LESSON 3: HEALTH AND PHYSICAL FITNESS
I.
Literacy Objective: The students will be able to discuss different strategies for becoming
and remaining physically fit as well as write a fitness plan for themselves.
II.
Materials for Lesson: "Perk Up Your Metabolism" - handout
by Paul Facinelli
III.
IV.
Suggested Readings: Choices For A Healthy Heart
by Joseph C. Piscatella
Workman Publishing Company
1 West 39th Street
New York, New York 10018
Additional Activities: Workout tapes
Individual writing assignment
V.
Notes to Instructor: There are many workout tapes available and if the instructor chooses
to show one be sure to safeguard against injury by asking the class to wear aerobic shoes,
warming up first, avoiding bouncing and substituting stretching and holding, and stopping
if something hurts. No one should be coerced into participating if they do not want to.
Preview the "Perk Up Your Metabolism" article to see if it is at an appropriate reading level
for your students. If it is too advanced, provide another reading or "write down" the article
to a more appropriate level by shortening the sentences, substituting short words for long
words and omitting unimportant words or phrases.
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Journal Entry:
Review :
Many people in fitness and health talk about "No Pain - No Gain." What
does this mean to you?
Ask the students to give a brief oral summary of the paragraphs they wrote on their
families' reactions to their wellness plans. Encourage them to discuss their
families' reactions, positive and negative and why the reactions were as such.
INITIAL INQUIRY
Being physically fit means different things to different people. Ask the students how they would
define being physically fit for themselves. Use the following questions to stimulate discussion:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
What does it mean to be physically fit?
What does it take to be physically fit?
Can you be healthy and not physically fit? Why? Why not?
What are some "stay fit" strategies you have used or have heard of?
Who are people in your life you consider physically fit? Why?
Why is it important to maintain physical fitness?
How does staying physically fit help you to stay healthy?
Write student responses on the chalkboard or overhead projector.
LEARNING ACTIVITY
Pose the question: "why exercise?". Ask the students to brainstorm as many reasons as they
can on the benefits of exercising. Make a WEB on the board of their suggestions. Include these
less obvious benefits if they are not mentioned:
flexibility
coordination
balance
muscle tone
endurance
appetite control
mental alertness
emotional attitudes
energy
lowered cholesterol
stress management
self-esteem
Incorporate into the discussion that regular, vigorous exercise has been shown to:
*
reduce incidences of coronary-artery disease through lower blood cholesterol and
raised levels of protective HDL cholesterol in the blood, and lowered blood
pressure.
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reduce risk of diabetes
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decrease insomnia
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decrease back problems
Pose another question: "What are the barriers to exercising regularly?". Create another WEB
on the board.
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Then ask them to list as many activities as they can that help them get and stay in shape. Many of
the suggestions should include exercises that are rhythmic, use the long muscles of the body
(arms, legs, torso), and get the lungs working hard for about 20 minutes at a time such as walking,
jogging, swimming, dancing, skating, skiing, bicycling, scrubbing floors, polishing the car. Write
the list or another WEB on the board.
Self-paced Activities
Activity 1: Ask these students to describe in detail someone they consider "in shape" and how this
person is able to do that. It can be someone they know personally, or someone they are aware of,
such as a celebrity.
Activity 2: Ask these students to describe their favorite exercises or physical activities and
discuss what parts of the body these exercises are good for. Ask them to include how often they
do these activities and why they enjoy them.
Activity 3: Ask these students to write about their "ideal weight". What is it? Are they happy with
their current weight? Why or why not? What can they do to obtain their ideal weight?
LANGUAGE EXPERIENCE
Separate students into groups of three students. Tell the students that they have been hired as
consultants from an exclusive fitness center to prescribe a fitness plan for each of the members of
another group. The plans should include fun ways for them and their families to keep fit and
should be realistic. Ask them to include suggestions for:
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*
*
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getting and staying motivated
increasing basic knowledge of exercise
setting up the proper environment
scheduling enough time
When finished, each group will give a demonstration of its ideas.
Self-paced Activities
Activity 1: Ask these students to describe what a good diet is for them and how they can attempt
to maintain it.
Activity 2: Ask these students to write about ways to lose weight. Ask them to include what they
consider their optimum weight and what they are willing to do to maintain it.
Activity 3: Ask these students to write a paragraph about how they stay in shape. Ask them to
include the differences in what they do to stay in shape and what others in their families might
have to do.
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READING IN CONTEXT
Ask the students to read "Perk up Your Metabolism and Peel Off Pounds" by Paul Facinelli.
Discuss the ideas and information given. Encourage students to share their reactions and
opinions about the articles.
Comprehension Questions:
1. What is "your metabolism"?
2. What are some of the suggestions Dr. Miller made to "pare the pounds off
by
fanning those fires"?
3. What is aerobic exercise?
4. How does aerobic exercise effect one's metabolism?
5. Do you have a high metabolism or a low metabolism?
6. What are external factors that affect one's metabolism?
7. How can you gain better control of metabolism and peeling off the pounds?
PERSONAL DICTIONARY
HOME ASSIGNMENT
Fitness for life is a habit to be developed early. By age 10, 30% of all children exhibit one risk
factor for cancer, heart disease or cancer. Ask the students to create family fitness plans with
their children.
ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES:
1.
Exercise video- Be sure to include the following steps if the video tape does not include
them. 1) Warm-up- 2-3 minutes to stretch leg and arm muscles and slightly accelerate the
heart rate; 2) Aerobics- 20-30 minutes of vigorous activity to maintain a high heart rate; 3)
Cool-down- 5 minutes of moving at a slow pace in order to let heart rate decline gradually.
2.
Ask the students to write about their "do's and don'ts" for dieting and exercise.
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PERK UP YOUR METABOLISM AND
PEEL OFF POUNDS
____________________________________________________________________________
________
Learn to stoke your energy furnace
this new way, and you can make melting
fat a lot easier
____________________________________________________________________________
________
By Paul Facinelli
If you're overweight, you know it's no small injustice. Your reed-slim friend can win a pie-eating
contest and not gain an ounce. You on the other hand seem to put on five pounds just thinking
about pie.
You have a sneaking suspicion that your metabolism is out of whack, but you don't dare suggest
it. Most medical experts regard "It's my metabolism" as a lame cover-up for all those second
helpings you obviously helped yourself to and the chocolate bars you've stashed in the glove
compartment of your car.
But these days they're not so quick to prescribe a diet and dose of guilt. It truly may not be your
fault. Recent studies, still controversial, indicate that all metabolisms are not created equal. Your
skinny pie-eating friend may have a metabolism that allows her to burn up all those calories as
heat while yours stores them as fat.
Don't be alarmed, though. You're not doomed. There's evidence you can get your metabolism
revved up by new patterns and combinations of exercise, diet and everyday habits. Why? To
take advantage of a still mysterious metabolic phenomenon called dietary-induced
thermogenesis.
Though quite a mouthful, it simply means that your body generates heat after you've eaten.
That's why you often push away from a large meal feeling uncomfortably warm. You can get that
same feeling after vigorous exercise, and, of course, that's no coincidence. Something similar is
happening.
When you exercise, your body is burning up calories. The digestive process is a calorie-burning
activity, too. After a meal the body works hard to store what you've eaten as fuel. Though it
retains some food energy as fat, it gives off some as heat. And the more you burn off as heat, the
less you store as fat.
Some of the latest research has shown that overweight people many times do not eat more than
their thinner counterparts. They simply have sluggish metabolisms that don't generate that
slimming after-dinner blaze. And dieting doesn't help. Their efficient, fat-storing metabolism
regard even a moderate caloric cutback as a signal that starvation is at hand and begin to store fat
in case the food shortage goes on indefinitely.
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But here's the real news. Exercise can fan the flames of even a "sluggish" metabolism--in at least
four different ways. The timing of your meals and your exercise can also help your slimming
program.
Peter M. Miller, Ph.D., director of the Hilton Head Health Institute, South Carolina, teaches his
clients to pare the pounds off by fanning those fires. The double whammy of The Hilton Head
Metabolism Diet (Warner Books, 1983) is a low-calorie but four-meal-a-day diet and moderate
but well-timed exercise.
The aim of the Hilton Head Diet is to get fires stoked and keep them burning all day long. Dr.
Miller says he divided his low-calorie diet into four meals to take advantage of the after-meal
thermic effect. After all, digestion burns up calories. And before the blaze becomes a pile of
embers, Dr. Miller recommends a brisk 20-minute walk. If done no later than 20 minutes after at
least two meals a day, your postmeal heat production can be enhanced by up to 50 percent, he
says. So, if your digestive processes normally burn 100 calories, a brisk walk for 20 minutes
could increase that to 150. Do that after two meals each day and that's 36,500 calories a
year--more than 10 pounds of fat. "Exercise after meals burns calories more efficiently than any
other exercise schedule," Dr. Miller says. "It's at this time that you're primed to increase your
metabolic rate. So, step on the gas. Take advantage of this maximum time."
Once you master two brisk walks a day, you might want to consider graduating into more aerobic
exercises. Researchers at the University of New Hampshire found that an increase in aerobic
capacity (your body's ability to use oxygen) significantly increases the number of calories you
burn after a meal--even if you're not exercising at that particular time.
When they tested dietary-induced thermogenesis in a group of men and women, they discovered
that those with greater aerobic capacity burned more calories after eating (or, in this case,
drinking high-and low-calorie drinks). And the men (but not the women) were more likely to have
a lower percentage of body fat. The best news, however, is that those not terribly fit people who
improved their aerobic capacity by exercise were also able to stoke their after-meal blaze. One
woman who increased her aerobic capacity by only 15 percent boosted her heat response by 110
percent (European Journal of Applied Physiology, vol. 50, no. 3, 1983).
Not everyone is going to be able to achieve the aerobic fitness of a well-conditioned athlete.
Many of them have metabolisms that allow them to burn hundreds of calories doing nothing more
strenuous than watching television. Aerobic capacity can be increased only within limits because
it largely depends on the number of muscle fibers you're born with. But, though you can't add
muscle fibers, you can make the ones you have more effective through aerobic exercise.
Jogging, tennis, dancing--anything that gets your heart pumping and your muscles moving and
forces your body to break down fat for energy--can increase your aerobic capacity. Aerobic
exercise for 30 minutes three times a week will stimulate your metabolism so that you'll burn
calories at a faster rate than usual for as long as 24 hours after exercise--in addition to the
hundreds you'll be burning during the exercise. "Aerobic activity stimulates the metabolism better
than any other factor," says Dr. Miller.
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It does something else, too. It increases your muscle mass at the same time it reduces the
amount of fat you're carrying. People who have a high ratio of muscle to fat have higher metabolic
rates. They can eat more and not gain weight because they burn more, even when they're
sleeping.
"The reason for this is that muscle tissue is metabolically more active than fat tissue," Dr. Miller
says. "It takes more body energy for muscle to function. Fat is relatively inactive, while muscle
cells are extremely active, even when you are resting. A muscle furnace is constantly burning
food fuel at a rapid rate day after day."
So to review, exercise can boost your metabolism in at least three different ways--in addition to
the immediate calorie burnoff. First, when exercise follows a meal, it increases dietary
thermogenesis--"roasting" calories that would otherwise be stored as fat. Second, regular
aerobic exercise increases metabolism all day long--giving an extra boost after meals even if
you're just reading a book. And third, by adding muscle, with its high metabolic rate, you're
subtracting extra calories from your system every moment of the day.
But exercise and meal timing aren't the only factors that affect your metabolism. What you eat,
even the temperature of your home, can either fan the fires or hose them down.
FOOD CHOICES. Eat more fruits, vegetables and whole grains, the complex carbohydrates.
Avoid fats and simple carbohydrates (candy, soft drinks, desserts). Elliot Danforth Jr.,M.D.,
director of the clinical research center at the University of Vermont, says a return "to the diet of our
ancestors" can have a significant impact on obesity. That means a diet that is about two-thirds
complex carbohydrates and the rest protein and fat. Why? "There's a clear biochemical reason
for this," says Dr. Danforth, who did many of the early studies on metabolism and obesity. "You
expend only about 3 percent of your fat calories storing them as fat, but you expend 25 percent of
your carbohydrate calories storing them as fat. The metabolism cost is far higher to store
carbohydrates as fat. Any Iowa pig farmer will tell you. When you ask him how he gets his pigs so
fat, he'll tell you it isn't feeding them wheat, it's by feeding them fat."
CLIMATE. Extremes of heat or cold increase your metabolism by as much as 10 percent, says
Dr. Miller. Even a small deviation helps. Set your thermostat at 68 in the winter and 79 in the
summer. You'll get used to the temperatures and your metabolism will get a boost.
Like most sensible weight-loss regimens, this is a lifetime proposition. It will be your ally. But
you've got to keep it perked up through diet and exercise.
Source: Prevention Magazine, March 1985.
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