Welcome to week 7 from the Lifestyle Medicine team.
There’s a huge number of benefits to being regularly active; it can help control your weight, balance your blood sugars, boost your mood, improve the quality of your sleep, improve your general and mental health, and has even been found to improve brain function and reduce the chances of developing dementia.
How does being active help weight loss?
Regular activity can increase your metabolism, which helps with weight loss (1). Your metabolism, or basal metabolic rate (BMR), is personal to you and is affected by your body composition (which includes if your body is composed of more fat or more muscle). For example, muscle tissue is very metabolically active so it uses up a lot of energy (that is, it burns up lots of calories) even when you're resting. Whereas fat tissue is much less metabolically active. In other words, two people who weigh the same but one has high muscle mass and the other has higher fat mass, will have different basal metabolic rates. This means the person with higher muscle mass will use up more energy or calories at rest, and even more when they exercise, because of their higher BMR.
Body Fat Percentage
Your body fat percentage helps you understand if your body composition is healthy or if you need to lose fat mass and build more muscle mass to improve it. Your body fat percentage is a key indicator of your health and risk of chronic disease. To calculate your body fat mass we advise using bio-impedance scales, alternatively fat mass can often be measured at your local gym. Healthy body fat levels for males are in the range of 17.6%–25.3% and 28.8%–35.7% for females (8). When you start to exercise more your body will start to naturally build more muscle, a process which uses energy. This means that as well as getting fitter and stronger, you'll naturally burn more energy, because of your increased muscle tissue, even when you're at rest. This means your BMR will increase. So having a good amount of muscle will help you to maintain a healthy weight (2).
What counts as activity?
Pretty much any movement counts! The benefits of being active increase if during exercise you're able to increase your heart rate or you get active to the point that you feel slightly out of breath. You can start where you are - this is not a competition with anyone else. Take stock of the amount of activity you do every day and make a plan - could you add in an extra 10 minutes of movement to your day? Increasing your activity doesn’t need to involve joining a gym or sports club if that’s not your thing. It can be as simple as taking a brisk walk, doing bicep curls using soup tins, cleaning the house, dancing, swimming, gardening, playing with the kids outside…. the list is endless. What would you enjoy doing?
If you're less mobile, it's just as important to consider ways to maintain your muscle mass - bicep curls with or without added weights, passive limb exercises or chair yoga are good options. For more ideas click on this link. The more enjoyable you make it, the easier it will be to stick to a new commitment to increased activity. Using your favourite music to motivate you can help you keep active for longer (3). Involving friends or family and doing an activity together could make it more fun and also keep you accountable when it comes to making plans.
Exercise: Ideas for getting active
- Walking
- Yoga/chair yoga
- Jogging/running
- Swimming
- Dancing
- Cycling
- Gardening
- Weight training
- Interval training
- Resistance bands
- Something else?
What are you going to do?
Have you added this to your Activity Planner?
