Here is what happens to our bodies if we don't exercise and eat right.
There is a gradual decrease in muscle which is closely related to the gradual increase in body-fat.
Although our metabolism eventually slows down with age, this
and other degenerative processes can be delayed and even reversed with a healthy low fat diet, plenty of aerobic exercise
and last but not least, strength training.
Here are a few muscle facts to think about...
1.The more
muscle you have on your body the more calories you will burn at rest.
2.One pound of muscle burns approximately
50-70 calories, so if you were to put on 5 lbs. of muscle you would burn 250-350 more calories per day.
3.Your
basal metabolism goes up as you get fitter.
4. Muscle is at the heart of your metabolism, your need for calories
and health itself.
5. Your ability to burn fat is dependent on enzyme production. The fitter you are the more enzymes
you produce. Fat burning enzymes break down quickly if you don't exercise for a while. So your ability to burn fat is
closely related to how much you exercise.
With this increase in enzyme production your muscles learn to burn more
and more fat. They become fat burning machines, and you become a better fat burner.
6. Fat is released more readily
in athletes than in overweight people. Overweight people need to exercise persistently in order to get there fat storage tanks
to respond.
7. If you are out of shape, you have to retrain your muscles to burn fat, there is a flush of fatty
acids that get released into the blood stream about 20 minutes into the exercise session. This flush occurs sooner in very
fit people.
The Olympic athlete releases fatty acids before she even begins to run.
A moderately
active person might not release fatty acids for 15 minutes. the unfit person may not release them for 30 minutes, or
if that person hasn't exercised for a while, may not release any.
So as you can see we have to re-train our muscles,
eat a healthy diet to support the muscle growth (more on that next month) be persistent and eventually our bodies will get
the message.
