The effects of exercise on Mental Health

Exercise may be a matter of choice for the normal weight young person who has never had to diet, but for people who are trying to lose weight for life, those who are aging, have risk Factors for or have osteoporosis, are at high risk for cardiovascular disease or diabetes and those who would just like to continue their years with life in them, It is a necessity.

If people lose weight through dieting alone it means that twenty to fifty percent of the weight they dropped was lean body mass (muscle), this muscle mass loss is life threatening if it continues for long amounts of time. Muscle losses occur proportionately from every muscle in their body including their heart, so the longer they stay on a diet, the greater their need for exercise becomes. Yet exercise does more than just protect their muscles it also fights fat and stabilizes their blood sugar level.

After losing weight by caloric restriction alone dieters complain about muscular weakness and flabbiness. This happens because large amounts of muscle tissue have been lost. Since lean muscle mass determines the calorie burning power of their body, muscle tissue should be preserved to maintain a high level of metabolism. Exercise preserves their muscles and even builds more lean tissue. Exercise will ensure healthier weight loss.

Benefits of Exercise

In an exercise study that the writers of shape magazine conducted, obese people were placed on a one thousand calorie a day diet. Half of their subjects exercised three times a week while the other half didn't exercise at all. After seven weeks on the diet the non-exercisers lost eighteen pounds eleven of these pounds were fat losses and seven were lean muscle losses. The dieters who exercised lost twenty three pounds of fat and gained four pounds of lean muscle tissue Overall the exercising dieters experienced two times the fat losses of the non exercisers and elevated their metabolism by adding muscle tissue. (Shape Pavlou,Constrantine and Zak 142)

Exercise increases the body's capacity to utilize greater amounts of oxygen, which is very important to their overall health. This is especially beneficial to dieters since greater amounts of oxygen allow for a greater expenditure of stored fat, and fat stored in cells inhibits oxygen uptake to obese people. (Pavlou, Constantine and Zak 142)

Exercise also helps slow down the process of aging. Two of the symptoms of aging are changes of body composition and in the persons ability to exercise. Sometimes the changes occur over a period of years and they may not notice them until the problem becomes very obvious. Their body weight will change a considerable amount. Between the ages of thirty and seventy they will gain, on the average between one-half and one pound per year. If they were typical Americans they can expect to weigh forty pounds more at seventy than they did at thirty and the majority of this weight gain is fat. They are gaining this weight because they are exercising less; they ...