Talkback: Can you be Fat and Fit? (Preview)

Haven't seen any disagreement in this preview.

Virtually every weight-related health problem can be greatly improved...GG
...it appears that physical activity cannot completely reverse...AW

It's possible for a heavier runner to be faster than a thinner runner...GG
Well, sure, it's not impossible...AW

When you get some of your represented disagreement, or stick up that nutrition plan for 6-pack to pot-bellied in 12 weeks and improve your 5k time, mebbe I'll subscribe...

Two experts in violent agreement with the third party author desperately scrabbling for an interesting tag line whilst attempting to pander to overweight readers.

The question in the title says "fit", but the subtitle says "healthy".

Those are two very different things

This:

http://www.myspace.com/thisisonthehour/videos/video/46385247

You can be, but you need an indian fella on a scooter hitting you with a spatula.

 After a couple of weeks of that, you can expect to win a marathon.

Fit for what?

Sumo wrestling? World's strongest man? Cross channel swimming?

Running with a 5kg backpack is hardly like running with an extra 5kg body mass as the extra mass is evenly distributed over your body, hence you cant loose mass in one specific part of your body. You can run comparable times in endurance events with 5kg extra as other factors such as hydration, race prep, etc come into play.  

People who exercise regularly and are overweight are likely to be healthier than non-exercising slim people. When we exercise visceral fat gets burned and this reduces our risk of developing diabetes and heart disease. Non-exercising apparently slim types could still be developing dangerous levels of this visceral fat.

Having said that being overweight still increases your risk of a variety of diseases and your waist measurement is a good indicator of your overall health.

Define fat?

You can have a pot belly but be ripped elsewhere. I can send photographic evidence until the kettle training and core body work start to kick in.

Having been running for 2 years, I have dropped from 18 to 15 stone but still have the belly.

Legs like hewn granite and with the other gym work, arms and pecs like a small adonis.

Despite this I can only manage 8 min miles over distance and was recently knocked into 300 and something position in an 8 miler.

Some of the rugby boys finishing ahead of me had similar physique (including the pot belly). An awful lot of the 200+ behind me were rake thin.

This response is almost as pointless as the original post.