Before becoming a board certified health coach, I was a certified personal trainer. I learned quickly how important movement is to our bodies. Now that I’m a coach, most of my sessions center on overall health and wellbeing, which often includes physical activity. One thing I’ve noticed is that clients often link physical activity and exercise with weight loss and nutrition. Considering that May is National Physical Fitness and Sports Month, I want to talk about physical activity and why it’s important in itself.
PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IS SEPARATE FROM WEIGHT LOSS
The most common reason that clients come to me is because they want to lose weight. When I ask what habits or behaviors they feel will be important in achieving their goal, exercise inevitably comes up. Exercise is a great tool for weight management, however it is not a great strategy for weight loss.
Increasing your exercise is not necessarily going to increase your weight loss. Weight loss occurs when you have a negative energy balance (you burn more calories than you take in). It is very difficult to create a significant calorie deficit solely on exercise. You would have to walk 1 mile to burn the amount of calories in a banana. If you’re relying on exercise to help you lose weight, you better have A LOT of time to exercise.
In addition, exercise can feel challenging, physically and mentally. Because it’s difficult, there is a tendency to overestimate the amount of calories burned. This leads to the mindset that one can “reward” themself and eat a little extra because they had a good workout. That perspective often backfires because the calories eaten as a “reward” can easily be more than what was burned.
PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IS SEPARATE FROM NUTRITION
This leads me to the relationship between exercise and nutrition. It is common to associate the amount of exercise needed with the amount of food we eat (just as I did above with a banana/walking a mile and talking about “rewards”).
However, it can be dangerous to view exercise and diet as intrinsically connected. Feeling the need to exercise more because you ate more is a problematic mindset. Food is not a reward and exercise is not a punishment.
When we use exercise and nutrition to compensate for each other, we create unhealthy relationships with both. Exercise and nutrition are important to your health for their own reasons. Thinking you can do less of one and more of the other, or that you can slack on one because you did the other does not work. They need to be looked at and managed separately.
WHY PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IS IMPORTANT FOR A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE
When looked at on it’s own, physical activity has plenty of health benefits. Here are just a few*:
Lower risk of cardiovascular disease
Lower risk of hypertension
Lower risk of type 2 diabetes
Lower risk of adverse blood lipid profile
Lower risk of cancers of the bladder, breast, colon, endometrium, esophagus, kidney, lung, and stomach
Improved cognition
Reduced disk of dementia
Improved quality of life
Reduced anxiety
Reduced risk of depression
Improved sleep
Improved bone health
Improved physical function
*reference - Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, 2nd edition
A lot of these benefits are also attributed to weight loss. However, it has been shown (look here, here, and here for some research) that doing physical activity can bring these benefits regardless if you lose weight or not. Weight loss is not required in order to reap the benefits of physical activity.
PHYSICAL ACTIVITY GUIDELINES AND RECOMMENDATIONS
In 2018, the Department of Health and Human Services released the second edition of the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans. If you’re interested, you can view the whole document here.
Here is what they list as the key guidelines for adults:
“Adults should move more and sit less throughout the day. Some physical activity is better than none. Adults who sit less and do any amount of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity gain some health benefits.
For substantial health benefits, adults should do at least 150 minutes to 300 minutes a week of moderate-intensity, or 75 minutes to 150 minutes a week of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity. Preferably, aerobic activity should be spread throughout the week.
Additional health benefits are gained by engaging in physical activity beyond the equivalent of 300 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity a week.
Adults should also do muscle-strengthening activities of moderate or greater intensity and that involve all major muscle groups on 2 or more days a week, as these activities provide additional health benefits.”
To summarize, the minimum amount of activity recommended is 150 minutes of moderate-intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity and 2 days of strength training per week. In addition, you can see health benefits with ANY increase of physical activity.
Regardless of changes in your weight and/or nutrition, increasing your physical activity produces positive health benefits. Exercise is not a stepping stone towards weight loss or a punishment for indulging; it is a powerful way to impact your health.
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