The Life Ledger

Fitness is a way of life.

I was getting ready for work this morning, with the TV on in the background for noise. Good Morning America in fact. While I was listening, Diane Sawyer interviewed Jim Karas about his new book. I admit I didn’t give it my full attention, but what I heard kept catching my attention. Especially how he wrapped things up by promising fast results. This made me inherently wary. But I wandered by ABC News to give him a fair shake, and my full attention. Mind you these aren’t in any particular order, just fleshed out after listening a few times.

Karas referenced a study where 16 very fit women were told to cardio for 45 minutes 5 days a week. Low and behold these women didn’t loose any weight. My god! They even gained a pound! Horror of horrors. Gained a single pound. Given what’s known about water weight and daily fluctuation that’s easily explained away by statistics. But that alone doesn’t bug me.

What gets me is word choice he used - “…16 very fit women…” Very fit huh? That puts me in mind of women who already fit within current BMI standards of healthy weight. And even then, I would expect people who are already doing some sort of exercise to maintain that condition. Don’t stack your test subjects Karas to get the results you want.

And then came the great myth about knee problems. You know its funny he brought that up, considering it was weight machines that were causing me problems the other day. This isn’t to say injuries won’t happen, there is potential for that to happen no matter what you do. This is where education as well as proper equipment comes in.

What does that consist of for cardio? For running obviously a good pair of shoes that take care of pronation and ankle support for your running surface. other cardio machines or classes I would believe a good set of tennis or running shoes for similar reasons. But we can’t forget education. When it comes to running there are ways to improve the quality of your run. You can definitely get benefits Forby just putting one foot in front of the other, but you can improve your efficiency and effectiveness by learning to run “correctly”.

Does he expect people not to hurt themselves when doing weight machines? Probably not, but Karas would expect people to take a class or get educated in how to properly use everything. And from what I’ve learned so far from my lifting buddy you have to focus to do it right. Focus on pinching your shoulder blades. Or keeping your core tight. It’s kinda ironic that Karas thinks that running or cardio can be completely mindless as well. While I can’t comment on cardio classes, I know for running I have my form, stride, pace, and more I can focus on to make sure I’m doing properly. If I want to turn off my mind, sure it’s possible. Let the body move through habit and I can still work up a good sweat. But it won’t be as beneficial as if I was paying attention. But what to focus on takes education.

And education doesn’t include just the exercise. Karas brings up as fact that doing cardio makes people more hungry. Doing a straw poll, 5 of 5 disagreed with that. Personally it kills my appetite for the rest of the day, almost to the point I need to force myself to eat. At the same time, one of the reason I do run is to eat what I want. And I’m sure there are many others that do the same. So what’s wrong with trying to balance your increased intake with cardio?

Karas excellently hits on this point, specifically that most people aren’t aware of how much they are eating. The only way to counter this is by counting calories. Hurray! Something I can agree with. Only by counting everything can you get an honest assessment of your intake, which leads to controlling overeating.That’s the standard Point of Awareness like we talk about here, focused on food.

In fact I will say that part of Karas’s song and dance routine was a nice classic mantra. Weight loss is an equation of calories in minus calories out. The only thing that matters is how you modify those numbers. Eat less to reduce your intake. Exercise more in whatever fashion to increase how much you burn. I think Karas is trying to get known by being contrarian. Shock the status quo to get your name in the newspaper. But when comes to overall effectiveness, I’d be much more interested in long term results from a very different starting point than he indicates.

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You’ve heard it before - successful weight loss is not about dieting, it’s about making lifestyle changes. It’s easy to say, but where do you start? Here’s my list of ten steps to jump start your new fit lifestyle.

Step 1 - Calculate and record your starting points - BMI, daily caloric intake and measurements.

The first step to losing weight is to identify your starting point. It’s not enough to simply stand on a scale and record your starting weight - you should also calculate your BMI, daily caloric intake and record a couple of body measurements.

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