KNOW MORE TO BE MORE

Being Slim does not mean being healthy and vice-versa

It is often perceived that you could be either fat or fit which is based upon the notion that people weighing normal are healthy and do not need to exercise. Well the perspective we are putting out today runs counter to the prevailing wisdom that weight is in and of itself a marker of health; rather, it suggests that a person’s level of physical fitness, in addition to his or her weight, matters too. What does that means?
Well in simple words being a person with normal weight doesn't makes anyone healthy and just because a person has put on more weight are not definitely unhealthy; it all depends upon your lifestyle and not the number on the weighing scale.
Studies suggests that when it comes to your risk of early death, being obese overall may not be as important as where on the body your fat is distributed.
People who are of normal weight but have a paunch; that is, a lot of visceral or belly fat, which, unlike run-of-the-mill subcutaneous fat, is known to be metabolically dangerous and to promote insulin resistance and inflammation, were twice as likely to die early as people of normal weight with no gut. People with lots of concentrated belly fat also had a higher risk of death than people who were simply obese all over.
So what exactly is going on? Being metabolically fit may be the game changer and physical fitness, irrespective of weight is a strong predictor of whether or not you’re going to be metabolically fit.
Weight is a major issue when it’s combined with a metabolic abnormality; when you have weight plus insulin resistance, weight plus hypertension, weight plus abnormal cholesterol, then you have an issue. Obviously the more overweight and the more obese you are, the more likely you are to have a metabolic abnormality but that's not always the case.
Think about insulin resistance. The biggest consumer of sugar in the human body is muscle. Muscle doesn’t just move us from point A to point B; it is also extremely important for many metabolic variables like blood sugar, so it makes sense that someone who is fit is metabolically going to be far better off than someone who is unfit.
That’s why some heavy people can be fit on the inside — healthier even than some of their thinner peers. Many people who diet but don’t exercise to lose weight, for example, may technically reach a “healthy” weight, but their fitness level doesn’t match. They may appear trim on the outside, but still carry too much visceral fat and not enough muscle on the inside.
Despite not being physically active, with horrible and restrictive diet, you might not be overweight, but metabolicallyyou are probably a mes. But we are not giving you an excuse to remain overweight or obese. Even though research increasingly suggests that excess weight alone may not necessarily lead to disease or early death, you’re still more likely to develop other metabolic risk factors that contribute to chronic disease if you’re overweight.
None of this is to say that we can pack on pounds without worry. Carrying a lot of weight around increases stress on joints and can make us less inclined to be active. There's also the plain reality that the more overweight you are, the more likely it is that your metabolic health will take a hit, now or in the future.
But choice is a loaded word for many obesity experts, as well as for countless individuals who have waged a lifelong war with their weight. As many as two-thirds of us end up regaining more weight than we lose while dieting. Pinning ambitious weight-loss hopes on exercise hasn't panned out too well, either.
Despite the extra calories we burn, many of us fail to lose weight and may even gain some after embarking on an exercise program. This could be because our appetite is triggered by vigorous activity; we reward ourselves for our efforts with food, or we spend more time vegging out on the couch when we're not at the gym.
Making long-term weight loss even more elusive is the fact that we each may have our own personal set point, a range of about 10 to 20 pounds in which the body biologically tries to stay despite our efforts. This means that weight loss is biologically resisted in some people. Also, our appetite makes it too easy to override the upper threshold of our set-point range, so we gain weight.
The net result of these many hurdles: Even if people do lose some weight from exercise, they often don't lose as much as they expect to. For many, that's reason enough to abandon exercise and head back to the couch.
That is a crying shame. Because even if pounds don't disappear, a big fat change is probably taking shape. Adding regular physical activity can reduce the proportion of fat to muscle and affect where fat is distributed.
In particular, as little as a 20-minute daily walk can reduce the amount of visceral fat that reaches deep into the abdomen. That's the fat that health experts worry about, because it is linked to heart disease, diabetes, and a higher mortality rate. There's even evidence suggesting that exercise stimulates the production of a substance called irisin in muscle tissue. This hormone appears to transform white fat cells, like those in belly fat, into brown fat cells, which are metabolically active and actually burn calories.
The scale doesn't necessarily reflect all of this, neither does the body mass index (BMI), which uses only height and weight to estimate how much body fat we ostensibly have. This is why a growing number of doctors are now measuring patients' waist circumference as part of their standard physical exams.
The body roundness calculator uses hip and waist measurements in addition to weight and height. The closer to a circle shape a person is, the more visceral body fat she has. There are also people whose BMI may indicate obesity but whose body roundness is healthy. It's a much better reflection of a person's health overall.
The key to attain that is what doctors and public health experts have been saying all along: get more exercise, whether you’re thin or fat. Getting more exercise broadly and positively influences major body systems and organs and consequently contributes to make someone metabolically healthier, including obese people.
Remember that it doesn’t take that much to be fit. To qualify as fit, it takes about 30 minutes of walking five days a week on average. That’s not a ton of caloric expenditure. It is actually quite easy physiologically to be overweight or obese, but also qualify as physically fit. It is recommend at least 2.5 hours of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise a week.
The point is irrespective of your body weight one should strive for a healthy lifestyle. Aiming and maintaining weight at normal level doesn't make anyone fit. Such notions promotes unhealthy lifestyle which ultimately results in weight gain often coupled with insulin resistance, explaining sudden weight gain down the lane of life when the metabolism starts to slow down.
So get up and get going whatever weight range you lie in. Be healthy inside.