Exercise
This section has been adapted from 'The Low GI Diet - Lose Weight with Smart Carbs' by Prof Jennie Brand-Miller and Kaye Foster-Powell with Joanna McMillan-Price, Hodder.
Exercising regularly has many advantages including a sense of well-being, improving muscle strength and co-ordination, weight loss and reducing stress. It also sensitizes the body to insulin, so that the pancreas does not have to work so hard to maintain bodily functions. Insulin sensitivity has to be maintained with regular exercise. One can understand how exercise works hand-in-hand with low glycemic eating. Interestingly, the low GI diet improves athletic fitness and endurance.
It is not how much fat or energy is used during a single bout of activity, but how it all adds up over the months and years. The fact is that most of us gain weight very slowly over the years - on average gaining 0.5 to 1 kilogram every year. So ten years down the track, you weigh 5-10 kilograms more. Similarly, small amounts of activity may seem unimportant in the short term—you can't detect a change on the scales—but they add up over the long term. In the table below, consider how many kilos of fat you potentially 'save' if you take five minutes here and five minutes there to be active. Every little bit counts!
| Take five minutes every day to: | Potential saving in kilos of fat* | |
| in 1 year | in 5 years | |
| Take the stairs instead of the lift: | 3.7 | 18.5 |
| Weed one patch of the garden | 0.6 | 3.0 |
| Rake the lawn | 0.6 | 3.0 |
| Vacuum the lounge room | 0.7 | 3.5 |
| Walk 150 m from the car to the office | 0.7 | 3.5 |
| Carry the groceries 150 m back to the car | 0.9 | 4.5 |
| *Figures are based on a 70kg (11 stone) person. | ||
This shows us that all those seemingly small actions where we choose to take the more active option really do add up in the long run. It won't hurt you to park your car at the furthest end of the car park. It might not feel as if climbing one flight of stairs makes a difference. But it does— you can save yourself I or 2 kilos of fat over the course of a year. Similarly, even if you have just five minutes rather than 30 minutes to lit in some exercise, do it anyway. It is abundantly clear why active people find it much easier to prevent weight regain.
Keep an activity diary for a week and record any exercise you do in addition to active choices you have made. Review it at the end of the week and see how well you have done and whether you are being as active as you can be.
Building exercise into your life is vital. There really couldn't be a more powerful means of improving your health while looking and feeling better. There is much controversy in scientific research regarding nutrition, but there is unanimity over the benefits of exercise.