Minnesota Healthy Living Resources: Fitness and Weight Loss Tips

Exercise

Physical activity is essential to successful weight management, and there is a wide variety of ways to help you achieve your exercise goals. Here are some tips. Check back for more!

Balanced Fitness

The way to get the most out of your exercise is to vary your activities to include the three major components: aerobic, or cardiovascular exercise; flexibility, or stretching; and muscle strength and endurance.

Tip 1: You can build specific muscles through targeted exercises, but don't waste your time trying to achieve spot reduction of fat; it's not possible.

Tip 2: To achieve muscle balance, you should stretch the muscles that are stronger and strengthen the ones that are weaker.

Tip 3: The best way to achieve overall fitness is through a combination of aerobic activity, stretching and strength training.

Yes, chew your food!

An abstract presented at the 2011 European Association for the Study of Diabetes suggests that thorough chewing stimulates the release of two intestinal peptides that reduce appetite and food intake in obese individuals. In a study of obese non-diabetic individuals, thorough chewing stimulated postprandial increases of plasma glucagon-like peptide (GLP)-1 and peptide YY (PYY), both of which are secreted by intestinal L cells.

It was reported that the postprandial plasma levels of both hormones were statistically significantly higher after chewing 30 times than after chewing 5. This suggests that thorough chewing of food might have a clinically meaningful effect in controlling body weight in obese individuals.

Once again, mom was right. Slow down, don’t talk with your mouth full and chew your food before you swallow….