 6 pm. From the time you wake up until 6 pm eat anything you want. Have real big lunch at 2:30 pm. You will lose weight.
I’m for making everyday life activities into exercise! Although I do power walk about 15-20 miles a week....beyond that...I’d rather lift groceries, etc....clean, garden, etc. to get my exercise. And, btw I’ve lost weight...and not changed my exercising at all (over the past year)....by following a CAVEMAN type of diet....high protein, low carb....anytime I want bread or sweets...I try to find something like fat or protein....I’m wearing clothes from almost 20 years ago now! (Yeah, I saved them....classics, luckily.) AND...the “hereditary” LDL cholesterol problem I was told I had several years ago (and couldn’t change) seems to have changed for the better, too!
Don't know about the weight gain aspect; don't care.
Losing weight is harder than divorcing your husband, so guess what most women choose?
Party Down when Reid and Pelosi are OUT of Office. Celebrations cause watchful dietary contraints to go to the wayside for just that time......
All this shows is, if you’re a middle aged woman who isn’t already overweight, it takes a moderate amount of exercise to keep the weight off. If you’re already fat, all bets are off. Prob because fat people have a tendency to get fatter; which is why they are fat in the first place?
Read in one of those crazy health magazines that women need to add half an hour a day of exercise for every year over 40 - that means I should be working out about 26 hours a day now.
***Doesn’t it depend upon the intake of calories at the front end?***
Energy in = energy out.
Take in 3600 calories and you must burn up 3600 calories. If you don’t, that 3600 calories will go into the storage pile around your waist as one pound of FAT.
If you take in 3600 calories and burn up 1800 calories the other unused 1800 calories will go to your waist as 1/2 lb of fat.
I have looked at the amount of exercise to equal out one canned soda and it ain't worth it. I would just try to keep fit with exercise and control my calories to lose weight. Trying to run off your pounds will just frustrate you.
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