11) EXERCISE AND TYPE 2 DIABETES
c) Exercise and Weight Lose
Exercise is vital for losing weight. If you are not willing to do aerobic exercise for at least three hours a week for the rest of your life, don't bother to diet. Without aerobic exercise added to a diet any individual will just "yoyo" up and down in weight because a weight loss gained by only diet will not last. It's very difficult to diet properly without aerobic exercise, so people who don't exercise will "go off" their diet as soon as they reach their target weight. They will then gain everything back. Dieting is much easier with aerobic exercise so it is much easier for people to make a lifelong commitment to keep their weight down if they also make a lifelong commitment to aerobic exercise. Note that muscles which are exercised absorb water and that intense aerobic exercise will basically just convert low density fat to high density muscle. So the first five to ten weeks of an intense aerobic exercise program will typically result in a weight "plateau" effect, with no weight loss occurring. If the inches around the waist are coming off, don't worry, the weight will start coming off again at the end of the break-in period
Fat cells do not burn calories in the resting state; muscle tissue burns calories (albeit just a few) even in the resting state. So, in theory, the more muscle a person with diabetes has, the more calories they will burn in the resting state and the easier it will be to lose weight via diet. In order to build muscle mass and reduce fat mass, a very short resistance training program can be done after the aerobic exercise or on alternate days. Abdominal fat does contribute more to type 2 diabetes than standard "subcutaneous" fat. Unfortunately, contrary to the ad campaigns of many exercise plans, there is no way to "selectively" lose only the fat around the waist. The fat over the entire body gets reduced by the same proportion on any diet and exercise plan. It is possible to firm up the muscles in only the belly by doing only situps, thus it is possible for selective exercises to "pull in the gut" with persons who have large bellies. This selective resculpting might look good but it does little to help with diabetes per se.
Having said that, a resistance or weight training schedule which affects the entire body can slightly reduce belly fat without reducing weight. The anaerobic training of the entire body converts fat over the entire body to muscle. If a large portion of the body fat is around the middle, the middle will be affected more than the rest of the body and the entire body can be "resculpted" without losing weight. And since the amount of fat in the belly is reduced (even though the weight is not reduced), insulin resistance in a person with type 2 diabetes will drop. But caution needs to be exercised (pardon the pun). Research has shown resistance or anaerobic training is very slow to "convert" fat tissue to muscle tissue, in some cases as low as two pounds every six months. The important exercise appears so be large amounts of aerobic exercise, upwards of an hour a day.
Current Chapter: 11) EXERCISE
a) Introduction
b) Exercise and low Blood Sugar
c) Exercise and Weight Lose
d) Aerobic Exercise and Heart Disease
e) Exercise and Peripheral Arterial Disease
f) Proper Resistance Training
g) Exercise Myths
h) Exercise, Stress and Diabetes
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