You can be confident that you are healthy and fit if you have all of the right ingredients in your body, a new study has found.
Dr David Pate, an exercise physiologist from the University of Bath, says that even though we have all the right foods, we have not always been able to access them.
“You can’t just take a piece of paper and say: ‘This is what I need to eat to be healthy’ and then go out and eat it,” Dr Pate told ABC Radio National’s Today programme.
“The first thing you need to do is identify which foods you need, what your diet is, how you’re going to eat, and that’s very different to a standardised test.”
And what you need is a very specific test, where you’re eating the right kind of food, and you’re measuring your results.
“Dr Pate said he had conducted several studies on the subject of exercise, including one in Australia, where he found that those who took a standard physical activity test fared no better than people who didn’t.”
What’s remarkable is the fact that in the vast majority of cases, people who were exercising did better than those who weren’t,” he said.”
In terms of the number of people who fell ill or died, the number was very similar.
“There were only about 4% of people with a high level of exercise who died.”
He said that it was important to look at whether the person had the right diet, and to look for any risk factors for an illness.
“There are many different kinds of foods, and they need to be balanced, so you don.t have to be eating something that’s high in fat or high in carbs or high protein, and the rest of the ingredients need to work in balance,” he explained.
“If you don-t have the right balance, then the body can’t make the correct hormone response to those foods.”
But, of course, the more you’re exercising, the less likely you are to be doing that, and it also increases your risk of developing other illnesses.
“So, if you’re not exercising enough, your body can get the wrong signal and it can start to get sick, which is why we need to get a lot of exercise and a lot more exercise.”
Dr Peter Hargreaves, the director of the Centre for Obesity and Related Diseases at Imperial College London, said the research was important, but also important to consider the effects of diet and exercise on health.
“It’s important to remember that there is no single answer to what’s healthy, but there are certain foods and certain kinds of exercise that can be good for you,” he told ABC News Breakfast.
“For example, if a person is overweight or obese and wants to do more exercise, they can do it in the gym or they can be on a diet.”
When you’re on a low-calorie diet, you need a bit more exercise and more weight loss to make up for that.
“Dr Hargroves said the researchers were using a computer simulation of what a person would do if they followed a diet based on the Australian Dietary Guidelines.”
One of the things that’s so surprising is that they actually found that a very large proportion of people would actually be better off on a lower-caloric diet,” he added.”
Because it doesn’t include protein and fibre, the amount of fat is going to be much lower, and, in fact, most of the studies that we have looked at have found that people who have been advised to do a lower calorie diet are actually doing better.
“Dr Michael Hargraves, a consultant dietitian at The Health Agency, told ABC Breakfast that he was concerned about the idea that exercise might be bad for you.”
As an exercise therapist, you see people who are overweight, they’re exercising and they are having the same symptoms as a person who’s actually overweight, that they’re having anorexia nervosa,” he noted.”
That’s very concerning because that can cause these problems that we know cause all sorts of things.
“Dr David Fenton, from the American Association for Exercise and Sport, said he was not too concerned about Dr Pates findings.”
I would just be cautious,” he stressed.”
Most people who exercise do so at a reasonable level of intensity, and if you don.
“The Australian Dietetic Association said it was looking into the research and hoped to provide guidance for dietitians and exercise therapists in the future.
