Fewer than 20% of Americans Get Recommended Exercise Levels...and where does the cycle start? Do YOU exercise?

Sitting here watching the ABC Evening News. There's a report on a study on exercise/obesity.

34% of us are obese. (I am. Severely obese. need to lose 7 pounds to just be plain "obese".)

Less than 20% get recommended exercise.

Of course, the states with least exercise are among those with the highest rates of obesity and diabetes. The ABC report is online now (just checked):

Regionally, the problems are even more pronounced. Inactivity runs rampant across the U.S. South and Appalachia, where nearly 30 percent of people reported that they do not get any physical exercise -- not even light activities such as golfing or gardening.

"That's probably even an underestimate of the real problem," said Dr. Antronette Yancey, a professor at UCLA who serves on a board that supports first lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" campaign. Yancey said that in self-reported data, participants often vastly overstate their actual activity.

Studies show that people  underestimate the calories they eat and overestimate their activity. So...we eat way too much and we move way too little. Not surprising, right?


What they don't correlate is: Which came first?

Do those of us who are obese stop moving cause we got fat from eating too much/too much crap? Or are they fat cause they stopped moving and are eating crap?

I use to exercise when I was normal weight and when I was "just overweight", dance a lot, bike, swim, etc...when I had the energy. As I got fatter and made poorer food choices, moving became HARD. Energy plummeted (especially as my hypothyroidism worsened). The fatter I got, the more painful/difficult it was to be on my feet, move. And the more self-conscious I got, the less I wanted to move.

I had to force myself against a huge wall of lethargy to start Pilates in 2008. It was defying my inertia, and it was hard, and some days the energy was so low, just getting going was an ordeal. I did little else...at home or weekends. It wasn't until I addressed my macronutrients in the summer of 2010 that I felt my energy change. A change in thyroid meds helped, too. (Not more, just a different combo). Energy began to increase.

For me, fixing the FOOD began to fix not just the weight but the ENERGY issue. I wanted to move suddenly. Not like a fidgety hyper person. Like a more NORMAL perosn.

So, they really need to LOOK into this.

Gary Taubes in WHY WE GET FAT puts the cause and effect the other way around. People get fat and stop moving, not that they don't move and get fat. He tags the obesity on a bad diet, which leads to low energy (he gives the science case studies where this happens in experimental animals....it's interesting stuff) and conservation of energy by not moving.  One review of the book notes this:

Taubes makes the very interesting point that obese people are sedentary not because they are lazy, but because their energy stores are locked up (insulin traps fat energy and makes it inaccessible).  They simply don't have enough energy to exercise and therefore don't want to.  I agree with this.  Our patients who lose weight become much more interested in moving. You only need to read a few weight loss blogs to see how frequently obese, sedentary people turn into avid exercisers, even marathoners. 

I noticed this. As I ate better and lost weight by dieting, I felt more energy and WANTED to do more.  It was changing the diet that was key to the energy that then led me to be able to pump up my activities.

It may just be a double-arrowed trend--goes both ways. BUT...I think people need to consider that moving less, doing less, sitting still may come about BECAUSE one got fat.....and then that feeds into more fatness cause the diet is out of whack and what we eat is just plain BAD for us (not just too much, but unhealthful).

If you wanna see the CDC report, HERE.

Well, just some thoughts....

If you have not incorporated regular (daily?) exercise into your weight loss/heath plan, why not?  What is your roadblock?

Mine was low energy. Totally no motivation due to lethargy. Pain in feet and knees (now hips) were a factor. For a while, my muscles were  a mess due to statins (pain ALL THE DAMN TIME). Off the statins, no chronic muscle pain, but my joints are kinda a mess from decades of obesity.

What prevents you from moving/sweating/walking/jogging/dancing/Pilates-ing/Yoga-ing/weight-lifting/surfboadring/biking?

And please look at yesterday's post to give feedback on what type of item you 'd like to see in a giveaway. So far, one person said "exercise or fitness item" and one said "gift certificate to Amazon." THANKS. :)