Oklahoma City's example (read "Fit or Fat"-- by Covert Bailey)

Listened to the TED radio hour today and heard Mick Comett, the mayor of Oklahoma City, talk about his campaign to help the entire city lose weight. It's worth checking out:

• http://www.ted.com/talks/mick_cornett_how_an_obese_town_lost_a_million_pounds?language=en

Mr. Comett's speech is interesting. He talks the effort made to transform Oklahoma City from a city designed primarily for the automobile to a pedestrian-friendly environment. He realized human mobility, rather than car mobility, was the key to making a more fit city. And it worked! Oklahoma City has moved up the ranks of healthy cities. And young people are attracted to moving there. Maybe Kevin Durant should be the poster child for staying thin. Unfortunately, losing weight does not guarantee you will instantly gain Durant's basketball skill or annual salary. But it's a start.

If you are interested in a classic in the annals of fitness, exercise and good diet, I want to recommend Fit or Fat, a nifty book written by Covert Bailey in 1977. Bailey explains the interesting process whereby your body becomes a more efficient burner of fat.

Bailey asserts a good diet breaks down as follows:
1/8-- protein
2/8-- fat
5/8-- carbohydrates (these are good carbs, rich in dietary fiber)

A blogger named James Lupori wrote about Covert Bailey's book on April 5, 2012. 

Here is the link to Lupori's piece:

<http://jameslupori.com/?p=179>

 And Lupori summarized a few of Bailey's ideas (see below).

1) Exercise. If exercise were a pill, it would be the most widely prescribed medicine in the world.
2) Diets don't work. Exercise is the bottom line behavior for weight management.
3) When you exercise, remind yourself, "I'm building fat-burning enzymes."

One of the hallmark notions of Bailey’s “Fit or Fat” is that dietary fat is a real challenge in making people fat. In his PBS presentations, he was famous for saying things like: “The fat you eat is the fat you wear. ” But, in all seriousness, he spends a lot of time talking about the role of fats and carbohydrates in our bodies and how they are metabolized. Yes, indeed,  he believes that eating a lower-fat, balanced diet is the way to go; however, he NEVER says never to most foods. The main thing he emphasizes is doing aerobic exercise  several times a week which literally alters the capacity of your muscles to metabolize sugars and fats. In short, becoming “fit” takes some work.