Women Require One Hour of Daily Exercise Just to Maintain Weight

That was the shocking findings of a recent Harvard study about older woman and weight gain.

But the study contained some good news. If you are a woman, if you are getting older, and aren't we all, if you exercise an hour a day, you will not gain weight.

Or as the study pointed out, "Only those women who were normal weight at the start of the study and engaged in moderate-intensity activity an average of 60 minutes per day, seven days a week, maintained a normal body weight."

As the lead author of the study, Dr. I-Min Lee, an epidemiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard University points out " ..." if you want to exercise for weight control, it's 60 minutes a day."

Excuse me. 60 minutes a day? It take me that long just to get out of bed in the morning . I sure hope brushing my teeth counts as part of my hour of exercise.

Dr. Lee does admit , ""It's a large amount of activity."

No kidding Dr. Lee. You think so? But you gotta love the next line.

"If you're not willing to do a high amount of activity, you need to curtail your calories a lot. " said Dr. Lee.

So let me get this right, If I am just lying around on the couch all weekend, the best way NOT to gain weight - and this is truly a novel concept - is to eat less. A lot less.

Boy, you can see why these guys went to Harvard. I never could have figured that out by myself.

By the way, the study was commissioned by CURVES marketing department to drive more women to their facilities. Just kidding.

The real depressing news is that if you have been happily following the government's recommendations and exercising 150 minutes a week, tough luck. That , according to this new study, won't make you lose weight or even come close to losing weight .

The good news is that your government which has been passing out the wrong information on weight loss for over 20 years, is now taking over the health care system. Please take two aspirin and call in dead in the morning.

Even more depressing was that the study defined "Moderate-intensity activity" as walking or hiking, jogging, running, bicycling, aerobic exercise or dance, use of exercise machines, yoga, tennis, squash, racquetball and swimming.

Excuse me, but I don't want to hear any complaining. You might be raising three kids, working two jobs, and going to college. But listen all your women, if that is ALL you are doing, you are slackers. When you crawl home at ten p.m. after your second job, I want you all to take a good one hour run around the town.

Don't come crying to me if you can't lose weight. You slackers, you.

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/303/12/1173