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The Myth of Moderate Exercise

time.com

51–60 of 69 posts

Re: The Myth of Moderate Exercise

#51

Perhaps the problem is that the study only considered exercise is moderate. I've found high intensity exercise for short periods of time (20-40 minutes, 3-4 times a week) has far more effect for me personally than moderate exercise (45-60 minutes, 5-6 times a week) I've seen more personal improvement doing CrossFit (www.crossfit.com) than I ever did previously going to the local gym.

read the whole article. They tried to get some of the women to do high intensity exercise, but they couldn't stick to the protocol.

> Jakicic and his colleagues originally designed their study to measure whether weight loss could really be achieved and maintained through moderate-intensity exercise... or whether it was preferable to engage in shorter bursts of more vigorous-intensity activity... The problem was that not enough of the women stuck with their assigned exercise categories for the researchers to gather enough meaningful data. Within a few months, most of the participants had resorted to exercising as much as they chose to. That left researchers with a slightly different data set than they had planned for

(FWIW I'm all about HIIT, but I don't know how you can get people into it once it becomes inconceivable to do high-intensity work.)

Re: The Myth of Moderate Exercise

#52
post #47
post #36

Just don't eat when not hungry. Most people eat large quantities of food all at once. Stop half way and wait 20 minutes and you might not be hungry anymore. If you eat too quickly then you don't know at what point you'd eaten enough to satisfy your hunger.

This only works for people who have their "hunger point" properly calibrated to when they should actually stop eating. Some folks don't stop feeling hungry until well after they should have stopped eating, leading them to eat way too many calories. John Walker explains this concept in his "The Eat Watch" chapter here: http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/eatwatch.html

So how do you move it down? Fast for a few days?

Re: The Myth of Moderate Exercise

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This suggests that liposuction is actually an important step if you want to keep fat off.

not necessarily. if the body can somehow keep count, it may just replace the cells you remove. I'm not sure we know for certain either way yet.

My guess would be that that won't happen any more than limbs get regrown. Of course, my guess is pretty worthless. :)

Re: The Myth of Moderate Exercise

#54
post #32

Read the book "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes. The scientific evidence supports the theory that carbos, especially refined carbs and sugars, are the cause of obesity and a raft of modern ailments. The most striking comment was that input (eating) and output (exercise) are dependent variables... something that these eatless/exercisemore approaches ignore.

Or watch this lecture by Taubes: http://webcast.berkeley.edu/event_details.php?webcastid=2121...

Re: The Myth of Moderate Exercise

#55
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One theory says that the food you eat can affect your set point. High-calorie, strongly flavored foods that are easily digested (which make up most of the modern American diet) raise your set point. Breaking the flavor-calorie association with flavorless calories supposedly lowers your set point. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shangri-La_Diet

> High-calorie, strongly flavored foods that are easily digested I think French cuisine is WAY more flavorful and calorie dense, and they're thin.

The French have more leisure time than Americans. It's just as much about what going on in your life stress-wise as it is about what you eat.

We have much to learn about life-work balance from the rest of the world. It's unfortunate that some parts of the world look at America and think that they should be emulating us! Please stop that before it's too late.

America needs Mexican siestas and French vacation time in the worst way.

Re: The Myth of Moderate Exercise

#56
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. White americans, are similiar to Europeans (more like a mix), yet they are a lot fatter. And how do you explain people in North California, or northern VA/DC/Maryland being a lot slimer than people just a state away. It seems more a enviroment/culturual/city walkability thing

The walkability and culture things are pretty critical, but my armchair opinion is that the biggest factor is fat consumption. Americans eat something like 20% as much fat as they did in the 40s, and the drop off since the early 80s has been fairly sharp. People are eating much less fat and much more starch, with all the insulin and fat storage implications that brings. Across time and between nations now the role of…

I disagree. On average, the Japanese get over 80% of their calories from carbohydrates, and over half from rice alone. They're also the thinnest of all economically developed people in the world, and have the greatest longevity.

Furthermore, in the 1970's the Japanese diet was even more dominated by carbohydrates and people the populace was even thinner. At that time, 75% of calories were supplied by rice, and close to 90% by carbohydrates in general.

The phenomena isn't restricted to Japan either China is also seeing increasing obesity, heart disease and diabetes as its people living in top-tier and second tier cities adopt diets higher in fat and higher in protein.

The current American diet is actually unusually high in protein and fat by historical (i.e. pre-WWII) standards.

Re: The Myth of Moderate Exercise

#57
post #54
post #32

Read the book "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes. The scientific evidence supports the theory that carbos, especially refined carbs and sugars, are the cause of obesity and a raft of modern ailments. The most striking comment was that input (eating) and output (exercise) are dependent variables... something that these eatless/exercisemore approaches ignore.

Or watch this lecture by Taubes: http://webcast.berkeley.edu/event_details.php?webcastid=2121...

Damn! Realplayer....

Re: The Myth of Moderate Exercise

#58
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The walkability and culture things are pretty critical, but my armchair opinion is that the biggest factor is fat consumption. Americans eat something like 20% as much fat as they did in the 40s, and the drop off since the early 80s has been fairly sharp. People are eating much less fat and much more starch, with all the insulin and fat storage implications that brings. Across time and between nations now the role of…

I disagree. On average, the Japanese get over 80% of their calories from carbohydrates, and over half from rice alone. They're also the thinnest of all economically developed people in the world, and have the greatest longevity. Furthermore, in the 1970's the Japanese diet was even more dominated by carbohydrates and people the populace was even thinner. At that time, 75% of calories were supplied by rice, and close…

Japanese lifespan and health have improved as fat consumption has risen almost geometrically. The healthiest Japanese are the Okinawans, with the highest fat consumption.

I can't comment on why Japanese have relatively low rates of obesity for the industrialized world with a starchy diet. But the pattern does generally hold true.

> The current American diet is actually unusually high in protein and fat by historical (i.e. pre-WWII) standards.

This is simply wrong with regard to fat. I don't know about the exact change in protein intake, but people eat much less fat and oil now than historically. You can't even get things like beef kidney, suet, or lard anymore at American grocery stores.

Re: The Myth of Moderate Exercise

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just quickly went through the references and every one of them is either: a pooled analysis (inscrutable), a relative risk factor analysis (worthless; assumptions piled on assumptions), or doesn't indicate anything about servings. I have in the past seen actual population studies, not pop media articles, looking at relative vegetable consumption and coming up blank. High rates of heart disease in indian vegetarians…

>> High rates of heart disease in indian vegetarians... Have you ever been to an Indian restaurant and ordered a vegetarian meal? While incredibly flavorful, I wouldn't classify it as even moderately healthy--

What is served in Indian restaurants (especially in the US) is far removed from and has way too much oil / cream than what is the norm in Indian homes.

Re: The Myth of Moderate Exercise

#60
post #48

I'm in good shape. To some people, it's a bit of a mystery how I'm much more physically fit than they are. They know I go to the gym, but, hey, they go to the gym sometimes, too, so what's the deal? Here's the secret: I work really, really hard. When I go to the gym, I push myself as far as I can take it mentally and physically that day. Some days it's more than others. But overall, I work much harder in the gym than…

Except it is a chore, it's not fun. If we could just take a magic pill and instantly be in shape, I can't imagine anyone still choosing to exercise, thus, chore!
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