Doctorshealthsystems

Diet. Individuals on a high-fat diet have been shown to lose less fat in response to exercise than those on a high-carbohydrate diet.10 High intakes of dietary fat lead to a greater energy surplus which is then stored in depot fat cells, while blood fats and glycogen are utilised for energy. The benefits of exercise are thus at least partially negated by the effects of excess energy in the form of fat. Yet while this is known, it is often difficult to verify.

Recent research using radioactive isotopes has shown that people under-estimate the amount of energy consumed in their diet by around 30 per cent, and over-estimate the amount of exercise they carry out by about 40 per cent. The under-estimate of food intake is reportedly higher in women than in men and there are indications that women may unconsciously eat more after exercise, whether as a means of defence against fat loss or a reward for having carried out exercise. Particular attention therefore needs to be paid not only to the fat content of the diet as a whole, but to the compensatory energy intake following exercise in some women. It’s not dear whether different types of exercise have different effects on this level of compensatory eating.

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Fat, as we’ve seen, is vital for existence. However, as is often the case, too much of a good thing can be dangerous. Health experts have long known the problems of overfatness, but it has often been under-rated as a primary health risk, partly because BMI is only a blunt measure of fatness. Fat distribution as well as total fatness is of critical importance. European researchers have known this for some time since the famous French endocrinologist Jean Vague published it in 1956. More recently, North American and European researchers have gone back and re-examined the epidemiological data using measures of fat distribution such as

waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) instead of weight, and found that abdominal fatness (i.e. a ‘pot belly’) is just as powerful and important a primary risk factor in determining ill-health as other risk factors such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure and smoking in causing problems such as heart disease, late onset or non insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) and some forms of cancer.

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If one person on a weight-loss program is good, then one person with a partner must be better, right? In most cases, the answer is yes.

A buddy can be an encourager, a confidante, a co-conspirator, and a calming influence. She can persuade you to put on your walking shoes and go for a stroll when you’d rather be vegging out in front of the TV or pigging out at the mall. She’ll listen attentively when you confess to eating a whole bag of chocolate-chip cookies, then suggest that the two of you play a couple of sets of tennis that afternoon.

So how do you go about recruiting someone for this all-important position? Use some common sense, and trust your instincts. If you run into trouble every morning at the office when the pastry cart comes around, consider asking the person in the next cubicle to be your morale booster. If you need someone to coax you out of bed for your 6:00 A.M. workout, maybe your spouse is the weight-loss partner for you.

Nobody at home with you? Look on the Internet. There are all kinds of weight-loss chat rooms, including those connected with the Web sites of organizations like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig.

Once you think that you’ve found your weight-loss buddy, tell that person what you expect. Are you looking for moral support? A workout partner? Somebody to talk to when the going gets rough? Make your wants and needs clear. That’s the only way that your buddy can help you.

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