Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin (Page 2)

I have a question.  I've heard from a few women who have had babies that nursing burns a lot of calories (I don't know, that's just what I've heard).  Do you think that's true?

(Not at all trying to undercut your weight loss while nursing, it just made me think of what I had heard women saying about breastfeeding.) 

I've seen about 500 calories burned per day.  (source)

it's so easy to eat 500 calories in a matter of minutes,  it takes longer to burn 500 calories though,  plus you just need a few moments of weakness to eat that first couple bites of whatever is your personal calorie filled treat,

for me it's easier to just say no to the certain foods than to attempt portion control, 

mrs gearboy read the article to me as we were driving to pick up my race packet on Saturday (ironic, no?).  What I got out of the article was not "don't exercise".  What I got was that most people have a limited amount of will power.  I can spend it on getting my lazy azz off the couch and going for a run, OR I can use it to put down the chips and eat healthy.  If I have to chose one, I am better off putting down the chips. If I go for a run, I will not be ADDING that activity to my day, but will likely end up sitting on the couch afterwards since I will feel that I "earned" it.  Also, I will eat "bad" food, because I "earned" it (like when I stopped at Yum Yum Donuts after the race, to which mrs gearboy commented "Did you learn nothing from that article?"). So for MANY people, who have "weak will power muscles", they have to make a choice. OTOH, they can build up their will power with practice. Just don't overload them with a drastic change in both diet AND exercise at the same time.

for some women that is true.  I held onto about 5 pounds with both kids during the 15 months I was nursing.  It was all fat and all on my thighs (estrogen site).  Stopped nursing and it came off.  I think it depends on your body type before.  you need a certain amount of fat to support the hormones needed.

We need to remember that this site is populated by many people who were able to "just do it," but they're not the norm. I know it's easy to say that it's some easy conscious decision to start exercising, modify your diet, etc. etc. but for the vast majority of people who are overweight/obese this isn't the case. There's a ton of psych issues, along with a culture that really doesn't encourage healthy living. That's why articles like this are so harmful--it's just another thing someone can use as an excuse to not exercise.

Yes, it's possible to just set your mind to it and lose a bunch of weight and start doing triathlons. That's not the way it works for most people though. It doesn't mean that they're mentally weaker or anything, just that their motivation/reasons for being overweight/out of shape are different.

Hop over to slowtwitch where there are plenty of folks who believe that 90% of us are fat and have no business doing tris anyway and you can get a taste of the role reversal.

I think some people are interpreting the article incorrectly. A person can exercise a ton and STILL gain weight if they are eating too much. I gained weight while training like mad for Ironman! Like stated above. Diet is more important in terms of weight-loss.

This is absolutely, positively, 100% incorrect.

There is no one thing that's "more important." It's all about a net calorie deficit. Burn more than you take in and you'll lose weight. Period. Whether that means more exercise or fewer calories eaten ultimately makes no difference.

The difference is that, as others have already said, you can consume calories much faster than you can burn them, so focusing on diet IS an extremely important part of weight loss, but to say that exercise does one thing while eating right does another just isn't true.

Edited by DrPete 2009-08-12 11:22 AM

I agree, but it apparently not that "simple" for most people. Why?

I think it is because many people over estimate how many calories they burn during exercise and under estimate how many calories they consume.

If you ride 30 miles don't eat like you have ridden 100 and expect to loose weight. If you want to loose weight,You need to be honest with yourself and actually watch what and how much you eat.

It took me a while get this simple fact through my thick head.After many failed attempts I finally lost the extra 100 pounds I was carrying around and have kept it off for the past 5 years.

What a useless, ridiculous peice of drivel.  Articles like this make me angry, because as others have said they're nothing but excuses.  'I exercise all the time but STILL don't lose weight...waaaaaaah'. 

There are two simple components to weight loss: calories going in (via food) and calories going out (via your basal metabolic rate--how many calories your body burns just from, essentially, being alive--and any activities done throughout the day).  So yea, if you run 5 miles in the morning, but then suck down a half dozen doughnuts for breakfast, a steak and cheese sub for lunch and half a pizza and wings for dinner, plus some ice cream because you 'deserve a treat after all that hard exercise' then yea, you're not gonna be losing weight.  Why is it so impossible for people to understand? 

Or maybe it's just that people don't want to understand because they're lazy.  So an article like this comes out and people say 'see, this is what i've been saying all along: all this exercise does me no good because it makes me hungry...and you know I have to have five twinkies, a snickers bar and a half gallon of ice cream when I'm hungry.' 

I'm 10 pounds heavier than where I want to be, and I'm 20 pounds heavier than what I would consider my optimal triathlon weight.  However, I've lost 35 pounds in the past year and while the weight loss has stagnated during the summer I know exactly what it is: I've been eating like crap and training less because of injuries.  Simple as that...no excuses, no crash diets followed by week-long binges, just me not doing what I need to in order to continue dropping the pounds.  Everyone in the US should know by know that there are two simple, easy components to weight loss, and if they don't watch them then they're bound to gain weight, and it's THEIR OWN FAULT if they do. 

/rant (can you tell I get angry with this subject?  It's MADDENING to me)

seems to me that i lose weight the more i exercise and gain weight when i back off (or stop) exercise. i probably eat a bit more overall, but i do not crave "snacky" food as often (like downing a bag of chips when watching TV) during periods where I am regularly training. seems contrary to the article, but i am only one data point.

i think one problem (aspect?) is that the general population's definition of excercise is based on cardio health, which as i understand it, sees benefits at say 20min a day of elevated HR 3xweek. This is not really much in terms of burning calories for weight loss.

a related issue is that people have an unrealistic conception of (a) how many calories are burned during excercise and (b) how many calories are in the food they are eating.

i think the idea of willpower being a quantitative resource is a bit odd. you spent X much willpower on working out so now you have none left for watching your food consumption. i wonder if the willpower crosses over to shopping. in that case, i guess exercise is probably near the root of the mounting consumer debt problem in the US.

finally: losing weight is simple, not easy. eat less, exercise more. and it is absolutely quantifiable.

I agree with everything you just said except I'd revise that last statement:  the concept of losing weight is simple: eat less, exercise more.  Putting it into practice, however, takes motivation, willpower and restraint, and the onus is on YOU ALONE to make it happen.

Exactly! 

I thought the article was a good reminder that we still need to watch what we eat, no matter how hard we feel we train, and that maybe we are less active during the day since we already put in our time training.  I know I feel entitled to laze on the couch after a long ride -- this weekend I'll do yardwork instead.

Because of the amount of information at our finger tips these days we have enough material to write long articles on this kinda thing without ever having to mention the benefits.  My hope is that people in general are smart enough to realize this is the case. 

agreed. simple (as in straightforward), not easy (as in takes work and the stuff you mentioned)

Dr Pete has said it the best so far, IMHO.  

And I think people's choice of words is fueling a debate... when we all basically mean the same thing.

I think people are equating "more important" and "more difficult to control" when talking about diet.  

Waddle on over to the tri-ing for weightloss forum and ask people WHY they ate the things they ate on their way to being overweight.  You'll get a range of answers that will likely be neatly divisible into two groups:  "I still don't know," and "What I figured out eventually was ___"    It would be like asking an AA group "why did you drink" or the group outside your office at the smoking kiosk "why do you smoke." (yes, I'm implying that those of us with weight problems are struggling with a type of addictive behavior, but that's an argument for a different thread.)

As someone who is still in the process of losing (an ideal) 60lbs, I can tell you that the decision to run/bike/swim on any given day is about 1,000 times easier than the decision not to reach into that bag of chips in the snack cabinet.   Every time.   EVERY TIME.  

At 235lbs, I was carrying enough extra weight that it was starting to affect my health.  BP was borderline hypertensive.   Cholesterol was over 200.   Preparation H was a necessity to get through most days.  Being as active as I desired to be would wipe me out for the rest of the day.  

Finally, after watching my father-in-law struggle to complete simple tasks due to his lack of fitness and extra weight, I "hit bottom." I knew I had to flex my self-control "muscle" in order to fix my body so that it could *enable* my life instead of obstruct it.

I started exercising, but quickly had to stop as the pain was just unbearable.    I had to lose the weight before I could become more physically fit.   My plan of choice was South Beach Diet, which provides people with a step-by-step process of learning to choose better foods.  It was very doable for me because I didn't have to count calories, Dr Agatston gives you good guidelines on compromises  to make to minimize your "misery" while minimizing your calories.  I lost 40lbs without one lick of exercise.  Zero.  Zilch.  Just by flexing my self-control muscle!

With my weight more manageable, I really wanted to start exercising.   So, I started running.  Since that "fateful" day, I've become MUCH more physically fit.  I've run a half-marathon(2 actually), I've done my first triathlon.   I've built a house.  I've done most of it without any serious injury.

But I haven't dropped another pound.  And I can tell you without a doubt, its because I haven't been making the right food choices.   Not that it's "more important" to eat right than exercise.   It's just *harder* to make the right food choices than it is to make the "right" exercise choices.

Sorry for the rant, and the personal story.  I wrote alot to say that I think the article was written to say "Exercise is not a Panacea."   I don't feel the article was written as an excuse not to exercise.  (the goal of this article is the exact same as any other article: to sell magazines) It was just presenting a synopsis of studies that show that in order to lose weight, you have to widen the "energy gap" (discussed on page 3-4 of the article)

Why wasn't it maddening to you on your way to being 55lbs over your "ideal" weight?

If it *was* maddening, why didn't you do anything about it?

If you did something about it, why didn't it work?

What was it that "changed the tide" from being overweight to becoming more healthy?

Yes, I'm goading you, but not because I disagree (essentially) with what you say.    I'm glad you've "figured it out."     But there's lots of people out there that haven't.  We see them every day.   The truth is, there's LOTS of reasons that people overeat and underexercise.   Some people equate food with comfort, and so they eat when they're stressed.  Some people never had a good example, and so they don't know HOW to eat well.   Some people honestly don't perceive themselves as "fat."   And for some people, physical health is so far down their list of daily problems that they can't even START to work on it, because their day is consumed with things that are more important.

And for whatever reason, at some point, some of those people are going to try to do something about their weight.  And they're going to be told that they need to exercise, but there's a decent chance that(for whatever reason) they're not going to be told "You need to manage your calories, and part of that can be exercise, and part of that can be food."   And they're almost NEVER going to be told "The simple sugars and fiberless starches that are included in nearly every food these days make your food so calorie-dense that it'll be impossible to manage your calories unless you watch them like a HAWK."

So, in the absence of any other data, they might start exercising, and become extremely frustrated when they don't lose weight.

So, the article(in my view)  doesn't provide excuses, it provides data.   

I also wanted to point out something in the article that is completely contrary to what many other sources have claimed:  that willpower is something that weakens with use.  I've read in several fitness magazines (okay, not the most reliable source, I guess, but something I trust more on fitness issues than Time) that the more you do something you don't necessarily like doing, the easier it becomes.  In that same vein, how would this article explain how exercise becomes a habit among people who had never really exercised, but slowly got into it by forcing themselves, through whatever means, to get out there and just do it?

I find that my willpower is actually stronger on the days that I work out.  I am much more easily able to resist gorging on sweets after I have exercised.  The last thing I want to do is effectively cancel my workout by eating a huge plate of pasta or six chocolate chip cookies.  And the more I exercise, the easier it becomes to keep doing it, even if I'm tired or sore or whatever.

There are a lot of things in this article that I think are pretty detrimental to the mission of getting people in this country to get off the couch and take control of their health.  The one thing we can be thankful for is that Americans in general don't like to read so maybe it won't be so harmful.  But who knows what will happen if this makes it to TV...  

I am a bit surprised at the reactions of many.  It's Time, not JAMA.  Do you expect hard-hitting, exacting journalism/research?  Time doesn't take complex problems and explain them intricately.  They, to put it nicely, simplify.

I found the article to be a nice reminder to myself that I am a few pounds from my goal because I love junk food and for no other reason.

I see what you're saying, and for the most part I overdramatized my viewpoint.  Most people are perfectly happy being 20 lbs., 30 lbs. overweight and aren't at risk of the complications that come with being obese.  The people that bother me are the one's who are constantly 'trying' to lose weight, are constantly complaining about how hard it is, and who make excuses at every turn.  I don't believe for one second that people don't know they have to maintain a healthy diet to lose weight, hell, it's in every commercial on losing weight.  Everyone has seen the ads on eating 2,000 healthy calories a day.  And yet people still don't know that to lose weight they have to manage their diet while also exercising?  I simply don't believe it. 

Losing weight isn't easy.  This day and age, with all the comforts of living in a society that, essentially, caters to the laziness, it's a very, very easy thing to fall into a cycle of overeating and not exercising, and twice as hard to break out of it.  But again, the concept is simple, people just need to realize it and put it into practice.  And if they don't, then they need to be content with their bodies, with the direction they're headed and stop searching for answers, because the ultimate answer is simple, right in front of their noses but they choose to avoid it.

Not having read the article, I would just say that exercise without proper nutrition won't make you thin.  You might lose weight, but in the long term, statistically you probably won't maintain.  My wife's a good example of how exercise isn't absolutely necessary:  She lost 62 lbs in a matter of 5 months just doing Weight Watchers with absolutely no exercise.  She got her diet right and--just like most recent studies have indicated--calories burned>calories consumed=weight loss, exercise or no.  In my case, I felt it was important to mix exercise and diet, but the reality is that I started off just dieting before adding exercise and had lost about 10 lbs. in 3+ months just from eating more consciously and laying off excess fat and sugar (no exercise).

Way too many recreational endurance athletes (that's a whole lot of y'all, BT) train to eat, rather than eat to train, and someday that's highly likely to come back to haunt you.

OK, I see where you're coming from now.  And thanks for the reply.  

You (and so many others) "simply don't believe it" because you can't share their frame of reference.   But, it's more than just knowing that you have to manage your diet and exercise.  I think you're right in that most people "know it."

I "knew" that I had to manage my diet and exercise to lose weight.   And I'm reasonably intelligent and can sort out good information from bad.  And I can look at a label an realize that the label says 200 calories, but that there's "3 SERVINGS"(600 calories) in that one can/box of food.  Lots of people can't.  Many, many more people don't realize that you can run a mile on about 100 calories.   They have a hard time believing that a snickers bar takes 2.5 miles to "run off."

And even knowing all of those things.... I will still stare down a piece of cake or a cookie or a pile of fries.  And sometimes the fries win, and sometimes I win.   It's something much more fundamental than "knowing it."  It's something I have to fight with constantly, every day.  It's incredibly hard to explain to people who have never had that struggle.   It's incredibly hard to explain to myself.  I'll go so far as to agree with you.... it's MADDENING to realize I just downed that bag of fries, and that I'll have to run 5 miles (or forego an entire healthy meal) in order to recover from that calorie deficit.    IT makes me sad (for letting myself down)  embarrassed (many family and friends have supported me well during my weight loss) and angry (because I don't know why I did that *again*)

Sorry, just a glimpse into the mind of one of those "maddening" people.  Hopefully someday your good physical example will inspire someone in your life... you'll have a better understanding of the transformation (emotional, mental, physical) they're going through.

Cheers,

Ryan

Bah. Articles like this are frustrating. Sure, there are some valid and true points for those losing weight but there are a number of benefits that aren't all about weightloss.  Uh - off the top of my head some are healthy and strong body, strong heart and cardiovascular system which will help people age better.  And then there's the self confidence factor (which was huge for me personally) which can be multiplier effect (no evidence of this one but many of us here can attest to it). What I mean is that it's the opposite of what the author was talking about.  I experience that surge in "I can't believe i just ran xx kilometres and I feel like a million bucks so i won't eat all the crap I normally eat and look I feel even better! Look, i am going faster and my pants fit better!"  And I work harder and eat better ...

Anyway - but this seems to be what almost all of the nutritional exercise oriented literature is leaning toward. Personally i would rather see us move away from weight loss focus and into just healthy living advice ... but then I am here - so i am preaching to the choir ...