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Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight

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Re: Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight

#41

Post by criley2 »

falcolas wrote: post #8
mholmes680 wrote: post #2

But, wait.... #10 - eat less fat? That runs counter to science too... http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-con...

Fat is very dense in calories, so if your goal is to reduce caloric intake, reducing the fat will go a long ways towards that goal.

>Fat is very dense in calories, so if your goal is to reduce caloric intake, reducing the fat will go a long ways towards that goal.

This thinking empowers so much over-eating in today's diet world. There's a trope with the broken low-fat wisdom that when you buy low-fat foods, you're almost always buying high-sugar high-salt foods (have to replace flavor somehow).

Even worse, upper intestinal lipids trigger a feeling of satiation, of fullness, through the gut–brain–liver axis.

If you deprive yourself of lipids, you deprive yourself of satiation -- eating a healthy mix of fats in your meals helps you feel more full and sated and eat overall less, and feel good about eating overall less.

Re: Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight

#42

Post by ethan_g »

maxerickson wrote: post #26
taiboku wrote: post #22

This article misses a key point: increased muscle mass correlates with increased calorie burn. Not all exercise is created equal. Exercise that doesn't build muscle is indeed ineffective at burning fat. But exercise that DOES build muscle has a compounding effect on burning fat. Your muscles require more energy to maintain, so they will burn more calories just by existing.

This effect is pretty small. Like 10 calories a day for a pound of muscle (which is quite a bit of muscle to add). It still matters, a few calories a day for a year ends up being pounds of weight, but adjusting calories out of the diet is going to be a better first strategy.

Building muscle can burn crazy calories though. It's quite common for normal men (I'm not talking about pro athletes, just ordinary guys) on strength training programs to add 500-1000 calories/day to their diet, and not gain fat. I wish the article would have mentioned this, because it only seems to talk about cardio exercise, which indeed makes it difficult to burn a lot of calories.

Re: Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight

#43

Post by yuzi »

I went from 190 lbs. to 138 lbs. over 6 or 7 months. The only exercise I did was jogging for 45 min a day. What I noticed was that jogging made me feel better, which somehow got me to consistently eat better. After a days jogging I didn't want to put crap food in me and ruin what I had accomplished and by doing it everyday I felt good enough, often enough to stick with it.

So, based on my experience, I simply can not agree.

Re: Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight

#44

Post by revelation »

taiboku wrote: post #22

This article misses a key point: increased muscle mass correlates with increased calorie burn. Not all exercise is created equal. Exercise that doesn't build muscle is indeed ineffective at burning fat. But exercise that DOES build muscle has a compounding effect on burning fat. Your muscles require more energy to maintain, so they will burn more calories just by existing.

You are certainly correct about one thing: "not all exercise is created equal".

In fact, the muscle-building type of exercise (lifting) is hilariously bad at burning any kind of energy. Here is a rough estimate:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(30*500)kg+.5+meter+aga...

Re: Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight

#45

Post by Retric »

yuzi wrote: post #43

I went from 190 lbs. to 138 lbs. over 6 or 7 months. The only exercise I did was jogging for 45 min a day. What I noticed was that jogging made me feel better, which somehow got me to consistently eat better. After a days jogging I didn't want to put crap food in me and ruin what I had accomplished and by doing it everyday I felt good enough, often enough to stick with it. So, based on my experience, I simply can not…

Exercise is harder to keep up long term and gaining back the same weight after 5 years is not that useful.

Re: Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight

#46

Post by ChemicalWarfare »

Anecdotal evidence from being a gym rat for 20 years, although I'm sure there are studies out there to prove this. Maybe :)

No doubt that diet+exercise is the way to go when it comes to long-term weight management. The thing is, "weight loss" in and of itself is a misleading metric. You're losing weight! Great! But hold on a minute - your gut is the same size but your biceps is smaller and your strength is way down. What happened? You lost weight alright but its muscle you're losing, not fat.

So where I'm going with this is exercise is very important to make sure you don't negatively impact your body composition by losing muscle weight when dieting.

Re: Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight

#47

Post by Retric »

revelation wrote: post #44
taiboku wrote: post #22

This article misses a key point: increased muscle mass correlates with increased calorie burn. Not all exercise is created equal. Exercise that doesn't build muscle is indeed ineffective at burning fat. But exercise that DOES build muscle has a compounding effect on burning fat. Your muscles require more energy to maintain, so they will burn more calories just by existing.

You are certainly correct about one thing: "not all exercise is created equal". In fact, the muscle-building type of exercise (lifting) is hilariously bad at burning any kind of energy. Here is a rough estimate: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(30*500)kg+.5+meter+aga...

Humans are far less than 100% efficient. Aerobic weightlifting is one of the highest energy burns per minute of any exercise type.

Re: Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight

#48

Post by yuzi »

Retric wrote: post #45
yuzi wrote: post #43

I went from 190 lbs. to 138 lbs. over 6 or 7 months. The only exercise I did was jogging for 45 min a day. What I noticed was that jogging made me feel better, which somehow got me to consistently eat better. After a days jogging I didn't want to put crap food in me and ruin what I had accomplished and by doing it everyday I felt good enough, often enough to stick with it. So, based on my experience, I simply can not…

Exercise is harder to keep up long term and gaining back the same weight after 5 years is not that useful.

Not for me. I may have stopped working out for long periods, since then, but the 6-7 months of diet change stuck which was enough to maintain the weight loss (approximatley). 14 years now.

Re: Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight

#49

Post by jtuente »

dualogy wrote: post #19
samfisher83 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It you a eat a lot of fat you will get fat too. Its all about moderation. If you eat 4000 calories of FAT everyday you will get fat.

> It you a eat a lot of fat you will get fat too. Its all about moderation. If you eat 4000 calories of FAT everyday you will get fat Calories-in-calories-out without considering the hormones that drive both satiety and crucially fat-storage-vs-fat-mobilization (and thus drive both how many calories are craved and how many are burned) is misguided. CICO isn't wrong, but for all practical purposes what drives CICO in…

> Calories-in-calories-out without considering the hormones

Your argument here boils down to: CICO is easier with a balanced diet. I don't think a reasonable person is going to argue against that.

> after a few weeks of keto-adaptation? They'd be a tad little bit fatter than they'd like

Honestly, if they could stomach it, they'd balloon up just as much as its opposite. Keto-adaptation doesn't change how your body processes fat, it just does a better job of not making a person feel ill when eating more fat in their diet.

Re: Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight

#50

Post by revelation »

Retric wrote: post #47
revelation wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are certainly correct about one thing: "not all exercise is created equal". In fact, the muscle-building type of exercise (lifting) is hilariously bad at burning any kind of energy. Here is a rough estimate: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(30*500)kg+.5+meter+aga...

Humans are far less than 100% efficient. Aerobic weightlifting is one of the highest energy burns per minute of any exercise type.

Humans are about 25% efficient, so feel free to multiply any number with 4 to get actual expended energy.

That doesn't change the calculus, obviously. I can easily sustain 150W for an hour on a bike, I can't lift 225kg half a metre against gravity 500 times (the equivalent).

(The idea here is that you try to back up lofty claims with some science numbers.)

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