Energy Surplus alert

It’s been this week’s most e-mailed New York Times story because everyone faces it: the Holiday Energy Surplus.

Which is just a fancy way of saying?

PASS THE EGG NOG!

What I think is shocking though, is how quickly overeating takes hold of the human body – as the medical show “The Doctors” never tires of telling you, “All those extra calories within eight hours they start filling your fat cells.”

Which is why this latest study comes just in time.

At the University of Bath in England, scientists recruited 26 trim young men who were tested to make sure their metabolism was normal.

They were then told to break every healthy eating rule by eating as much as they could hold and getting NO exercise. They were given pedometers and told to take no more than 4,000 steps a day.

And then the experiment: Half of this sedentary bunch ran on a treadmill for 45 minutes a day, half did not.
And here’s what happened: the treadmill group ate significantly more than the non-treadmill group – because they were running. The net result being that BOTH groups actually consumed the same amount of EXCESS calories.

But the treadmill group stayed healthy. While in the non-treadmill group – it got scary.

They lost control of their blood sugar, and the fat cells began activating harmful genes. And all this after just 7 days.

Bottom line – if you can’t control the eating, move around more. Get some exercise everyday. Because as doctors will tell you – and now we know it’s no exaggeration – a big holiday meal, “eight hours later can be sitting on your belly in the fat cells, belly fat that is growing and expanding…”

Say no more.