This is the April, 2004 President's Message From L. C. Moore

Well have you started your low carb diet? They have all kinds of great meals at your fast food chains. How about a hamburger with all the trimmings wrapped in a piece of lettuce? I have enough trouble holding the stuff in a regular hamburger with a nice big soft bun. You can also get a bowl of artery blockers. That’s the low carb breakfast from Hardees. You get eggs, sausage, ham, bacon, lots of grease and no biscuit to sop out the bowl.

Diets don’t work or at least diets that restrict or eliminate certain foods. The diet that does work is a healthy balanced diet. You can only achieve permanent weight loss with a life style change. If you go on a diet and don’t make changes in your life style, the weight will return when you get off the diet. The muscles in your body burn calories even when you are doing no physical activity. If you go on a very restrictive diet the body will break down some muscle tissue to provide the body with fuel. Then when you come off the diet, you will have less muscle to burn calories; therefore it will take fewer calories to make you gain weight.

Here are some interesting things to think about. It takes 15 calories per pound for the average person to maintain his weight. If you weigh 120 pounds you need 1800 calories per day to maintain your weight. If you weigh 200 pounds it will take 3000. It takes 3500 calories over this to gain a pound. This means if you eat 100 extra calories a day for 35 days you will gain a pound. The reverse is true to lose a pound. So when a diet promises that you will loose 10 pounds in a week, it is misleading you. A 200-pound man would have to go almost 12 days with out eating to lose 10 pounds. The reason I said this claim was misleading is that you may lose 10 pounds in a week, but it will be mostly water loss. In the high protein or low carb diet you use a lot of water to break down protein in your stomach.

Did you know 1 gram of protein is 4 calories, 1 gram of carbohydrates is 4 calories, and 1 gram of fat is 9 calories? If you wanted to cut calories wouldn’t it make sense to cut fat? That’s just my idea.

Exercise is the best way to lose weight. Not only does it burn calories, it reduces stress, your risk of heart attack, stroke, and the list goes on. You will burn about 100 calories per mile running or walking. If you walked 2 miles a day for a year, you would lose over 20 pounds. You would gain muscle mass, which would make you burn more calories when you are at rest.

The first thing you should do when you start watching what you eat and exercising is to throw away your bathroom scale. Measure your waist, thighs, and hips. Record these numbers and recheck yourself from time to time. Muscle weighs more than fat, but it takes up less space. If you have lost inches in your waist, hips, and thighs who cares what the scale says.

Take the kids when you exercise. They need it as much as you do. Dan Daniel Park is a great place to start.

I hope you got a chance to run the St. Patrick’s Day 5K Race March 20 on the Riverwalk Trail. It was a great success. Gary Uitto should get a lot of credit for this great race. The work he did on the 2003 race to make sure the race continued on, after its 2002 sponsor dropped it, certainly was the reason so many people came back this year. 2004 was the first year the Downtown Danville Association sponsored this race. They will continue this great race in 2005 and beyond.

Next month I will probably talk about my knee injury. I know everyone looks forward to my moaning and groaning about my little aches and pains. If you don’t, I would suggest you submit some articles about your aches and pains, training, races you have ran, a special diet, or whatever else is your interest. Other club members are anxious to share your interests.

May the wind be at your back,

L.C. (President, DR&FC)

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