This is the welcomed and inspiring message of Sheri Colberg, PhD. You can be healthy even if you have excess body fat. No matter what you weigh, regular exercise will make you healthier. Dieting probably won’t because it usually fails because of subsequent rebound in weight. This yo-yo dieting isn’t good for anyone’s health.

As I read Dr. Colberg’s book, I kept thinking that it is even more important for overweight people with diabetes to exercise than it is for those of normal weight. Since I didn’t remember that she made that point, I asked her.

“Yes, I would agree with that,” she replied. “Although it is better to be ‘fit and fat,’ it is always best to be ‘fit and thin’ if possible.”

Her new book, The 7 Step Diabetes Fitness Plan, is the third book of this exercise physiologist and associate professor of exercise science at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. Last year I reviewed her second book, Diabetes-Free Kids, here.

Dr. Colberg is not only an academic specializing in exercise. Equally relevant credentials are the diabetes that she has lived with most of her life and her own exercise regimen.

When is the best time to exercise? I was fascinated with her report of a study showing that blood glucose levels of some men with diabetes who had moderate control dropped dramatically when they exercised two hours after eating breakfast. When they exercised before breakfast, their levels hardly dropped at all. These finding are based on “Prior meal enhances the plasma glucose lowering effect of exercise in type 2 diabetes” by Paul Poirier and his associates at Quebec’s Laval University. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise published this report in its August 2001 issue.

Even if dieting is a mistake, a good diet certainly isn’t. Dr. Colberg in fact devotes as much of this excellent book to a healthy diet as she does to healthy exercise.

Sheri R. Colberg’s 7 Step Diabetes Fitness Plan is a 262-page trade paperback listed at $15.95. Marlowe & Company in New York will publish it on January 10, 2006. The ISBN is 1-56924-331-X.

[As of 02Jan2006, this book is available at Amazon for $10.85.]