How Obesity Can Be Reduced With Exercise

How Obesity Can Be Reduced With Exercise

Of recent interest is the rash of various mechanical slenderizers advertised seductively in leading women’s magazines. Rolling pins wrapped in rubber will purportedly roll off the weight. Electrical vibrating devices can “literally melt away the pounds while you relax in your home.” This abrogation of intellectual honesty is at best suspect.

The federal government, fortunately, is slow to curtail free enterprise. But the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare warns us in frank talk that we are being “fleeced” to the tune of $500,-000,000 a year. “No enduring pill, gadget, cigarette, or chewing gum will help you safely lose weight,” he says.
While any feeling human being naturally hopes for an easy panacea, many thinking human beings will go the route by themselves on their own, without risky crutches, and enjoy their just rewards.

A factual but depressing record of weight loss will reveal occasional plateaus. For days or weeks, even though caloric consumption remains steady so does the weight. No satisfactory medical explanation for this phenomenon is known, although a curtailment in activity is often suspected. Ride out the plateaus. You will again be on the downward path.

Obesity and over nutrition are more common among premature deaths than is lack of fitness. While physical immortality is unattainable, lean and fit individuals beat the odds!

Calorie Requirements For Various Activities
Calories per Hour*
1. Domestic and Artistic Occupations
Standing relaxed 20
Writing 20
Reading aloud 20
Sewing 25
Dressing and undressing 33
Singing 37
Violin playing 46
Ironing (with 5-lb. iron) 59
Dishwashing 59
Declaiming (without gestures) 85
Sweeping the floor 100
Dusting 100
Polishing 174

2. Industrial Occupations
Mental work 7
Typing 30
Shoemaking 80
Bookbinding 85
Painting 145
Carpentering 155
Laundry washing 230
Riveting 276
Stonemasonry 315
Coal mining 320
Sawing wood 400

3. Physical Exercise
Sitting at lectures 13
Drill without arms 83
* Caloric utilization beyond the needs required for sitting
motionless.

Obesity and Fitness 105

Walking slowly (2.6 mph) 150
Walking moderately (3.75 mph) 215
Marching 250
Bicycling 180-300
Rowing moderately 300-600
Swimming 300-700
Skating 300-700
Climbing 400-900
Walking very fast (5.3 mph) 565
Skiing 500-900
Rowing vigorously 1,240
Running 1,242

The nutrition of exercise is remarkably simple. So common and plentiful are the essential amino acids, fats, carbohydrates, minerals, and vitamins that a balanced diet can scarcely be avoided. The athlete at constant ideal weight who consumes three meals a day can be confident he is receiving an ample supply of calories, and he need not fear nutritional deficiencies. While malnutrition is the rule rather than the exception in this country, the problem is over nutrition, not under nutrition.

A wide variety of foods capable of assuring a balanced diet is almost inescapable. Remember that athletes of all nationalities, from differing climates, and from varying dietary patterns win medals in the Olympics. The extremes of their eating habits attest unequivocally to the universality of good food. The first lesson in good nutrition is that no magic formula is available?or necessary. Good food is good food no matter where you find it.

This is not to say, however, that athletes have not inherited fantastic and incredible nutritional notions. Perhaps the diet of an athlete has received more comment than any other area of his fitness program. The serious athlete is involved in a twenty-four-hour-a-day curriculum. He watches his diet, plans his workouts, gets enough sleep, practices good hygiene habits, avoids excesses, and provides for his wife and children. What is true for the competing athlete is usually true for the serious non competitor, the fun and fitness enthusiast.

Competitor and non competitor alike are in constant search for methods to improve performance. Newer and better training systems are constantly being evolved. With these techniques, increasingly strenuous amounts of work can be compressed into shorter periods of exercise.