Create a mental picture of someone who’s fit. What do you see? Rock-hard biceps? A flat stomach? A lean, mean muscle machine? How about someone a bit chunky? Or someone whose weight is off the chart? Even with extra kilograms you can be fit!

Activity is The Key!

How is it possible to be fat and fit? Some fitness-fatness gurus like University of Virginia exercise physiologist Glenn Gaesser, Ph.D., are convinced that many overweight people’s health problems lie in a couch-potato lifestyle. The real problem isn’t being overweight; it’s being inactive. The chronic illnesses associated with excess weight—diabetes and high blood pressure in particular—ease in a matter of weeks when hefty people start an exercise program and eat more fruits and vegetables.

The most persuasive support for this controversial theory so far comes from a study of about 25,000 men and 7,000 women done at the Cooper Institute for Aerobic Research in Dallas. The study, known as the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study, found that people who were unfit and thin had a significantly higher death rate from all causes than people who were fit (defined as being able to walk on a treadmill longer than 60 per cent of the population) and fat.

The most striking finding from the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study was that being fit reduced mortality rates even in people with other risk factors for heart disease, including high blood pressure. Remarkably, even significantly overweight smokers and former smokers who were physically fit had lower death rates than thin but unfit people.

The Big Picture

On the other hand,  there are hundreds more studies to support the traditional view that obesity by itself increases your chance of developing a host of health problems. The bottom line: If you’re genuinely obese, you’re best off losing weight if you want to achieve optimal health. Still, if you are fit and fat, there’s a strong likelihood that you’re healthier, overall, than someone who is normal weight but never gets any exercise.

Whether you carry extra kilograms or not, exercise will increase your muscle mass and provide many other health benefits, including pumping up the rate at which you burn calories. In fact, beginning exercisers may burn calories five to seven times faster during exercise than they do while resting. Furthermore, once you stop exercising, your metabolism does not immediately slow down. It will continue to burn calories at a slightly higher-than-normal rate for hours, possibly because your body works harder after exercise to repair tissue damage and rebuild your energy stores.