That exercise is the key to losing our collective weight is something that we know so deep in our cultural guts that to question it would be ridiculous.
Except that is what the most cutting-edge obesity researchers are now doing. The recent studies show that the benefits of exercise for weight loss have been overstated. This idea is shocking. It goes so far against the orthodoxy that it is not something many can accept. And certainly for governments and the food industry that places them under so much pressure, it is too much to swallow.
But, as Professor Boyd Swinburn, director of the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention, says: “This is provocative in many ways . . . but my concern is that if we put the emphasis on exercise we are unlikely to tackle the obesity problem as we are not driving at the root cause.”
The idea that exercise will help to shed pounds is fairly recent — emerging at the same time that obesity began to boom in the 1980s.
Of course I lost quite a bit of weight lying in bed sick for three days. The doctor said it was not the flu, but I was so sick I almost rather have had the flu.
What type of stupidity is this? Exercise does help you loose weight, period. Anything that “shows” otherwise is wrong. My proof? Simply that when you vigorously exercise regularly (and safely, of course) you raise your metabolism. When your metabolism increases, the number of calories you use increases. When the number of calories you use goes up, as long as you don’t replace them all (or more) you will loose weight. It’s a simple equation that works for everyone except those with very rare metabolic problems. Every study worth its salt shows this. If some “study” doesn’t show this it’s contrary to how the human body works and is wrong.
To be specific for this study, they state that exercise alone won’t generally make you loose weight. Again, this is false considering that real exercise, done regularly will raise your metabolic rate. However, if by alone they mean you eat more to compensate for the extra calories you loose, then they are qualifying the term incorrectly and making a bad assumption. It is human nature to eat more when you burn more but it is illogical if you don’t also either reduce your caloric intake if you are gaining weight before exercise or maintain that intake if you were maintaining your weight prior to the exercise regimen.
Here’s a simple equation:
Calorie intake – calories usage = net calories gain or loss.
If you take in more than you use, you gain weight. If you use more than you gain, you loose weight with one exception for the variable of water retention which over time is more of a constant but on any one day or week can raise or lower weight. Exercise raises calories used, especially when done as a regular, not occasional activity. Therefore you must raise caloric intake to maintain weight, keep it the same to loose or cut it to really loose. Many illnesses also raise caloric use while simultaneously denying caloric intake thus resulting in weight loss.
Denying this is like denying evolution. It’s real, get use to it. Anything else is bunk.
Once again why is weight loss important. In the U.S. we’ve confused weight as the primary indicator of health. What we should really focus on is work capacity. What is your power to weight ratio? Can you climb ten flights of stairs and not be winded? Could you bale hay for an entire day? Do you sleep well and are generally content and mentally well? If you can answer yes to these questions and are still officially “overweight”, then why should you care about what your weight is?
gmknobl, that’s not what their experiment tested.
A person can lose weight by watching their calorie intake without exercise. The problem is that muscle mass is the first to go. For every 3300 Calories a person does not ingest they lose about one pound. A male can get by with 1500 to 2000 Calories a day. This will allow him about 1/2 a pound a day weight loss since a males body at rest will burn 2600 to 3500 Calories a day no matter what. If a male eats less than 1500 Calories a day his body will go into starvation mode and it will be very hard to lose the weight. LIGHT exercise is a wise choice so that bone and muscle mass don’t diminish.
Of course, talk to your physician as everybody is different and you may have health problems that need to be addressed.
16, Probably closer to 20 minutes. And when your body starts burning fat, it will continue to burn fat for up to 2 hours (even if you stop your aerobics routine).
As long as you consume nothing but water during those 2 hours, you don’t stop the fat burning process.
This would be analogous to a match you could hold under a log for 20 minutes. Once the log starts to burn, it burns for a while.
The problem is most people’s idea of aerobics is low intensity. If you do high intensity aerobics for 20 minutes three times a week and you don’t consume anything other than water, you may see some impressive and quick results. The other problem is most people can’t stick to a schedule and come up with excuses over why they couldn’t work out on a particular day.
7, Weight training helps with the fat burning process indirectly.
Which drinks up more fuel while idling at a stop light, a V8 or a 4 cylinder?
Muscle mass is similar in that the more muscle mass you have, the more blood sugar your body consumes. The less blood sugar you have floating around when you go to bed means less blood sugar gets converted to body fat while you sleep.
1. Lose only has a single o. Loose is a different word, as in “a loose fitting shirt”
2. Read “The Hungry Gene”
3. If you weigh one hundred pounds and I weigh two hundred pounds, and we both walk one mile, then I just burned twice as many calories as you. (this is a stone cold fact)
4. In order to lose a great deal of weight, one has to maintain a food intake level substantially less than normal. Eating like a normal person means you neither gain nor lose weight—you just stay at the weight you are at.
5. The body does not absorb 100% of the calories that we feed it, and can actually step up the percentage of calories absorbed if fed less food. This is how the so called ‘plateau effect” is reached. One can be on 1400 calories or even 1200 calories and not lose weight.
6. Read “the Hungry Gene” there’s no miracle cure in it–it’s mostly bad news. But it’s the straight stuff.
7. After losing more than a hundred pounds three times and then gaining it back in my adult life, I have a new attitude about people’s weight loss advice. It’s this:
get lost
There’s a lot of weight loss propaganda. Even that Tv show, “Biggest Loser”, seems to sell exercise as the main weight losing method.
But it’s the calories from processed foods, that got these people overweight. Not a lack of exercise or some genetic flaw.
Showing contestants exercising like fanatics, might be great for promoting health club memberships. But I’ll bet that it’s the restricted calorie diet plans that loses them the most weight. But Tv doesn’t want to reveal that. Their fast food sponsors would hate them.
Exercising is still a good idea, for the circulation and all. But I think it’s unreasonable to expect most viewers to attempt to do as much as is shown, to keep weight under control. Because when you do the math. Exercise doesn’t burn all that much calories.
And putting more stress on limb joints, that are already over-stressed by excess body weight, can’t be good for them. I’ll bet these contestants will be opting for knee joint replacements, some day soon.
Some people tend to eat more after exercising than they would if they didn’t exercise. This is because they sometimes workout for too long and then get hungrier than usual. Or they decide to reward themselves after a good workout, and then eat a 350-calorie muffin that negates the workout.
The answer: exercise (but not excessively) to maintain muscle tone, and moderate your eating to lose weight.