Exercise Right!
with Jacques Courseault, M.D.

Why Should I Exercise?

Jacques graduated from Tulane Medical School and has seven years of experience as a personal trainer. He is combining his personal training experience with his medical education to bring you exercise information, both how to exercise and why it's great for you, based on solid evidence-based medical principles.

With Dr. Courseault as your guide, you'll learn how to make the most out of your exercise, whether you're just getting started or have been exercising for years.

Exercise Improves Eating Habits
Yes, the biology of caloric management is not fully understood; however, researchers are beginning to show that exercise does have an effect on eating, and their results are encouraging.

Weight, Lean Body Mass and Exercise
You have finally made a commitment to regularly exercise, build up strength and tone your muscles. You step on the scale a few weeks later to find that you have not lost or maybe even gained weight! You figure that something is wrong with the scale, because your pants are too big and you look and feel thinner. Chances are that your scale works just fine.

Strong Muscles Fight Disease
Late night television is peppered with commercials about bigger muscles, defined abs, and tighter thighs. Most of these actors are professional weight lifters, and their nine to five day job is spent in the gym. Not all of us are that lucky to get paid to look good. So why should we invest our time and energy into resistance training?

Eating and Exercise: What to eat and when to eat it
Some days your workout is full of energy and other days you wonder if you have enough energy to make it through the first few exercises. You may want to take a closer look at what foods you are eating and when you are eating them. Properly managing your meals, snacks and beverages before and after exercise can have a huge impact on your workout intensity and how well your body recovers from your workout.

Exercise to Maintain
Yes, weight loss (and gain) is all about the calories: to lose weight, calories out (burned) must be more than calories in (eaten). Exercise is a great way to make sure that you burn more than you eat, and the current federal recommendation is for 150 minutes a week (that's 30 minutes per day, 5 days a week) of moderate exercise for "substantial health benefits."

Ask Dr. Gourmet

Exercise and Supplements
Those of you who are regular readers know that I don't believe the research supports taking vitamins. In the past I have used the premise of "doesn't help but probably won't hurt" when it comes to vitamins.

Ask Dr. Gourmet: Can you exercise if you have GERD / Acid Reflux?

The Deep Roots of Exercise: Connecting Ancient History and Your Soul
"Human uniqueness" is the quality that distinguishes us from other beings. "Uniqueness in exercise behavior" is the realization that humans can give extra time and energy to performing a physical activity that has no immediate benefit to survival, but has long-term benefit. No other being on the planet sets aside time during the day or week to build muscle and burn calories.

Exercise Really Is Key to Weight Loss and Maintenance
A couple of years ago I reported on a study that showed the importance of exercise in achieving and maintaining weight loss. Studies also show, however, that the difficulty is not really in losing the weight - it's in keeping it off for the long term. How much exercise is necessary to help maintain weight loss?

Exercise Trumps Heredity
Studying identical twins is very important because they help scientists separate what has a genetic cause and what is caused by a person's environment or their lifestyle.

Diet and exercise good for older adults, too
The elderly are especially susceptible to what is known as "metabolic syndrome," an observed combination of risk factors that, taken together, represents an increased risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Decreasing the Risk of Gestation Diabetes
Gestation diabetes mellitus (GDM) is a serious illness with potentially serious consequences. Can you do anything to decrease your risk of getting GDM? Yes!

One Simple Rule for Weight Loss
I get asked all the time about whether certain eating patterns will result in weight loss. Skip breakfast? Eat breakfast? Eat every three hours? What about alcohol - will it really stop me from losing weight? These are all theories that are reported in the popular press and it seems that most people take them to be true.

Trying to control your weight? Get some more exercise
Despite the fact that Americans spend over $50 billion per year on weight loss products and services, one-third of adults are still obese. To combat this, in 1998 the National Institute of Health recommended that adults get a minimum of 30 minutes of high-intensity exercise, 5 days per week (150 minutes/week), in addition to reducing calories consumed.

 
 

 

How to eat healthy

These essays will help you understand the overall How and Why of eating healthy in the real world. Each Monday Dr. Harlan will explain another element of eating healthy in simple, easy-to-understand terms that you can apply to your real life. Just read these in order and you'll know how - and why - to eat healthy.