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Health & Fitness

Massage's Role in Weight Loss

No one said it would be easy to lose those extra pounds, but incorporating massage can help you exercise more, eat less and stay motivated.

Wouldn’t it be great if those extra pounds so many of us carry could simply be massaged off? People would be slender, and massage therapists’ wallets would be fat. Hey, it works for me.

While it isn’t that easy or that direct, you can use massage to help you lose weight in several ways. Massage can:

  • increase range of motion
  • relieve aching muscles
  • shorten recovery time after a workout
  • reduce stress
  • substitute for the rewards of eating, and
  • reward and motivate you for sticking to your plan.

Increasing physical activity to burn calories and increase metabolic rate is a key element in losing weight and keeping it off. If you’ve been a classic couch potato and enthusiastically begin a strenuous exercise program, however, you’re going to hurt from overworked muscles and even may injure yourself. You may be too uncomfortable to continue your ambitious exercise program and too discouraged to begin a less challenging workout.

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Obese people with arthritis have an especially difficult time losing weight, according to the Centers for Disease Control, because arthritis limits their mobility, and pain prevents the physical activity necessary to work off extra pounds.  The CDC reports that 41.3 percent of adults with arthritis in Missouri fall into the obese weight category (that figure is from 2009). But losing even 10 or 12 pounds can help the obese arthritis sufferer decrease pain and increase mobility. 

Massage increases range of motion – how much movement you have in a joint – and alleviates muscle pain without the use of drugs, enabling both those with and without arthritis to increase their physical activity. In addition, it increases your circulation and reduces muscle injuries. Because massage helps the muscles in the body get rid of the lactic acid and wastes produced during exercise, it speeds recovery time between workouts so that you can continue your exercise program. And as noted above, increased activity means decreased weight.

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Of course, lack of physical activity isn’t the only reason we’re overweight. We also eat too much and eat the wrong foods. Besides eating to fuel our bodies, we eat because we’re stressed or bored, or just because something tastes good.  

Massage reduces stress and helps you relax. My clients sometimes are so relaxed they start to snore – and as a massage therapist, I am not insulted if you fall asleep while I’m working with you. Reducing stress through massage cuts down on stress-related eating. During massage, your body produces endorphins, which promote a general feeling of well-being. If you already are walking around with a general feeling of well-being, you are less likely to grab a snack simply because it tastes good and provides momentary pleasure.

The end result of skipping those unhealthy snacks and increasing your physical activity will be to lose weight. It won’t happen as quickly as you want; it will happen only because you discipline yourself to change your bad eating habits and push yourself to increase your activity level. To keep motivated and stick to your plan, you may want to celebrate meeting interim goals with a non-fattening reward such as scheduling a massage for each five or 10 pounds you lose. That’s not pampering yourself, it’s taking good care of yourself.

Besides, you aren’t snacking during the hour or so you spend on the massage table. That has to count for something.

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