Q&A from "Exercise: This is a pubic service announcement"

Wise Readers,

Do you have to lose weight to get the sexual and other benefits of a half-hour’s daily walk/workout?  What’s a skinny fat person?  Why does why we exercise—our motivator—matter, and how can you tap into the most effective motivator?  And losing weight’s the easy part.  How do you *keep* it off? 

Read on!

From Chuck: —Exercise Saved Our Sexlife Once (I want it back)—

Duana, hi! I can attest to exercise increasing libido. The best and most frequent sex my wife and I have ever had has been when she’s exercising. I have always exercised so I don’t really know the difference but for her…night and day. Now…if I can only figure out a way for her to stay with it… Ha!

Duana’s response: —Need A New Article On Increasing Sex Drive In Women (?)—

Hi, Chuck, thanks so much for writing! That’s very interesting that your wife’s libido is so obviously tied to her amount of exercise; the research agrees, but I guess I assumed the effects would be subtler than what you’re getting at…veddy, veddy interesting.

And very positive for you and your marriage.

I get a lot of letters from men whose drive is mismatched with their mate’s~many ask about ways to make their wives hornier. The question has been answered in a salt-n-pepper manner throughout LoveScience, but it sounds like it’s time to answer it in one specific article…

Chuck’s response:

Duana, I think that would make for a very interesting, informative column. Ours has only matched when we were young/first married and for a few years in her late 30’s/40ish when she was exercising regularly. That was after three kids…two of them still very young. She looked great and, I think, obviously felt great. Otherwise, we have always been out of sync. Another contributing factor in all of this is stress and the effect exercise has in reducing stress. Stress can have dramatic effects on our physical and emotional state and I think both of these are factors in our case.

Duana’s response:

Chuck, time for that article, then. And you’re right, stress is evil~or, too much is. (Apparently, with too little, people do nothing.)

Chuck’s response:

Duana, looking forward to reading it when it’s complete. When I’m stressed I want more closeness, support, intimacy. When my wife is stressed she wants to be left alone. So…mitigating stress in her life is project numero uno on my ‘To Do’ list and that will involve some form of exercise…IF I can get her to break away from all those things that contribute to the stress in the first place.

From Mocha’s Mom: —Weight Loss Nice, But Not Necessary—

Love this entry into your oeuvre! I do have one quibble, which I will share immediately.

Losing weight is not necessary to get healthier through exercise. People who are heavy who exercise regularly are healthier whether or not they lose weight.

This is important to those of us, like moi, who have a lot of trouble losing weight and probably will never be all that thin. Due to regular exercise, I have lost weight over the last several years, and I’ve kept it off, but I sure as heck ain’t thin.

Thing is, I don’t *need* to be thin. I get the benefit of awesome sexytimes without having to do more than exercise and add healthier food into what I already eat.

No dieting, either. Instead of limiting foods, I just added in fruits and veggies and whole grains. More nourishment == healthier == way better in lots of areas.

So I don’t need to be skinny to feel awesome, which is good because looking around at my gene pool, chances of that happening are not so great.

Outside of that additional info, I have no qualms with Duana’s brilliance.

Cite? Did someone ask for a cite? Start here:
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2012/04/16/evidence-that-fat-people-can-be-as-healthy-as-thin-people/

Duana’s response: —How Exercise Can Change Your Shape Even If It Doesn’t Change Your Weight, Why Fitness Matters More Than Size, & How To Keep Weight Off If You’ve Lost It—

Hey, Mocha’s Mom,

You’re right (and actually, the point is made, but waaaay down in the list of benefits under my signature at the article). Numerous studies show that if heavy people exercise and don’t lose weight, they still lose disease risks, disabilities, pain, and other stuff we’d all like to lose, while gaining super-sexiness, energy, solid sleep, and the other stuff we’d all like to gain.

Exercise does, though, tend to change a woman’s (or man’s) shape to be far healthier, even if the person remains technically overweight or obese. The exercise tends to reduce the abdominal/abominable fat that really hurts sexual health and all the other matters in and below the article. Fat in other places is not nearly as harmful.

You may wonder how folks can exercise without losing weight. For a few, there’s a genuine genetic resistance, and that may explain some of it; but it’s important to note that weight has steadily increased in most developed nations since 1980, yet human biological evolution typically proceeds at a glacial pace. The gene pool hasn’t altered, in the USA or globally, nearly as quickly as our health habits have, and it’s the latter that’s contributing more to obesity and health risks for most.  So most people are going to lose weight and keep it off with exercise; Genes won’t stop them.

However, for some, exercise doesn’t result in weight loss. Why?  Sometimes it just redistributes the weight—and as long as it distributes fat away from our middles, that’s the key. Often, pounds are lost in fat but gained in muscle, and muscle weighs more than fat. And I can tell you, as an exerciser who has gained weight across years, that some of us eat more than we burn. One friend of mine who doesn’t want to lose any weight but who loves eating, is motivated to exercise partly by the ability to eat more without gaining weight—rather than to weigh less.

Regardless, even without weight loss, the exercisers are still waaaaay ahead of non-exercisers in terms of health, longevity, happiness, and horniness ;).

BTWay, there’s a big difference between not-obese and skinny. One needn’t be skinny.

In fact, you reminded me that it’s possible to be what my dad (a former coach) used to call a ‘skinny fat person’—a person who is thin but unhealthy or at risk of poor health. Being a healthy weight is not enough; exercise is still key for the thin group, too.

Plus, not all thin people get thin in a healthy way. If optimal weight is achieved via non-optimal ways such as smoking, bingeing-then-purging, or starving, then death and disability rates climb.

I teach an entire class session just about How Weight Losers Keep Weight Off—because keeping weight off is so very rare. For those who want to re-read that paragraph now (from last week’s article), here it is:

“…if you live by this paragraph, you’ll never need to resort to another diet again. Research shows that the people who keep weight off have some interesting things in common:

“—They set modest, realistic goals for slow loss; no “Biggest Losers”, thanks.

“—They change their lifestyle; no diets, these are permanent changes.

“—If a specific change they’re considering seems impossible to do long-term, they don’t make that particular change.

“—They avoid hunger—since hunger triggers the body to hang onto calories and drop metabolism;

“—likewise, they eat throughout the day and avoid eating one large meal.

“—They eat healthfully, and they don’t cut out entire groups of foods in a scorched-earth kind of mentality; for instance, they still eat fat (your brain needs it!), but the fats they choose come from healthy sources such as fish, avocadoes, nuts, olive oil, and canola oil.

“—They minimize temptation in ways that make sense for them—ways ranging from eating out rarely to having half their meal brought to the restaurant table and the other half packed away, to shopping only on a full stomach, to dining off smaller plates at home;

“—they watch less than two hours of TV per day; they return to their lifestyle after a lapse;

“—and…they exercise.”

In class, we emphasize your points, and then this one:

If you do everything just right, that does not mean everyone winds up with a 24-inch waist, a size Small dress, or the cultural ideal of the moment. It means you will be a healthy you. It means you accept who you are, and move forward embracing that.

Thanks for a great contribution!

From Paula: —Exercise, Diet, “Youth and beauty!”—

Fabulous reminder about fitness! Obesity reduces testosterone - the libido hormone. But exercise increases blood flow to all regions, including improving one’s complexion (“Youth and beauty,” I can hear you saying)! Most personal trainers will say that weight loss is 80% diet, and only 20% exercise, so having a good mix of both ensures a healthy inside and outside.

Cheers, Duana, on your new birthday!!

Duana’s response: —Why Do We Exercise?  Our Core Reason Is Important—

Hi, Paula,

Thank you so much. June 21st will be a very special birthday for my heart, indeed—one year since surgery to repair a genetic defect. It only became apparent there was a problem about 6 weeks before the operation, and among the first things I said to Stephen Dewan (my saintly and supreme surgeon) was: “I’ve exercised almost every day of my life, eaten healthfully, maintained a healthy weight, and yet I need open-heart?! I think I’ll get a bumper sticker that says ‘Eat Healthy, Exercise, Die Anyway’.”

But he reassured me that the exercise had allowed my heart to compensate for a defect that may have been worsening for 20 or even 30 years; that the fitness would enable me to have great survival odds and a greatly shortened recovery period; and that if I had needed the surgery back when the valve first began deteriorating, the surgery would not have been available. It’s possible that exercise saved my life. (Well, that and Stephen Dewan, http://www.seton.net/find_a_physician/dewan/stephen  who achieved a 100% repair of the valve—so good, he prevented my need for any ongoing or daily medication.)

And that brings me to your point—or a related point. Why do we exercise? What we think about exercise—our rationale for doing it—is important. Research finds that young adults exercise to improve their appearance, but older adults exercise to enhance their health. Guess who keeps it up?

Yep. The older adults; the folks who are motivated by how they feel, not just how they look.

Weight loss is a reason to exercise, but as long as it’s only about appearance, it’s usually not enough of a motivator. While diet alone, or exercise alone, is typically insufficient if we want to achieve and sustain significant weight loss, exercise remains vital to every aspect of well-being—sexual, physical, psychological, even, it can be asserted, spiritual—whether or not weight loss is part of the picture.

As of today, my resting heart rate is 54 beats per minute, and my blood pressure is 105/59. In other words, I’m healthier than ever before and feeling phenomenal. It is a tremendous gift. It is a gift that comes from a desire for health and not only appearance.

Youth and beauty do count, evolutionarily, for anyone who wants a man. But we ourselves—how we feel, what we can do, how healthy we are—count even more :).

Paula’s response: —Kettlebells—

For those whose bodies have adapted to your current regimen, and you use dumbbells, switch the dumbbells out for a kettlebell-type weight. Their shape makes your body work differently, and you will notice the difference just by changing an inexpensive piece of equipment (I use one kettlebell versus two dumbbells). Kettlebell-type weights are readily available, so no need to go to specialty store. Now, back to my lunges and squats. :-)

Duana’s response: —Exercise  = Immediate Feel-Goodness; Immediate Rewards = Motivation—

Paula, I’ve never tried those, will have to check them out! Weight-lifting has always been tough for me, since I used to view it as spending time just picking stuff up and then putting it down again, in essence achieving nothing. But the research is on the weightier side, and once I finally started lifting, it was amazing how much better I felt.

And this is why, I think, people who exercise for how they feel stick with it longer than folks doing it for how they look: It takes as little as 10 minutes’ walking to feel immediately better, so sayeth the science. But it takes weeks or months, usually, to get much return on one’s appearance.

It’s well-known in the research on motivation that most of us are more responsive to immediate gains than gains that are far in the future. When people attune themselves to the immediate benefits—how they feel—they’re tapping a powerful source of motivation.

See you at the park :).

From Mocha’s Mom: —How I Exercised My Way Out Of Chronic Pain (& Into Better Sex)—

I’m back — I just can’t resist this subject!

Reducing pain can really improve your sex life, and exercise is perfect for reducing pain from repetitive strain injuries (RSIs), including carpal tunnel syndrome. I am the poster child for that one.

When I read that there was good evidence showing that people who did aerobic exercise, strength training, and plenty of stretching regularly could overcome most of the ill effects of RSIs, I wanted to do that. The only problem was finding a way to plan out a workout program and figure out when to work out regularly.

Every darn day I’d think, “Hey, I could work out today, but I don’t really know where I’m going with that and I have no idea if I could keep it going. No point to working out one day and then stopping.” So I didn’t work out.

At some point, I was thinking about this (and had been reading Albert Ellis) when it occurred to me that the only way to figure out what kind of exercise I could do would be to try some. It also occurred to me that there would never be a time in my life when I had figured out the perfect exercise schedule or would be able to guarantee that I would keep working out long term.

On that logic, I figured that the only time I could guarantee that I would work out was right now, by actually doing it. Since there was no point to not doing it, I grabbed an old Jane Fonda DVD and went for it.

And for the same reason, I did it the next day. And the one after that. But not the one after that — however, the day after the day after the day after that, I got back to it.

Within a couple of weeks, the pain in my wrists, elbows, shoulders and neck was noticeably reduced. As in the darn thing worked!

I am pretty sure I am a more attractive person standing upright and smiling than I was hunched in pain and cranky from lack of sleep (hard to sleep when every position hurts).

There is also this bizarre fact: in total defiance of basic physics, the more I work out the more energy I have. Using energy doesn’t generate energy in most systems, but for the human body it works a treat.

So, people can be more energetic, suffer less pain, and look better by dragging their hinders off the darn couch for a half hour a day. Totally worth it!

And there is no perfect plan or equipment. I’m still using the same old DVDs, some cheap dumbbells I picked up at Target, and an exercise mat that first saw the light of day circa 1986.

My point is I LOVE THIS WEEK’S COLUMN because it is about something that TOTALLY WORKS and that most people can actually USE in REAL LIFE. Heck, my mom is in her late 60s and does a seated workout and a calisthenics class that is done in the swimming pool and she looks about ten years younger than when she started.

So maybe it’s a good idea.

Duana’s response: —Just Do It—

Dear Mocha’s Mom,

I’m delighted that you healed yourself from chronic pain with…exercise. You = awesome. And yes, research indicates most of us could be awesome that same way to reduce or even eliminate many sources of pain. Which is better still.

I love your point that you reduced your pain with exercise rather than meds or surgery; that exercise-as-pain-relief is something that works for most anyone; and that one’s sex life does tend to rather improve when one can sleep (hence getting energy for nookie) and frolic painlessly. (Okay, I guess that made several points.)

I love your point that the thing to do is start exercising somehow, some way, and figure out the details as you go—rather than waiting to figure out the perfect regimen and schedule ahead of time. We’re all busy. Figuring out the perfect schedule would take more time than just going ahead and moving around some.

I love your point that there’s an exercise that will work for just about anyone, including people who need to be seated the whole time, and/or folks who need to avoid weight-bearing stuff. In class, after the students and I generate a list of side-effects of a half-hour’s daily exercise, I ask a trick question: “What’s the right exercise?” Answer: the one you’ll do. That’ll depend on many personal factors, including energy, time, money, whether you need others (or would rather die than be seen sweating in public), your current health/mobility, etc. You’ve found a few exercises that are right for you. Bravo!

I love your point that exercising can be oh-so-cheap. Mine own 2-pound dumbbells are also from Target and work just fine.

And I love this most of all: 
” I did it the next day. And the one after that. But not the one after that — however, the day after the day after the day after that, I got back to it.” Absolutely. When I get into a rut and don’t use weights for several days, weeks, or even months, they’re still waiting for me when I’m rut-less. If I get a cold and don’t exercise at all for a while, my legs are still there when I’m well again.

Those who get and keep the benefits of exercise see it as something they’ll always get back to, even if they take a break. It’s only half an hour, but it’s still seen as a core part of life and living.

Viva! to you and your letter. Guess I should just have said I love it all.

From Louise: —A Reformed ‘Skinny Fat Person’—

Dear Dr. Duana,

I think this is your best column yet, and I’ve loved them all! At age sixty-seven, I’m feeling better than I can ever remember, and it’s all because of eating healthily and exercising (love that bike!). This major change of attitude/habits happened when my husband needed a stent last year, and we knew we had to change our lifestyle. BTW…I was one of those “skinny fat people”.

Thanks for sharing all the research that confirms what I knew I felt and also how I looked! And, last but not least, congratulations on your upcoming first anniversary of having the life-saving heart surgery! We’re all grateful!

Louise

Duana’s response: —Fitness At Every Age (And Why This Matters Most For Kids Today)—

Dear Louise, 
Great to hear from you, and thanks for the kind words about my heart and this article.

You’re proof that taking up the Movement movement improves life at every age. Research shows that all of us—18 to 80 and beyond—not only can get all the benefits of exercise, but that we add strength at the same rate.

Incidentally, although I left kids out of this article (obviously, since the piece itself was about sexuality and exercise)—it’s especially important, now, for us to promote exercise starting in childhood. Kids need at least an hour of exercise every day, although it can be just running around with friends and doesn’t have to be a formal ‘let’s-do-this-workout’ activity. When kids gain weight, they’re much more likely to have lifelong pain, disease, and disability than if they had remained thin through childhood; about 1 in 5 American toddlers is currently overweight. 1 in 3 of today’s kids is going to develop a totally preventable disease—type 2 diabetes—and that’s tragic; it’s the reason the CDC projects that the kids born in 2000 and later will have *shorter* lives (and more disease and disability) than their parents. Yikes.

Lest we think the diabetes for these kids is only going to occur after they’re adults, think again; kids are a fast-rising group of type 2 diabetics, due to weight gain occurring from poor nutrition, too much screentime (1 hour a day is about as much as kids should have; more than 2 hours is asking for obesity and cognitive trouble, and zero is the research-approved amount of screentime for kids age 2 and under), and lack of exercise.

I used to do PR for the American Diabetes Association. A scientist I met in San Antonio, Texas found that 25% of the kids in one part of the city tested positive for high blood-sugars that shorten life and lead to blindness, amputations, and kidney failure—i.e., type 2 diabetes. Some schools are checking for what looks like dirt on the back of the kids’ necks; it’s not dirt, it’s an outward sign that type 2 diabetic disease processes have already started in our kids. I saw a child with this in the grocery store and asked his parents to have him checked.

I’m all the more passionate about this because my own daughter has the autoimmune, genetic form of the disease (type 1) which is treatable, but isn’t preventable or curable at present. She lives a very healthy life that would prevent type 2. It’s maddening to see a preventable form of the disease becoming legacy and legion for our—all of our—kids.

Louise, kudos to you for changing and enhancing your life with a daily bike ride—and sharing the story here. I don’t doubt you’re feeling and looking your best-ever.

Good for you—literally :).

Cheers,

Duana

All material copyrighted by Duana C. Welch, Ph.D., and LoveScience Media, 2012. 

If you have a question for Duana, email her atDuana@LoveScienceMedia.com.  You’ll receive a confidential, personal response, and your name and other identifiers will be kept secret should your letter ever be used on-site.

Related LoveScience articles:

Last week’s article about how Exercise Helps Your Sexlife:

http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/exercise-this-is-a-pubic-service-announcement.html

 Women’s sexual disorders, including low desire:http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/what-to-do-when-shes-not-ever-in-the-mood.html

More on what to do if she’s not ever in the mood:http://www.lovesciencemedia.com/love-science-media/qa-for-what-to-do-when-shes-not-ever-in-the-mood.html

The author wishes to thank the following scientists and sources:

The American Diabetes Association: http://www.diabetes.org/ 

The Centers For Disease Control, for statistics about the percentage of Americans who are obese by State, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and other factors, and for information on risks of obesity and on how obesity rates have changed across time:http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html

The World Health Organization, for stats on global issues with weight: http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html

CG Bacon and others, 2006, for “A prospective study of risk factors for erectile dysfunction,” research on 22,000+ men; the obese were 90% likelier to develop ED than the non-obese, but the exercisers’ risk of ED was 30% less than the norm.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16753404

IB Addis and others, 2006, for “Sexual activity and function in middle-aged and older women”—research showing the sexual disorders, sexual dissatisfaction, and low libido issues faced by obese women.               

Mike Evans, for the best video I’ve ever seen for the lay public about exercise and the research that proves its numerous benefits: 23 ½ hours:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUaInS6HIGo 

Over the past two decades, as I’ve taught college, I’ve kept a list of exercise benefits as they’ve arisen in textbooks and articles I’ve read for course preparations.  I must therefore thank the primary textbook authors who sifted through the exercise research and made that possible: 

—John C. Cavanaugh and Fredda Blanchard-Fields, Adult Development & Aging

—David G. Myers, Psychology and Social Psychology

—Robert Crooks and Karla Baur, Our Sexuality