The Skinny Kid

We’ve heard French women don’t get fat because they eat in moderation and eat enough soup, vegetables etc to make their meats and desserts less of a percentage of the total. Turns out, they get other benefits.

In land of fatty food, they lean to old age | Chicago Tribune

The women of France, a land renowned for a cuisine laden with fats and calories, have the longest life expectancy of any nation on Earth except Japan. A girl born in France in 2006 can expect to live until at least 84, surpassing a baby boy’s potential by seven years, according to new government statistics.Only Japanese women have a longer life expectancy: 85.6 years. American women can expect a life span of 80.1 years, recent statistics show.

To be expected, I suppose. But the article also hits on another fact that jibes with things we’ve heard:

Some of the longest-living Frenchwomen reside in the southwest’s Midi-Pyrenees region, which is famous for its fatty foie gras–made from the livers of force-fed ducks and geese–and rustic red wines. Here, where women say moderation is the key to indulging in their favorite foods, female life expectancy is a full year above the national average.

Turns out that many of the areas with high percentages of centenarians are mountainous. One theory is that by adapting to lower oxygen levels the body is conserving energy.

The Best Routine for Burning Fat » iFitandHealthy.com

Certainly, running will burn more total fat calories than walking, but it will also eat into glycogen (stored sugar) and even break down muscle to release amino acids for energy.Thus, the ideal rate is a level of intensity high enough to maximize fatty acid oxidation, but preserve muscle mass and glycogen stores.

This level is roughly equivalent to moderate treadmill running or fast walking on a slight incline. One study concluded that it can be reliably predicted to occur at a pulse 25 beats per minute above your heart rate during a light warm-up.

I usually try to walk a 2-3 mile course at least three times per week (hopefully five or more.) My walk includes a fairly steep hill. Hopefully this article is right about the benefits.