Ogweno Stephen was recently interviewed on Radio France on his journey with physical fitness and advocacy for obesity. In the radio interview, Ogweno talked about how he got from living with obesity to a healthy BMI through physical activity and nutrition. He also mentioned a few myths associated with physical activity including:
Myth 1. Exercise is the best way to lose weight
While there is plenty of evidence showing people can lose weight just by being physically active, it is also one of the hardest ways to go about it.
The best way to lose weight is through combining a nutritious, low-calorie diet with regular physical activity.
Myth 2. You can’t be fat and fit
Inactive people of healthy weight may look OK, but this isn’t necessarily the case. When you’re not active you have a higher risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, some cancers, depression and anxiety. Several studies have demonstrated the association between premature death and being overweight or obese disappears when fitness is taken into account (although another study disputed this).
This means you can still be metabolically healthy while being overweight, but only if you’re regularly active. Of course, people who are fit and of normal weight have the best health outcomes, so there are still plenty of reasons to try to shed some weight.
Myth 3. No pain, no gain
Or in other words, “no suffering, no weight loss”. As mentioned earlier, if you want to lose weight by being active, you will need to do a lot of it. But while physical activity of a moderate intensity is recommended, guidelines do not say activity needs to be of vigorous intensity.
Moderate intensity physical activity is not painful and does not include excessive suffering to meet your goals. A study of weight loss in groups with higher intensity and lower volumes of activity compared to groups of lower intensity and higher volumes of activity did not find significant differences.
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STEPHEN OGWENO 