Fitness Food and You

Let’s face it………getting older is no picnic. Putting aside the fact that our bodies are fighting gravity, it seems, at times, that our brains are also engaged in some type of warfare just to remember. “Why did I come into the kitchen?”  “What’s the name of that contact?” “Where did I leave my keys?”

Have no fear. For cognitive improvement, all we need to do is exercise. Ok, I’m guilty: I think exercise cures everything. However, last weekend’s NY Times Magazine featured several articles on the brain and one focused on the benefits of exercise. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/magazine/how-exercise-could-lead-to-a-better-brain.html?pagewanted=all

I found this fascinating. A team of researchers studied mice. They broke them into 4 groups and set up their cages (really their lifestyles) quite differently. They let the mice live in these distinct environments for several months and performed cognitive tests on the mice both before and after. They found that the only thing that  improved the mice’s cognition was the running wheel. Simply put, the exercised mice had healthier brains.

Scientists aren’t quite sure how exercise does this but this research suggests that something does happen to the brain on a molecular level.

I guess we need to be just like those mice on the running wheel!

You decide it’s time to lose weight. You cut back calories. The scale goes down! You then add a bit of exercise and between the two, you lose 1-2 lbs per week, week in and week out. You feel AMAZING. And then it happens: You hit a plateau. The scale is stuck and nothing is moving. Why did this happen?

Think about a big car v a small car. The big car needs more fuel. Our bodies are just like cars: The bigger we are, the more fuel we need to run. While we think exercise burns a lot of calories, most of our energy needs come from running our bodies (heart beating, blood circulating, food digesting, brain thinking, etc). When you lose weight, you become a smaller car, which means you need less fuel to run. So even though you’ve made a caloric deficit from the start, you now have to find a way to cut back a bit more. Depressing, I know.

You can do this by changing your exercise routine. If you’re not doing enough cardio, add some more. If you’re not weight training, start. If you exercise but aren’t active enough, try and increase your activity level. You might also need to tweak your diet and see if you can cut back a bit, too. Before you know it, the scale will start to move again.