Can you “boost” your metabolism by exercising more? Well, it’s complicated. Diving deep into surprising truths about how the body conserves and expends energy in the form of calories, Dr. Jen Gunter reveals what your metabolism actually does, the role of exercise — and other things weight loss culture doesn’t want you to know.
Watch:
Now decide if the sentences below are
true or false?
1. Metabolism is the general process by which living cells use the energy needed to stay alive.
2. Growing hair isn’t an instance of metabolism.
3. Unless you’re a professional athlete, exercise is a small percentage of one’s daily calorie burn.
4. Closingand then opening one’s eyes quickly also accounts for one’s calorie expenditure.
5. The thinner a person is, the more calories he/she burns.
6. If we take up exercise, the amount of energy we use never changes.
Key: 1T; 2F; 3T; 4T; 5F; 6F
Glossary
- to hack – to manage to deal successfully with something
- burpee – an exercise move that involves dropping from standing into a squat then thrusting your legs into a plank or pushup position, then back to the squat position before returning to standing
- be getting at something to be trying to say something in a way that is difficult for other people to understand
- marketing-speak – the special language used in a particular subject area or business
Practice makes perfect
Fill in the gaps in the article with the words in bold below:
obesity expectancy worked out sedentary slackers
alleviate premature shrink hazardous
Work It Out: More Activity = Slower Aging
Warning, couch potatoes: resting on your laurels may be 1. ……… to your health, not to mention make you old before your time.
“A 2. ……….. lifestyle increases the propensity to aging-related disease and 3. ……… death,” researchers at King’s College London report today in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine. “Inactivity may diminish life 4. …………. not only by predisposing to aging-related diseases but also because it may influence the aging process itself.”
Researcher Lynn Cherkas and colleagues reached their conclusions by examining the genetic material extracted from blood samples of some 2,400 twins. They specifically studied the length of telomeres (repeated DNA sequences) on the ends of chromosomes in leukocytes (white blood cells); the protective caps are believed to be markers of biological aging, because they 5. ……….. over time.
Their findings: the telomeres of subjects who exercised the most (an average of 199 minutes weekly) were longer than those of volunteers who 6. ……. the least (a mere 16 minutes or less a week). The discrepancy was enough, researchers wrote, to suggest that the exercise mavens were on average as much as a decade biologically younger than the 7. ……… .
“Such a relationship between leukocyte telomere length and physical activity level remained significant after adjustment for body mass index, smoking, socioeconomic status and physical activity at work,” the authors report. (…) the most active subjects had telomeres the same length as sedentary individuals up to 10 years younger, on average.”
The scientists speculate that stress, inflammation and oxidative stress (cell damage caused by oxygen exposure) may be responsible for shortened telomeres in physically inactive people. Exercise is among the factors found to help 8. …….. stress. Previous research has linked regular workouts to lower rates of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, 9. ……… and osteoporosis.
The researchers note that their findings support U.S. guidelines calling for individuals to exercise moderately for 30 minutes at least five days a week. “Our results. . . show that adults who partake in regular physical activity are biologically younger than sedentary individuals,” they say. (…)
To read the whole article/check your answers, go to: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-study-links-exercise-to-longevity
Key: 1. hazardous; 2. sedentary; 3. premature; 4. expectancy; 5. shrink; 6. worked out; 7. slackers; 8. alleviate; 9. obesity
Discuss
- How often do you exercise?
- Do you wish you could exercise more?
- Do you reckon people who exercise are happier than those who don’t?
- Which exercise do you prefer: jogging, cycling or swimming?
- Does exercising make your brain work better?
- If exercise makes you live a lot longer, why do so many people not bother to do it?
Explore more to create your own teaching-learning experience!
Exercise Is Good for You
The Exercise Industry May Not Be
Amid the marketing of unattainable physical ideals, it’s easy to forget what made fitness fun.
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