High Altitude Health Deborah Holmes MedX of Estes
While I was recently liquidating, and packing up a bunch of household items in an effort to de-clutter my house, I came across a handful of old exercise and health books that were written years ago. We picked them up at one of our annual Library Book sales. Some of these old books along with various pieces of exercise equipment are collectibles now.
As with everything in the world, the health and fitness industry has gone through many changes. In some aspects of this industry it has even returned to its roots of discovery and recommendations. One of the books that we picked up is titled "Total Fitness in 30 minutes a week." It was published in 1975. It is written by Laurence E. Morehouse, PhD and Leonard Gross.
In this world of crazy "fad diets" it seems that each and every one of them have made weight loss complicated, time consuming and nutritionally unbalanced. Today, we have lost the simplicity of exercising and losing weight. When it really is not that difficult of a task.
So, using the information gathered from this book, I want to take you back 40-plus years to share what the "fad" of weight loss was back in 1975.
A pound of fat is 3,500 calories. Calories are recognized as a form of energy. Calories in must balance calories out. For weight loss, we are interested in losing permanent weight in terms of fat, not temporary weight loss in terms of water.
To burn off a pound of fat a day, you'd have to not eat anything and attempt to exercise enough to physically burn 3500 calories. This is not possible with the human body. However, weight loss becomes more realistic when we consider losing a pound of fat a week. This brings the calorie expenditure down to 500 calories that need to be burned off each day of the week. Most people do not have the time or the inclination to burn off 500 calories a day.
However, if you combine burning calories with dietary restraint, you could produce a 500-calorie deficit a day without either strain or starvation. Isn't this a concept! The authors of this book recommend lowering your daily intake of food by 200 calories and burning 300 calories a day. Burning 300 calories will not only make you lose weight it will help you reap the benefits of being in better health and shape. With this combination, your metabolism will not be disrupted, all your body processes will stay in balance, proteins will be preserved and normal pH will be maintained within the body. Losing a pound of weight this way will result in a permanent pound of fat gone from your body. In 3 months, you'll lose 12 to 15 pounds of fat, which adds up to 52 pounds of fat in a year and you won't put it back on! It'll be gone for good!
Look how simple it is. These are examples of 100-Calorie food portions: a cup coffee with cream and sugar, one pancake, two plain cookies, two tablespoons of sugar, one fried egg, a 5-ounce glass of milk, 8 oz soft drink, one ounce of cheese, half cup of soup, five french-fries, six potato chips, one baked potato. Just take out two of these simple portions.
Look how simple it is to add exercise into your day. These are examples of activities that burn 100 calories: 7 minutes running, 9 minutes cycling (or 2 miles), 9 minutes swimming (or 400 yards), 10 minutes downhill skiing, 14 minutes of tennis, 20 minutes of golf, 20 minutes of gardening, 20 minutes of walking at 2.6 mph, 22 minutes of bowling. Just pick three activities or do your favorite activity three times every day.
The take home message from 1975 is: it's easy to drop 200 calories out of your diet and it's not difficult to burn 300 extra calories every day.
So, there you have it, written before all the "fads," a simple plan towards weight loss. I think the world needs to get back to "simple thinking" regarding weight loss, health and exercise.
Go here to see the original:
1975 thoughts about weight loss - Estes Park Trail-Gazette
