“Does exercise make you fat or thin?”

Are you exercising and still gaining weight? Is the exercising help? Did your gyno tell you the aerobics you are dinging hurts your bladder and makes you dribble more? another exercise dilemma! And how about your breasts are you losing breast fat from exercise? All these questions about exercise for your gyno!
1. Are you eating more just because you exercise? Watch those hidden calories when cooking, shopping or snacking. For those trying to lose weight, you still have to cut your calories when you exercise?

2. Some overall weight changes can have to do with the body composition. Fat weighs less than muscle, and you can possibly be gaining muscle faster than you are loosing fat? You can miss estimate how much body fat you have. Only accurate measurements of your fat and muscle mass will tell you that, and if you go by the scale or inaccurate measurements you may have been just plain dehydrated when you weighed?

3. Are you improving your body composition? The type of exercise you do will affect if you are actually able to make the changes mentioned above, so you may have to switch up the routine.

4. Do you ever switch up your exercise routine so that your getting the most benefit, like everything else, once we get used to a routine we probably are able to accomplish it more efficiently, but in this case efficiently means with fewer calories being burned.

5. Weight loss is difficult through exercise alone as we just mentioned. Many people overestimate calories burned during exercise and underestimate their calories consumed. Weight loss comes down to burning more calories than you consume. One pound of fat contains 3500 calories. To loose one pound, one must burn 3500 more calories than consumed. That means cutting 500 calories per day to loose one pound per week. Be patient! If weight loss is your goal, recognize the weight loss probably won’t come off with exercise alone. Try keeping a food diary to keep track of what goes in, it may surprise you!

3. We all know that muscle weighs more than fat. Even though the scale may show a higher number, building muscle increases metabolism, so you burn more calories throughout the day. If you would like to see more results with weight loss, continue strengthening exercises to build muscle while increasing your aerobic exercise to burn more calories.

3. We can not measure the success of our exercise program through the results seen on the bathroom scales. Don’t let the scale dictate how good you feel about exercising. If you are looking for additional measurements of success, ask you doctor about testing body fat composition. You may be gaining weight but decreasing fat! You may also measure your success in inches lost. Don’t be too hard on yourself and stay objective about the changes in your body and the benefits exercising has on your bone density, cardiovascular system, mood, and body composition.

4. Our bodies become more efficient at a particular activity the more we do it. This may mean the same activity will burn fewer calories after your body has adapted to it. Try switching up your routine to continue gain fitness, loose weight, and keep your exercise regimen fun.

5. Guidelines vary the 2008 Federal Guidelines for exercise is at least 150 minutes a week of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity. The Institute of Medicine suggests 60 minutes a day which is 420 minutes per week of moderate-intensity activity is the only way to prevent obesity! Harvard School of Medicine broke the tie with a 2010 JAMA publication stating that while the Feds are on the right track to prevent chronic diseases, ,the IOM guidelines were best for weight control.

Get off the couch and let us know what you do for weight control!