Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight

[Vince]

"I'm going to make you work hard," a blonde and perfectly muscled fitness instructor screamed at me in a recent spinning class, "so you can have that second drink at happy hour!"

At the end of the 45-minute workout, my body was dripping with sweat. I felt like I'd worked really, really hard. And according to my bike, I had burned more than 700 calories. Surely I had earned an extra margarita.

The spinning instructor was echoing a message we've been getting for years: As long as you get on that bike or treadmill, you can keep indulging — and still lose weight. It's been reinforced by fitness gurus, celebrities, food and beverage companies like PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, and even public health officials, doctors, and the first lady of the United States. Countless gym memberships, fitness tracking devices, sports drinks, and workout videos have been sold on this promise.

There's just one problem: This message is not only wrong, it's leading us astray in our fight against obesity.

To find out why, I read through more than 60 studies on exercise and weight loss. I also spoke to nine leading exercise, nutrition, and obesity researchers. Here's what I learned.

Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight, explained with 60+ studies - Vox - Pocket

 

[DragonBits]

"I'm going to make you work hard," a blonde and perfectly muscled fitness instructor screamed at me in a recent spinning class, "so you can have that second drink at happy hour!"

At the end of the 45-minute workout, my body was dripping with sweat. I felt like I'd worked really, really hard. And according to my bike, I had burned more than 700 calories. Surely I had earned an extra margarita.

The spinning instructor was echoing a message we've been getting for years: As long as you get on that bike or treadmill, you can keep indulging — and still lose weight. It's been reinforced by fitness gurus, celebrities, food and beverage companies like PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, and even public health officials, doctors, and the first lady of the United States. Countless gym memberships, fitness tracking devices, sports drinks, and workout videos have been sold on this promise.

There's just one problem: This message is not only wrong, it's leading us astray in our fight against obesity.

To find out why, I read through more than 60 studies on exercise and weight loss. I also spoke to nine leading exercise, nutrition, and obesity researchers. Here's what I learned.

Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight, explained with 60+ studies - Vox - Pocket

But for me, one other very important takeaway from this article.

But they also found there was a strong relationship between exercise and keeping weight off. (The study participants who managed to maintain their weight loss after six years got 80 minutes of moderate exercise per day or 35 minutes of daily vigorous exercise.)

"Consistent with previous reports, large and persistent increases in [physical activity] may be required for long-term maintenance of lost weight," the researchers concluded.

I have often wondered about the accuracy of calorie counters on gym equipment, as it seems to me that exercising for an hour of on treadmill and "burning" 400+ calories doesn't seem to mean I can eat 400 more calories or that this puts me even further into calorie deficit. I sometimes try and investigate how they arrive at 400 calories, do they add your basal metabolism rate to the total getting a higher number?

Still, I strongly feel that exercise is necessary to readjust my bodies weight set point, change how I eat. Another strategy I sometimes employ, I equate exercise calories with food calories. Like wow, that running was hard, but if I eat a candy bar it erases a 1/2 hour of running. It's not worth the pleasure of eating that big mac if it means I have to run another hour. So indirectly it helps me cut down on eating.

An aside, I like white castle hamburgers, not really a hamburger IMO, more like a appetizer, but when I looked at the calories for one, it's 140 each. In the past I could polish off 5 from a sack of 10 while driving before I got them back home.

Just seeing how many calories some foods represent helped me cut back on eating.

Too bad they can't make a magic fitbit that keeps a running total of calories taken in as we eat and snack though out the day. I bet that would help.

 

[fifty]

Calorie counters on exercise equipment are for motivation, not accuracy.

Either way, you can’t out-train a bad diet.

 

[JohnTaylorHK]

[QUOTE="fifty, post: 142021, member:
"Either way, you can’t out-train a bad diet".[/QUOTE]

Slogan for my next custom Tee-shirt!