Lie's We Tell Ourselves About Our Weight

I really think that most people are in denial about the weight and about their health. They just don't want to take the time to deal with it. This post brings out all those lie's we tell ourselves just so we don't have to deal with our weight. This blog post first appeared on WebMD.com

1. “I know how much I’m 

eating.” 

An extra bite here, a snack in the car there …“It’s surprising how often people don’t know exactly what they’re eating,” says Terese Weinstein Katz, PhD, a clinical psychologist who specializes in diet issues. Instead of trusting your gut, start tracking daily calories in a food journal (or on your smartphone). In one study, women who kept a food journal lost up to 6 pounds more than those who didn’t.

2. “I can’t eat anything 

good when I’m dieting.” 

“Diets shouldn’t be ‘all or nothing,’” says nutritionist Carolyn Brown, RD. Researchers have found that being too rigid about what you eat leads to food cravings, which can hamper weight loss. “Allow yourself to have a treat meal or dessert once a week, and don’t think of it as cheating,” Brown says. Occasionally indulging yourself will help you stay on track. When I reward myself, I have a small glass of red wine. It's a treat, but a healthy treat.

3. “Skipping meals will help 

me lose weight faster.” 

“Skipping meals is one of the worst things you can do,” Brown says. Once hunger kicks in -- and it will -- “you’ll overeat, and probably not something healthy.” Missing a meal also puts the brakes on your metabolism. To keep your blood sugar stable and hunger cravings to a minimum, Brown recommends eating breakfast within 2 hours of waking up, then having a healthy snack (like guacamole and carrots, or a small handful of trail mix) or meal every 3-4 hours.

4. “If I’m not hard on 

myself, I won’t lose 

weight.” 

Instead of berating yourself for choosing chocolate cake instead of an apple, show yourself compassion. “We’re more likely to change when we’re kind to ourselves,” Katz says. “Staying sympathetic makes it easier to examine how we can prevent those same setbacks from happening again.”

5. “If I cut calories, then I 

don’t have to exercise.”

Actually, the two go hand in hand. Cutting calories will help you shed pounds, and with regular exercise you can keep the weight off, says Alison Massey, RD, director of diabetes education at Mercy Medical Center. “The people who successfully maintain their weight loss beyond a year are the ones who exercise at least 45 minutes most days of the week.”

6. “I can’t eat out if I’m 

trying to lose weight.” 

Going on a diet doesn’t mean putting your life on hold. “The changes you make to your food choices and meal planning should be lifestyle changes that are sustainable,” Massey says. Go ahead and meet friends for dinner. To avoid overindulging: “Research the restaurant ahead of time to find healthy menu options,” Massey says, “and request a to-go box for half your food at the beginning, rather than the end, of your meal.” I quit trying to find something on the menu. I like to eat in a restaurant where I know the menu. I go for a nice seafood restaurant and I usually order a salad with tuna and a glass of wine. The trick is the dressing. go for a low-cal dressing or just get oil and vinegar.

7. “I’m embarrassed I’m 

dieting.”

Trying to get in shape is nothing to be ashamed of. “Really owning your goals will help you succeed,” Brown says. “Accountability and support are key for weight loss.” Let your friends know your goals, and don’t shy away from admitting when you’ve had a setback. “Sometimes you need other people to cheerlead for you,” Brown says. “Remove the shame and guilt about losing weight, and you’re far more likely to reach your goals.”

8. “Losing weight is all 

about cutting carbs.”

True, you don’t want to load up your plate with refined carbs like white bread and cookies. A better choice: complex carbs like those in vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, says David Grotto, RD, author of 101 Foods That Could Save Your Life. “Carbs are [our] main source of energy,” so Grotto says that a better strategy is to monitor your overall calorie intake and include a variety of healthy foods in your diet.

9. “If I fall off my diet, I 

might as well quit.”

“It’s better to dust yourself off and try again, rather than quit once something’s gone wrong,” Katz says. Setbacks are an inevitable part of dieting. So, next time you’re derailed, think about what habit or thought undermined you. Then plan exactly how you’ll react differently -- and successfully -- next time.

WebMD Feature

If you really want to lose the extra flab you can get help, I write 4 blogs and I’ve written two E-books. E-books are the easiest and cheapest way to learn about any subject without groping through hundreds of website looking for the material you want. 

My first e-book is “HowBadDoYouWantToLoseWeight” and it sells for $2.99 on most online bookstores like Amazon, BN.com, iBook, Kobo, and Gardner books in the U.K.

My second e-book is available in the same stores. And on smash words.com. If you use the smash word promotional code You can get my second book for $1.99 (PJ42H). Just type in the search line “getting to a healthy weight”.

It's You That Makes The Food Choices

When you pay attention and discover that your morning coffee drink and muffin is nearly 1,000 calories AND you know your body burns about 1,800 calories a day, you are empowered to make a smarter choice. When you use measuring tools to find out that your morning bowl of cereal is five times more than it should be, you can make an adjustment. When you read the nutritional guide in a restaurant and see your favorite salad is over 1,200 calories, you can choose something else.

Counting every single calorie to the point of obsession is probably not healthy, as most obsessions aren’t, but getting and staying informed about your body, your activity level and your food choices is 100 percent empowering. In my opinion, tracking is not a chore but a choice. A choice to pay attention and stay in control of my body and my health.

2/3 of adults in this country are overweight and 1/2 of those are obese, which simply means their BMI is 30 or more. BMI is the way a Doctor can determine your percentage of body fat compared to body mass. It’s not a perfect guide, but it’s widely used and it can be simply done without a lot of expensive tests. Doctors will use BMI as a guide to whether you need diet counseling or not. Under the new Affordable Care Act Doctors will get paid extra if the patient needs diet or weight loss counseling.

What you put on your plate might affect what you see in the mirror. But a few tweaks to your dining habits can go a long way to keeping your skin youthful and your body healthy. The key approach? Eat better.

"Poor-quality foods, like trans fats, cause inflammation -- and aging is basically a chronic inflammatory state," says Timothy Harlan, MD. He's assistant professor of medicine at Tulane University School of Medicine. "Can you look older because you're eating crap? Absolutely."

For example, eating too much sugar and processed carbohydrates (like some pasta, bread, and baked goods) can lead to damage in your skin's collagen, which keeps your skin springy and resists wrinkles, says Andrea Giancoli, MPH, RD. She's a policy analyst for Beach Cities Health District.

“What's more, these foods put your overall health on the line. They are tied to diseases like heart disease and diabetes”, she says. Did you know that Obesity can cause heart damage without any symptoms.

Other foods, like fruits and vegetables, are good for your body and your overall appearance. When you look good, you feel good and your body is working the way it should.

A person can be considered middle-age even past 65 or even 70 by the condition of their body. Your body doesn’t know what the calendar is.Your body only knows that your not fully grown or that your are fully grown and that your getting close “to end of life”. And your body can determine this by the condition of your body. This is what is call your “biological age”.

Aging is really not about how old you are in chronological years, aging is about how old you are in biological years. A study done in a university in New Zealand recently showed that out of the 1000 people in the study of people in the late 30’s, Some had a biological age as high as 60 and some of them have actually stopped aging.




You can’t reverse aging but the study shows that in some cases people have actually stopped aging. Yes, some of this may be caused by the genes you were born with, but most of these people have stopped aging because of their diet and activity levels.

Part 2 How To Lose Weight

There's are many small changes that anyone can make that can help you lose weight without dieting.  We can touch on some of the important ones.

Getting more sleep is very basic to the weight-loss process. What ever changes you make in your exercise or diet if your not getting enough sleep you will probably continue to fight your battle with weight.

One small trick that works for some people is to only allow yourself 20 minutes to eat. I understand that on paper this might seem like a good way to control portions. It's been used by the military in boot camps with big success for decades, so it can work, but you need the will power to resist food between meals, and only eat 3 meals a day. And don't forget the exercise. In these boot camps a person can burn more than 5000 calories a day. That's really the biggest problem overweight people have. They burn less then 2000 calories a day and they're eating too much food that their body can't process so if the body can't process your food it will be turned into fat.

Eat more veggies is the best way to eat more food that your body can process.  It doesn't mean that you should become a vegetarian, but it does mean that we all eat too much meat and meat is one food that's hard to digest. It takes your body about 3 days to digest red meat, less time for poultry and only one day for fish. Fish may be the best way to get meat into your diet. A good example of a good diet that limits meat would be the Mediterranean diet. The diet of the Mediterranean people before they started to eat like Americans. You can read about their diet on the internet or on the Front page of this blog, check the diet page. Eating this way gives you more nutrition then the traditional American diet. You will lose body fat over time, but the real plus for this diet is that you will become a healthier person with more energy and be more productive. A good way to get more veggies is to eat more soup and more salads. This is a way to get more good vegetables like tomatoes, celery, okra, zucchini, cabbage plus beans and grains like barley, brown rice.

Grains are also a food that most of us don't get enough of. Today things are changing and good grains can be bought in our favorite foods. We can now find whole grains like oats, brown rice, barley and buckwheat in foods like waffles, pizza crusts, english muffins, breads and pasta. So we really have no excuse for not being able to find good nutritious foods. I know that some of us get sticker shock in the grocery stores but remember when you don't buy the snack food, bakery goods, candy and bottled drinks you will save more money then you might think. You can actually save money on groceries after you adjust to this new diet. And another plus with the Mediterranean diet is that your not limited to quantity of food and there's no calories to count. You just follow the food pyramid and get your exercise.

Foods to skip. A big part of losing weight is to stay away from certain foods. Processed foods top  the list if you're trying to compile make your own list. One big problem is not enough people know which are processed foods. I'll boil it down to one sentence. If it's food that's made by man, it's processed. Bacon, lunch meat, most breads and bakery goods, pre-made food in the grocery store. Those whole roasted chickens you buy in the chain stores. The salads that they make in the chain stores. Any desserts you buy fresh or frozen. Except for frozen vegetables that are just vegetables without additives, there is nothing in the frozen food section that is not man-made. Another very important thing to skip is cooking oil. Be very careful when buying cooking oil. Olive oil and coconut oil are the best that I know. Coconut oil is better when cooking with high heat, but both are good choices. If your not cooking olive oil is the best. I even drizzle olive oil on my popcorn before I season it.

Another food group would be bottled drinks and snack foods. The only good snack food that I buy is unpopped popcorn, bulk nuts and seeds. Bottled drinks include soda, juices and alcoholic drinks I avoid. The only alcoholic drink that can be considered healthy would be wine, but it's full of added sugar. Beer is the only alcoholic drink that doesn't add sugar.  Drinks and snacks add more calories to the average daily diet then food eaten during meals. The reason I include juices with sodas is because of the added sugar. Juices have in some cases more added sugar then soda. Any juice you drink and want to continue to drink should be done in small quantities. Forty or fifty years ago juice was always had juice on the breakfast table, but what I remember is that what ever the juice, it was served in a 3 oz. glass and breakfast was the only time anyone drank juice. We use to be more aware of the foods we ate, and somewhere through the years you lost that. If we are going to eat healthier we'll need to make our meals at home. We should only be eating food if we know what's in it.

More tips on losing weight might be to shrink your portions. When eating out with friends I usually eat a salad but sometimes I'll just order an appetizer. After your meal you want to get the taste of food out of your month. This avoids food cravings later on. Chew a strong mint gum or maybe strong black coffee or tea. Try to do more walking. It takes 20 minutes to walk one mile. By walking one extra mile everyday you'll loss about 10 pounds a year.

Habits of Healthy People

Learning about the common habits of healthy people can be a particularly motivational experience, even for people who are already living an active lifestyle. Learning from others who have had success staying fix will  encourage us to continue on the path to a healthier lifestyle.

It’s generally pretty easy to spot someone that is living a healthy life and it’s usually pretty admirable—they seem to smile a little brighter, they always appear to be happy, and they are constantly on-the-go and productive. Learn about four of the most common habits that these people have mastered and how you can emulate these to improve and build upon your own fitness regimen.

They are Actively Aware of Their Food Choices

Healthy people know exactly what type of food they put in their body and often make sacrifices to help keep their bodies running optimally. This means, when they go out to eat with friends, they won’t always be delving into a large serving of nachos or ordering that extra round.

They always read nutritional labels and scan for artificial sweeteners, tricky food additives, and preservatives, because they prefer avoiding over processed foods when possible.

While they are not always 100% perfect with their nutrition, healthy people often abide by general rules of thumb, such as, no alcoholic beverages during the week, no more than one soda a month, or other methods to do their best to avoid food that is unhealthy.

What this doesn’t mean, is that they are over the top or obnoxious about their habits—they choose to lead by example. To start developing this healthy habit, pay close attention to the foods that you eat. Keep a food log that documents what sort of foods you eat and how often you eat them. If you noticed any questionable or unhealthy food choices, work on weaning them out of your diet. You can learn a lot of good habits from healthy people and we can all learn a lot by watching what those people buy, what they eat and what they drink. It's easy to spot healthy people in restaurants, store or in the break room at work. Watching other people is a good way to find better habits that you can pick up.

Consistently Monitor Their Health

Aside from tracking their food and nutritional intake, healthy people also monitor their overall physical performance by regularly exercising to gauge whether or not their health has improved or worsened over time.

This means that they’ll often experiment with jogging longer distances or lifting heavier weights just to see how well their body responds to a more intense workout. If these exercises were more difficult than they had expected, it could be an indication that they should be scaling their efforts.

You should be consistent aware of how your body is supposed to feel so that you can understand when you aren’t working out enough, or even if you are working out too hard. Additionally, you should not be afraid to monitor your health by visiting a doctor for a checkup or consulting with a physical trainer when an outside examination is necessary.

Stay The Course Even When It’s Difficult

There are often going to be times when your fitness goals become unclear, you become physically exhausted, or you lose much of your motivation—hey, it happens to the best of us. But one habit that healthy people proudly focus on is a continual drive to fight onward, even when their health goals become overwhelming difficult.

Instead of painstakingly giving up, they stay consistent and add variety to their routine by incorporating new exercises which can make their healthy habits fresh again. They find other activities that make their lives more enjoyable, such as joining a gym with a friend, hiking with their dogs, or playing football with the kids.

To adopt this habit, focus on breaking any health plateaus that you experience by first realizing that it’s okay to not always be perfect. When times get tough and you start to struggle or question your motivation, this shouldn’t be considered a sign of weakness—this is a sign of growth and change, embrace the challenge.

Experiment With New Habits

Healthy people are always on the lookout for new habits, suggestions, or technology that can help them continue to grow stronger throughout their lives. They understand that their life really begins when they venture outside of their comfort zones and even avoid activity ruts by setting new goals and trying new sports.

Additionally, healthy people transition their new habit building beyond physical changes and introduce a variety of exciting new modifications to their diet—they cook new foods to surprise their metabolism and find new ways to balance their essential nutrients.

Think about how you can incorporate new habits to find the exercise and fitness routines that work best for you. Consider drinking more water, reading nutrition labels, getting annual checkups, scheduling more time for sleep, working out with a friend, trying new outdoor adventures, etc.

What are some of the healthiest habits that you have experienced? What are some of the areas that you are succeeding in and where could you use more help? Do you find developing healthy habits to be a beneficial process in your fitness routine, or more intimidating?

Summary

Healthy individuals have tips to staying on track and getting back on track when they’ve slipped. Watch what you eat. Regularly monitor against your performance goals. Consistently make time for your workouts. And keep on the lookout for new, healthy habits.

The biggest tip I can give you is to pay attention to your body. Make a plan to get back in-shape and stay with it. Monitor yourself every day. Make your goal, "your mission in life". Constantly be looking to improve on your plan and never loss sight of your goal. It will take time, in some cases years, but never stop trying. Sometime other health problems can take priority, but remember your goal and get back on track as soon as possible.

Losing weight is all about the food you eat

Eat the right food and you won't add on body fat. Eat the wrong foods and you'll add body fat everyday. And then there are some foods that help you lose fat. Losing weight is not about counting calories as much as it is about eating the right foods.

This is a common mistake many people make. I want to lose weight so I'll go on a diet. My friend went on a 1000 calorie a day diet and lost 20 pounds in just a few weeks, I'll try that. So I'll have coffee and toast for breakfast, for lunch I'll have a salad with bottled dressing, I like that low-cal french. And for dinner I'll go to Subway and get a foot-long. I think that's under 1000 calories, I'll do that.

Okay that's under 1000 calories alright, but you have very little nutrition. Yes, you made a good choice with the salad if it has the right veggies like Kale, tomatoes, beans, spinach leaves, cucumbers etc. Just a pile of lettuce and a couple cherry tomatoes isn't a salad. It just looks like a salad and use some olive oil on that salad. Just because lettuce is green doesn't mean it's loaded with nutrition. Toast and coffee has no nutrition and you can't lose weight if you're going all morning without eating any protein. And as far as that foot-long sandwich, that about the same as lunch, If you eat the right sandwich you can keep the calories low, but if you want to stay on this diet for any long period of time, you need to pack more nutrition in those 1000 calories.

This is the typical mistake people make when they are new at dieting or their not taking the diet seriously. 9 out of 10 people who start a diet end up quitting. 9 out of 10 people who try to lose weight will quit. So what's the problem? Most people don't do their homework and are not really serious about lose weight.

If your really serious you'll first either do some homework and change the way you're eating, or get some professional help.  We are a country that loves to eat out. Restaurants will have some healthy food on their menu, but the real goal is to make food that tastes good. Restaurants have to take care of their customers, so popular food items will never go away. But because of public opinion restaurants are putting healthy food choice on the menu and if they become popular then they'll stick around.

It's  going to be the consumer that will change the grocery stores and restaurants. If we don't demand better quality foods we will only get what the manufacturers can produce at the highest profit margin. So until we can buy already prepared foods that are healthy we need to buy fresh and eat clean. That means we'll be preparing a lot of our own meal and trying to make some healthy choices on the salad bar.

So if your ready to get serious about losing weight you need to do some homework and learn what you can eat and more important the foods you can't eat.

Losing body fat should be your goal. Read up on weight loss and losing body fat. It doesn’t cost money to lose weight. The internet is full of free information.

Checkout my other blogs: 

blogonweight.blogspot.com

Howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight.blospot.com

But the quickest way and cheapest way is to buy an ebook online and get everything you need in one short read. I have two ebooks on Amazon:

How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight

Getting To A Healthy Weight

Check out one of them, I think you can find all the info you need and plenty of tips on how I lost my body fat. 

Look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find these e-books. These books give you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my books at Amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page. 

Stop Burning Sugar and Start Burning Fat

A great article that explains why we workout but don't lose any inches. The article explains why you could be working out just to burn the sugar and other sources of energy but not real fat.

by Shaun Hadsall

Did you know that the years of eating processed foods, lack of exercise, and normal eating patterns have literally PROGRAMMED your body to burn NOTHING but calories and sugars from the foods you consume everyday…
…INSTEAD of burning off your ugly body fat?

In fact, today's exercise programs take way too much time and use old-school methods that cause you to crave more food and calories – especially calories from sugar – FORCING your body to burn sugars and waste away nothing but stored energy.

This means that EVERY time you eat and exercise your body is busy fighting a losing battle.

BUT – what if there was a way to RESET your body’s fat burning switch so that your body burns fat FIRST every time you move and exercise?

Well there IS.

It’s a super simple 3-step metabolic primer from my colleague, and Stubborn Fat Expert, Shaun Hadsall that TURNS OFF your body’s “addiction” to burning sugars, while making your most stubborn fat your “go to” energy source in ONLY 3 or 4 days.
STEP #1: Try to consume zero starches or fruits for 3 or 4 days in a row during the week.

This will help accelerate depletion of glycogen (your stored energy) and get your body burning fat again. This should equate to a total of 25 to 50 impact carbs for the day. Consume protein in every meal to help increase satiety and keep your body in “fat burning mode”.

You’ll program your body to burn a ton more belly fat by using this approach just a few days of the week.

STEP #2: Increase your fats and double your servings of green cruciferous veggies on deplete days.

When you lower carbs for a few days you’ll automatically need energy from other sources. Friendly fats and cruciferous veggies should be your go to macronutrients to help provide this needed energy.

Some good examples to use are extra fish or krill oil, olive oil, coconut oil, grass fed butter and small amounts of raw nuts for fats -- spinach, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, arugula, green beans, Brussels sprouts and cabbage are great choices for extra veggies.

This will help provide all the fiber, vitamins, and minerals necessary to maximize fat-loss during a lower carb phase.

It will also DECREASE your cravings in a big way.

STEP #3: Double your daily water intake when you deplete carbs.

Remember, for EVERY gram of carbs you eat over the weekend (or any other time) your body holds nearly 3 grams of water.

So if you had a few slices of pizza, some bread and a bowl of ice cream we’re talking an extra 700 to 1000 grams of water sitting under your belly skin.

Consuming extra water is the fastest way to UNDO the damage of over-eating, getting rid of excess water retention, and facilitating other metabolic processes that burn fat.

A good rule of thumb is to consume at least 50-60% of your total body weight in ounces of water a few days after overeating.

After 3 or 4 days of using this strategy, your body and hormones will be PRIMED to burn PURE fat when you exercise.

You just have to make sure you’re using the RIGHT TYPE of exercise or all this could be nothing but a waste of your time and energy.

If your serious about trying this, the exercise is important, but if your an active person and you don't spend hours sitting, a quick 10 minute workout with stretching first and afterward maybe all that's necessary.

If you really want to lose the extra flab you can get help, I write 4 blogs and I’ve written two E-books. Read some of my other blog posts.

gettingtoahealthyweight.blog

idropped40pounds.wordpress.com

howbaddoyouwanttoloseweight.blogspot.com

blogonweight.blogspot.com

E-books are the easiest and cheapest way to learn about any subject without groping through hundreds of websites looking for the material you want.

My first e-book is “HowBadDoYouWantToLoseWeight” and it sells for $2.99 on most online bookstores like Amazon.com, BN.com, iBook, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, and Gardner books in the U.K.

My second e-book is available in the same stores. And on smashwords.com. If you use the Smashwords' promotional code You can get my second book for $1.99 (TL96R). Just type in the search line “getting to a healthy weight”.

Studies Prove: Workout More Loss More Weight

Doubling the amount of time spent in heart-pumping workouts each week pays off.  

The author is bring out a good point. Exercise beginners often just do their 30 minutes a day of walking like they first started to do when they began exercising and after months of this same routine don't understand why they stopped losing weight. The walk you started to do when you first started was meant to get you into shape for some real heart-pumping exercise that will burn fat. But some people never get past the beginners exercise. Beginners have to start slow to avoid injuries. You have to build up stamina. That's the power to increase your program without hurting yourself. Yes, diet is critical for losing weight, but exercise helps you retain muscle mass that's necessary to burn body fat. 

WebMD News from HealthDay

By Dennis Thompson

HealthDay Reporter

Older women who fit more minutes of heart-pumping exercise into their week will lose more body fat, a new study shows.

Canadian researchers found that postmenopausal women who got five hours of moderate-to-vigorous aerobic exercise every week -- double the normally recommended amount -- lost significantly more body fat within a year than women who exercised less.

"More is better. That's definitely what we found here," said study author Christine Friedenreich, a scientific leader in the department of cancer epidemiology and prevention research at Alberta Health Services-CancerControl Alberta, in Calgary. "If you can do more, you will do better."

The U.S. National Institutes of Health currently recommends that adults get at least two hours and 30 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity every week, the authors noted in background information.

Previous research has shown that exercise does decrease body weight and total body fat, Friedenreich said, but her research team wanted to know whether increasing a person's "dose" of exercise would produce even better results.

To test this theory, the researchers recruited 384 women whose body mass index (BMI) ranged from 22 to 40. A BMI under 25 is considered healthy, while 30 or more is considered obese. All women were disease-free, nonsmokers and were not taking hormone replacement therapy.

Half of the women were asked to exercise the recommended minimum amount of two hours and 30 minutes a week, while the other half had to exercise for five hours a week.

The women could take part in any aerobic activity they liked, as long as they kept their heart rate within 65 percent to 75 percent of their heart rate reserve for at least half of each exercise session. Most activities involved an elliptical trainer, walking, bicycling or running. Heart rate reserve is the gap between a person's resting and maximum heart rate.

"It's not light activity," Friedenreich said of the exercise required. "It's something that definitely causes an increase in your heart rate."

Researchers measured each woman's body fat before and after, using X-rays and CT scans, to track their progress after a year's worth of exercise. This is the only true way I know to measure BMI. We don't do it in this country because insurance won't pay for the tests. 

The investigators found that the women who got the minimum amount of exercise did experience improvements in weight and BMI and, on average, lost body fat.

However, women who doubled their exercise regimen experienced significantly more reduction in BMI and total body fat. They also lost more belly fat, and their waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio decreased significantly more.

The findings were reported in the July 16 online edition of JAMA Oncology.

Body fat has been linked to increased breast cancer risk, because fat produces the female hormone estrogen and also increases insulin resistance and inflammation, Friedenreich pointed out.

"It's been very clearly shown that if you gain weight over your lifetime and if you are overweight after menopause, that increases your risk of breast cancer," she said.

Alpa Patel, an epidemiologist with the American Cancer Society, said "these results allow us to say that there's this much benefit if you exercise the minimum 150 minutes recommended, and there's this much more benefit added if you can get that to 300 minutes."

In this study, the women were asked to maintain their usual diet, Friedenreich said.

Women can achieve even greater weight loss and fat reduction if they pair an increase in exercise with a healthy diet, said Kerri Winters-Stone, a research professor at the Oregon Health & Science University School of Nursing, in Portland.

Other studies have shown that combining diet and exercise can provide better weight loss results than either diet or exercise on their own, said Winters-Stone, who wrote a commentary that accompanies Friedenreich's study.

"It really boils down to an energy balance equation," she said. "You can get there quicker by changing diet and exercise, rather than trying to achieve it by exercise alone."

Winters-Stone added that increasing exercise is a good idea, but people need to make sure they understand their own physical limitations. Over-use injuries can occur if a person heedlessly pursues a stringent exercise regimen.

"People can kind of reach their max," she said. "Over-exercise tends to exacerbate knee pain, for instance, or it might cause an old shoulder injury to flare up."