Weight Loss (or Control): What’s more important, what you eat or how much you exercise?

Just read a really interesting article the New York Times (June 19, 2015) by Dr. Aaron E. Carroll, professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine.  It confirms what my friend M (gorgeous, fit, late 50-something) mentioned awhile back:  for purposes of losing weight, exercising is much less important than what you eat (she said 80% of weight loss – or by extension weight maintenance – is what you eat and 20% is exercise).

                     Versus










Some of the points Dr. Carroll makes:

·      Exercise can increase your appetite, leading you to eat more (maybe because you rationalize that you’re burning it off by exercising)

·      Weight loss often slows your metabolism, regardless of whether you exercise, according to research studies, explaining why, over time with dieting it becomes harder to lose weight and you seem to plateau

·      Both dieting and exercise are hard, although “dietary change still works better than exercise” in terms of weight loss

·      In terms of dieting, slow gradual improvements that are sustainable over time, i.e., changing your eating habits in ways you can maintain long term, are more effective than brief drastic changes or cutbacks in calories that are not sustainable over time.

Read the full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/16/upshot/to-lose-weight-eating-less-is-far-more-important-than-exercising-more.html?smid=nytcore-ipad-share&smprod=nytcore-ipad

So, it almost sounds like you shouldn’t bother to exercise if you’re trying to lose weight.  I would argue that nothing is further from the truth.  Why?

Because there are MANY important reasons to exercise besides burning calories or losing weight.

www.mayoclinic.org/healthy.../in.../exercise/art-20048389

nihseniorhealth.gov/exerciseforolderadults/healthbenefits/01.html

According to the Mayo Clinic and the National Institutes of Health, exercise improves mood, boosts energy, promotes relaxation and improves sleep, and can prevent or delay certain diseases and health conditions, such as osteoarthritis or hypertension, and improve your endurance, flexibility, and balance.

I would also add that exercise makes you stronger, an important issue for older women as bone density naturally decreases with the aging process.  Exercise also combats stress and is a very healthy coping mechanism that has helped me greatly over the years as well as others.

Also, exercise can and should be fun.  There are so many different ways to work out.  To be sustainable, exercise has to be at least somewhat enjoyable for its own sake.  If you don’t like to (or can’t) run, think about hiking or bicycle riding.  If working out with weights is not your thing, consider yoga, which improves strength as well as promoting flexibility.

Furthermore, according to the NIH, it’s never to late to start.  So if you are not someone who has never exercised, or haven’t done so recently, you can start now.

So get moving!!

Next Up:  How to establish a new healthy habit.

Happiness

Wikipedia defines happiness as “a mental or emotional state of well-being defined by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.”

Martin Seligman, a renowned psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania says that happiness consists of three components:  positive emotion, engagement, and meaning.  His conceptualization really adds dimension to the definition because it gives us clues about how to enhance our personal happiness.

Thanks to the field of positive psychology, research on happiness has proliferated in the last 10 years or so.  Much survey research over the past few decades has found that women start out in adult happier than men (on average, of course), but their happiness declines so that by middle age men are starting to be happier than women.

If that finding is true, what would account for it?  People have cited hormonal changes associated with menopause (e.g., declining estrogen, which is associated with well-being),  lower likelihood than men of having a romantic partner, caregiving responsibilities, loss of friends or family, and possibly society's lack of respect for and valuing of older women.

And yet, a study has found that Danish women over 65 amongst the happiest in the world:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDkQFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2015%2Fmay%2F03%2Feurope-happiness-danish-women-pension&ei=w_KBVYOeF83zoASD04PoBQ&usg=AFQjCNG5xlsGn7YP0IjX164Gi7_zVw8yww&bvm=bv.96041959,d.cGU

Factors Associated with Happiness Globally

The research of Ed Diener and his colleagues on happiness worldwide is also revealing. [see video of him talking about this at www.authentichappiness.org].  Based on research spanning 155 countries, some of the things found to promote happiness are:

• close relationships, but not necessarily marriage
• work or other activities that you really enjoy.  this could be a career or other paid work, but also homemaking and child care or other activities that you consider worthwhile
• learning new things and using your strengths and skills
• spirituality, that is positive emotions that connect you to something larger than yourself.

But does any of this research really matter in terms of any particular woman, like me or you?  It might, I suppose, if you are feeling unhappy and not sure why.

Happiness is an Inside Job

But I believe that to a very large extent you make your own happiness, and the research of Seligman and others backs this up.  That is to say, how you think about happiness and what you choose to do about are up to you.  How happy we are is affected by our thoughts and behaviors.  First, accept Seligman's conception of happiness as consisting of positive emotion, engagement and meaning.  Meaning doesn't just happen, we make meaning in our lives.  Similarly, engagement doesn't just drop from the heavens, it occurs when we take actions to get involved, for example doing volunteer work or joining a book club.

How can you promote your own happiness?

• work really hard at focusing on the positive rather than the negative.  this does not meaning denying that there are negative events that occur to your or others you care about, but rather working to see if there are upsides or positive aspects.  for example...  See What-Went-Well Exercise below.
• focus on what you are grateful for every single day.  Make a daily gratitude list and review it first thing in the morning.  
• For example, at the top of my list is that I'm sober and healthy.  I have a husband and family members who love me, I have wonderful friendships (that I have worked really hard to cultivate since I moved 3000 miles across the country a few years ago), I have a beautiful home, and enough money take care of all of my needs and most of my wants.  I have time to do meaningful things
• try adding something new to your list each day.  It's valuable to force yourself to think about what you are actually grateful for rather than taking your blessings for granted.
• if you're not actually feeling "happy," try acting as if you are.  What would you do if you were happy right now?
• try Seligman's Three Blessings exercise

What-Went-Well Exercise (Three Blessings)

In chapter 2 of Seligman's 2011 book Flourish, he talks about a daily exercise that he developed that has been shown to actually promote happiness in his research.  It is consistent with other research showing that writing about positive and negative events can be very healing, helping to diminish depression and increase well-being:

"Every night for the next week, set aside ten minutes before you go to sleep.  Write down three things that went well today and why they went well." you can do it by hand or on your computer.  "Next to each positive event, answer the question, 'why did this happen?'"  (p. 33).

The purpose of this exercise is to get you to focus less on what is wrong in your life and more on the good things  This is especially important for people tending toward depression, which has the effect of biasing people's thoughts toward the negative.  The odds are that if you perform this little exercise you will be thinking more positively about your life and maybe even to happier!

The Joys of Hiking

I just came back from a hot, hot hike.  It was actually 95 degrees when I got back in the car (but only 16% humidity, and there was a much appreciated breeze), on it's way to about 110 later. I thought it would be more uncomfortable than it was.  The fact that there was only one car in the parking lot when I left and saw no one on the trail sort of says maybe I shouldn't have been out there.  But it's summer in the Valley of the Sun, and I refuse not to get outside and enjoy nature just because it's hot.  The high desert of Arizona is just incredibly beautiful and interesting.

Hiking is one of life's real pleasures.  I hope I can do it into my 80s, assuming I live that long.  For me, it's more than just the exercise, although it's hard to imagine a more enjoyable way of getting a good cardio workout than hiking (maybe taking a bike ride).  A real benefit of hiking for me is getting outdoors to experience nature; I'm very lucky to live in Scottsdale, a city that has had the foresight to save about one-third of its land mass, which is very large, in preserves that are loaded with hiking trails.

I do most of my hiking alone, because my husband is on a different schedule than me, taking the dog out to hike at first light.  But I don't mind, because for me, hiking is a spiritual experience.  Outdoors is one the the places that I experience serenity and my Higher Power.  When I'm out in nature I can feel at one with the Great Eternal Spirit of the Universe, which some people call God.

If you haven't tried hiking, I strongly urge you to  try it.  If you can walk, you can hike.  Beginners probably shouldn't start alone.  I always find out what the temperature and weather are going to be before I go out, and always carry my cellphone.   Once it gets hot here, starting as early as March, the rattlesnakes are out and I don't want to tempt fate.  I see them all the time, and as scary as they are, I try to remember that when I hike, I am in their home and they have every right to be there.  I always let someone know where I'll be going and when I expect to be back.

Other hiking tips for beginners: 

• always wear sunscreen and a hat
• bring plenty of water and remember to drink it BEFORE you feel thirsty;  if you're feeling thirsty you've waited to long.
• wear the right shoes for the trail surface.  On some trails you can get away with good walking or running shoes.  On others, like very rocky or muddy surfaces, you are going to want actual hiking shoes or boot.

Go outdoors, hike, have fun and enjoy nature.  It's bound to boost your spirits as well as give you a good workout!

The Weight Challenge

One of the main challenges of aging as far as I am concerned is trying to maintain my weight and not putting on too many pounds.  When I was younger, prior to entering menopause, I really didn't have much of a problem with my weight.  Although I was always watching it, as long as I could exercise, which I did pretty regularly, I could pretty much eat what I wanted.  Menopause changed all that.  By the time I hit my 60s it was a constant battle, especially belly fat (Pamela Peake called it the "menopot").  Now I have the time to work out virtually every day for 2 to 2 1/2 hours and it's STILL a challenge.

I have learned that carbs are the issue for me.  I use to pooh pooh the low carb diet craze, but I have found for me that severely limiting carbs is what I need to do when I put on a few pounds in order to take them off quickly.  Part of the problem is that I crave sweets, especially at night.

The 17-Day Diet

I've had some success with the so-called Seventeen Day Diet which was developed by Dr. Mike Moreno.  He has a book and a website.17 Day Diet Official Site | Dr. Mike Moreno, M.D. | New York ...

He makes some pretty grandiose claims for how much you are supposed to lose, which didn't pan out for me because (a) I wasn't especially overweight and (b) I already exercised quite a bit.  But I bought the book and pretty much followed what he said to do because I needed the discipline.

He considers it a low-carb low-fat diet.  You don't count calories.  You are allowed to have unlimited amounts of most low-carb veggies (no winter squash or corn, for example) as well as low-fat proteins.  You can also eat 3 servings of fruit per day, which I really needed if I was going to stay on it for long, as well as 2 servings of no-sugar-added yogurt.  I discovered Dannon Lite & Fit Greek yogurt, which comes in a quite a few flavors.  Eighty calories per cup and 12grams of protein.  No alcohol or diet soda.

The diet also has you drinking 8 glasses of water per day and green tea with meals.  I already drank green tea so that was no big deal; getting those additional 8 glasses of water was a challenge.  and no eating after an early dinner.  That was a big challenge for me and I usually didn't stick to it.  I often saved a fruit or a yogurt for an after dinner treat.

You also need to start exercising on this diet, if you're not already doing that.

Bottom Line

For me, at this stage of my life, weight control is always going to be a struggle.  I have had to accept that.  If I eat a lot of carbs, even so-called "good carbs" like whole wheat pasta, I'm going to gain weight.  It's a fact of life.  Fortunately, what I need to do to stay reasonably thin and to be healthy are the same thing.

What's Up Next

I'm going to share some of my healthy recipes and talk about how I like to eat.

About Vibrant Aging

This blog is be about my journey and attempt to achieve Vibrant Aging. I address topics such as health and fitness for "women of a certain age," food and recipes (I love to cook and try and create new recipes -- lots of time to do that now!), books, meditation and yoga, and other topics such as world events.

Black Bean and Rice Salad

About Me

I am a 66-year-old woman looking to maximize the next phase of my life, to experience vibrant aging, in other words.  I decided to write this blog for two reasons:  because I think I have something to say about the process of getting older for women, but also because I am interested in hearing from other older women about their experiences in making the most out of their lives as they age.  I am interested in remaining as young, vibrant, and healthy as possible for as long as I can, to experience the "new aging."

So who am I?

I retired from the School of Social Work at Arizona State University a couple of years ago after being a professor of social work there for five years following 28 years as a professor at the State University of New York at Albany.  My years as a professor  were productive and satisfying for me, providing me the opportunity to teach new generations of social workers and to do research on domestic violence, child abuse (both physical and sexual) and substance abuse in women.  I have been in recovery from alcoholism for 19 years myself, which has shaped the person I have become as well as my worldview.

But as satisfying as those years of being a professor were, they were so all-encompassing that work overwhelmed other aspects of my life.  Work was the first thing I thought in the morning when I woke and the last thing I thought of before dropping off to sleep at night.  I am grateful that retirement has brought me the gift of time.  I have been finding other ways of experiencing life that are very rewarding.  My goal each day is to be happy, joyous and free and to be of use to others.

I am married to a wonderful man, also a retired professor, and we live in the Valley of the Sun in Arizona.

Although I have no children myself, my husband has three adult children and we have seven grandchildren and two step grandchildren.  Sadly, none live nearby so we don't get to see them as often as we'd like.  Not having been a parent, I especially enjoy those grandkids.

And of course we have our pets:  Juniper, a totally spoiled 6-year-old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel who really thinks she's a person, and three cats (Dax and Harrison and Sierra).