I'm tired and cranky -- someone please debunk this!



The basic message is that calls for exercise to reduce fat are not supported by evidence. Ergo, exercise will not make you lose appreciable weight/fat and keep it off.



The author, Sandy Szwarc, claims to have no funding from Big Money with ulterior motives. She is a supporter of the Fat Acceptance movement.



I intuitively don't agree, but I can't really back up my opinion with facts -- only personal anecdotes (I've gotten a lot healthier and stronger after adopting exercise and better nutrition).



ETA: My problem though is that I respect Ms. Szwarc's views. Well researched and critical. Maybe the problem is that studies about obesity are just too sloppy? Meaning, you can't base anything on the data -- even though "intuitively" you know the recommendations are correct? After all, it took several thousand years for knowledge of physics to advance from Aristotle to Isaac Newton. Whatever.

I think it's Shawn W that keeps posting that diet is key and exercise just helps. I'm firmly in that boat with him. Exercise is awesome, it makes you feel good, it burns calories, you usually end up with more energy, etc, etc.



However, many people translate exercise into I can eat whatever I want because I exercised. However, most people have a huge lack of understanding as to how many calories activity x burns. If you only exercise, and don't look at your diet, your diet will probably easily grow and cancel out any gains in exercising. Think about it, you run on the treadmill for 30 minutes and probably burn around 300 calories. You eat a 4 oreos with an extra glass of milk (good for you, protein, calcium...) and have now easily eaten more calories then you burned (and this probably took less than 5 minutes). It also probably didn't feel like you ate any or much more than normal.



I think exercise and diet can work together. If your only goal is weight loss, then diet will help you take it off and keep it off. If your goal is to get into shape for some activity, then you have to add exercise into the equation, but you can't forget about diet.



Apparently the average American eats 3790 calories a day, even though the suggested daily amount is around 2000 for an adult. That's almost double. 30 minutes of exercise (even 1.5 hrs) with no change in diet isn't going to help. Sure you'll lose weight at the beginning, but not for long, as to maintain consuming that much means you have to start burning more and more per day. And yet, as you get more in shape you're going to burn less, so have to work harder... what a vicious cycle.



I think the main problem with these studies, is that too many are done looking at either calorie restriction or exercise, instead of combining them. You said it yourself (with my added emphasis) "I've gotten a lot healthier and stronger after adopting exercise and better nutrition."

I agree that exercise alone doesn't seem to shift much weight (from my own experience, anyway) and that proper nutrition seems to be the key to weight loss.



But so what? Does that mean we should all stop exercising? The fact is that EXERCISE IS GOOD FOR YOU... No study is ever going to disprove that!!! It is about so much more than weight loss... And I think that once you have lost weight that exercise can help to control your weight from then on - provided your diet is still good.



If you need reassurance read this... exercise may not necessarily help with weight loss but it will half your risk of dying prematurely! Yaaayyyy!!!



http://dailyviews.runnersworld.com/2008/08/run-lon g-live-l.html

CRIKEY. If that's the average, the high end of that scale is scary.



More fuel for the clean-eating-clean-burning fire.

Wohoo my kind of thread



I'll say it again (thanks Neesha! )



Diet = Key. It is what unlocks the door to weightloss

Exercise is what turns the knob faster to opening the door to weightloss



I had a girl at work i've been helping for a bit come up and say she 'earned' a pound cake from the vending machine after 5 weeks of working hard for 3lbs of fat loss. I said lets look at the pound cake and she found it had 570 calories. 1/4 of a normal days intake of calories... suddenly it didn't seem so good.



I am eating 3000 calories or so of 'good' food. And I have to 'work' at it to make sure I do it. My partner at work eats 3000+ with ease of junk... candy bars, soda, zingers, chips, you name it.. and he shows. Doesn't matter what exercise he does... he gains fat...



Weight loss is built around the concept of a great diet. Excercise helps us be in better shape, and be healthier and 'suppliments' that diet



Don't give up on exercise but don't count on it helping you lose weight if you eat a gallon of ice cream every night.

I've seen people lose a ton of fat without any exercise, just changed their diet. You gotta intake less food than your body burns so it has to release it's own fat for energy, but exercise helps. Many people assume you can eat cookies, chips and soda all day as long as you exercise, when what they eat is the biggest factor in whether they shed fat or not.

got a 60 year old guy I have coached on his diet and he lost 30lb+ in 1 year just by changing his food.



4 servings of ice cream, countless soda's and no protein... his diet was junk...



now he eats clean and enjoys what he eats and the fat just came off with ease over time.



Biggest challenge I give anyone who asks for help with their weight is to track everything you eat for 1-2 weeks and look at what your really eating.



Its a shocker to those who do it.

I know someone who lost a ton of weight by changing her diet, but she never exercised so she got skinny, but was still kinda flabby since she never developed muscles.

I feel like the best recipe for a fit body is 90% diet, 10% exercise. You eat a lot more often than you exercise so it requires more focus and will-power. Although, exercise is what will keep you from being "skinny fat" in the end.

My husband has always contended that it's not exercise that makes someone lose weight: it's food intake. He NEVER exercises formally (he does do our yardwork, though, and he's not lazy about doing things around the house), and he has NEVER had a weight problem.



My own experience has shown that exercise helps in MAINTAINING weight loss. I find that I can be a bit more relaxed with my eating while maintaining my weight if I exercise regularly. For instance, I might be able to eat a couple of cookies after dinner because I've burned off 300 calories on the treadmill that morning.

I'm a big believer in this as well, diet is a good 80% of what leads to weight loss; however I would disagree with the notion that exercise does NOT lead to weight-loss. I'd say 9 out of 10 people I know that make this argument are usually extremely overweight and are simply trying to justify their lack of commitment to exercise rather than simply accepting their situation for what it is and doing something about it. That argument is a rationalization and justification for laziness.



What it comes down to is simple: you really need both. As for how much exercise and what you do depends greatly on your goals, but exercise is REQUIRED to live a healthy life, from the cardio vascular benefit to just being strong there is NO REASON to not do some form of exercise on a regular basis.

Of course. There are only two data points and one environmental factor to consider here, at the most basic level, in terms of whether exercise leads to weight loss or not. Diet and exercise, and your rate of weight loss/gain. To measure the effect of either diet or exercise on the rate at which your weight changes, we must ensure that the other remains constant - this is science at the most empirical level.



So, if you're eating one way and your weight is constant, if you add exercise and maintain diet, you will lose weight (barring any health issues, this is infallible and not open to argument). As previously mentioned, exercise only creates a rather small caloric deficit, so it might just be a pound a month, but you will lose.



If you want to maximize your weight loss, you need to start thinking of eating in terms of fuel for your body, and you need to maximize your lean body mass by doing resistance training. But that's another thread I'm sure

All right, I just read the article and it's appalling. She draws inaccurate and illogical conclusions. Her point seems to be made in the last sentence, and is a valid one, but I find it incredibly irresponsible to have written the rest of this article for that one point. Bottom line is that exercise in addition to dietary modification is absolutely necessary for "fat people" to lose weight and be healthy. For example...



Scientist says (quoted by Sandy):

"...There is little evidence that suggests that exercise alone produces magnitudes of weight loss that are similar to what can be achieved with dietary modification."



What does that mean? Diet has a more significant effect on weight loss than does exercise. What does that imply? Exercise still promotes weight loss.



Sandy says:

"So if exercise alone doesn’t seem to work, then how about exercising longer?"



What?



Scientist Says:

"...When resistance exercise is combined with dietary energy restriction, there appears to be little benefit in terms of absolute weight loss. These results have been consistent across studies with energy intakes as low as 800 kcal/d or as high as approximately 1300 kcal/day."



Sandy Says:

"Even while eating starvation-level calories in clinical studies, resistance exercise had no effect on weight loss, according to the ACSM:"



OF COURSE!!! If you're starving yourself and trying to build muscle, something is gonna give!! This is an absurd statement and should have no bearing on the conclusion of this article. Writing this down is only going to serve to confuse the issue among the majority of the population, who are not knowledgeable about the subject. The Scottish government is recommending daily exercise and twice weekly resistance training - leave diet the same and add those and you're going to lose weight and improve your health.

Here's what I've learned. First off, Sandy, if you're starving yourself and not giving yourself the appropriate caloric intake for your body to survive, your body is going to go into self-preservation mode. It does this by storing more of an abundant energy source in case of famine. This energy source is fat. Fat is there for a reason. It's in case you ever start to starve. And if you starve yourself, you're just training your body to save more fat.



The key to weight loss is to first un-train your body to no longer store fat for a forthcoming famine. This means eat 6 small meals a day instead of 3 large ones. Make sure your meals are nutritious and full of great stuff (french fries are a no no people). You basically tell your body, "Hey, relax. Nobody is going to starve."



When it comes to exercise, resistance (strength) training helps to increase your metabolism and seriously burns up energy quick. Initially your muscles use the carbohydrates stored in your muscles as it's primary source. Once that's drained, it's off to using the energy storage you have in other places, which includes fat. The great thing about resistance training is that once you've done your workout, your muscles are in repair mode. This also takes energy. People can have up to 48 hours AFTER they have done resistance training just burning calories/fat just by sitting there and repairing their muscles. And hey, for every pound of muscle you gain, you have to burn more calories just to maintain that muscle. And that means eating more healthy food.



Cardiovascular workouts (running, swimming, biking, etc) is great to increase cardiovascular health. This means everything pumping your blood. Your primary muscle, your heart will improve. The goal for cardiovascular workouts is to to make your heart work less when providing your needed blood flow. The other great thing about cardiovascular work outs is depending on the amount of work you put into it, the more interesting ratio of carbohydrates to fat you lose. One problem to cardiovascular workouts is that I think people should keep them short enough to still gain the benefits of increasing their cardiovascular health but to reduce the downside. The downside is after completely using up your carbohydrate store, cardiovascular exercise can begin to eat up your muscle tissue as energy. Keep it light.



So honestly, it's a true balance. Resistance training isn't going to help if you're still eating garbage. And if you start starving yourself and you start working out, you're just going to put your body into a bigger famine-alert mode.



BTW, just joined traineo. Hope to make a few friends. Contact me and we'll get fit together!

I've seen this stated by folks who've gone through a diet induced skinny-fat phase before discovering the joys of exercise, like ChickenTuna (her BodySpace user name).



For the old timers, yes sorry for the shameless cheerleadering once again!



My respect for Ms. Szwarc's blog is beginning to tarnish as well. I'm currently doing my own readings into Metabolic Syndrome and criticisms of it, related to another article of hers, and I'm seeing inconsistencies as well. That's a topic for another post...



Well, I'm not about to give up on exercise that's for sure -- even though circumstances have forced me to switch more to cardio than strength training (against my preferences).