Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight, 60 studies

[Blue Cat]

otolith said:

The question that piece raises is - did the metabolic abnormalities they have now occur because they got fat and then lost a lot of weight, or are they what caused them to get enormous in the first place.

What I found most interesting about it was the problems they had after they lost the weight, and the fact it makes it so much more complex that just eat less, lose more and why so many people end up putting the weight back on. Everything is so focussed on getting to that perfect weight and not what happens afterwards, in fact it suits the dieting business if we all just put weight back on and just go around in circles.

[Blue Cat]

LordGrover said:

Not really, nothing new. See the OP article and read something like Perfect Health Diet or Why We Get Fat.

The OP article is about losing weight and my article is what happens to the body after you have lost the weight, it is two different studies for two different problems.

There has been a lot written about losing weight but every little about after you have lost it and the problems you may face.

[Derek Smith]

johnwilliams77 said:

okgo said:

I never changed my diet one bit, and still generally eat and drink what I like.

I went from doing no exercise to doing around 10-12 hours a week of cycling. I lost 20 kg in about 12 months.

+1 except I lost about 35kg and cycle half the amount but run about 20km a week and walk a lot.

I was quite fit and with a healthy appetite that I kept in check. I was around 14 stone, 6'3". The weight varied with the time of year. Winter +5lbs, summer down to a few lbs under.

Then I discovered off-road cycling. For 5 years I cycled around 200 miles per week, losing a stone in the process but eating much more.

I stopped cycling 12 years ago due to a back injury and other health matters but the appetite remained. I'm up to 17 stone and struggling to lose it. Yet I eat about half what I used to before I started cycling.

Everyone tells me my weight is nothing to do with exercise yet my weight drops in summer as I walk a lot more.

I'm considering a recliner bike. I'll let you know if my weight drops.

[okgo]

Its bullst used by lazy people.

Its so easy to lose weight, do more and eat less, and obviously don't eat total st ALL the time, not rocket is it.

[johnwilliams77]

okgo said:

Its bullst used by lazy people.

Its so easy to lose weight, do more and eat less, and obviously don't eat total st ALL the time, not rocket is it.

Is the article bullst though? It was quite surprising to read that one guy couldnt eat more than 800cals without putting on weight!

[andy_s]

I think it's been demonstrated lots of times that crash-fasting (in effect what the contestants do on the program/study group) puts the body in 'famine' mode, so when you eventually do get food more energy is diverted into fat so that the body has reserves for the next 'famine'. This isn't a new find, indeed the Germans studied this (albeit under horrific conditions) during WWII.

[johnwilliams77]

andy_s said:

I think it's been demonstrated lots of times that crash-fasting (in effect what the contestants do on the program/study group) puts the body in 'famine' mode, so when you eventually do get food more energy is diverted into fat so that the body has reserves for the next 'famine'. This isn't a new find, indeed the Germans studied this (albeit under horrific conditions) during WWII.

That's not the point though

[mcelliott]

Derek Smith said:

I'm considering a recliner bike. I'll let you know if my weight drops.

Well let me see now, I'm going to take a punt on this, and say that you will lose some weight by introducing some exercise to your regime.

[andy_s]

johnwilliams77 said:

That's not the point though

I wasn't really answering the post above, just commenting on the self-defeating method of crash dieting & why perhaps it doesn't work (ie the body adjusts to expect a period of famine having experienced it).
It took people all their life to put that weight on, and they want to get rid of it as if it was a badly cut suit. It doesn't work like that.

[bloomen]

This is given serious consideration? If I diet alone then perhaps things'll slowly shrink. If I walk an hour up hill every day in addition then the weight loss increases by a multiple factor. Evidently I must be some type of android.

[ChasW]

I have only done this once so it's by no means scientific. 10 years ago I had get to my BMI for medical reasons. It meant losing 40lbs which I achieved in 6 months through exercise and diet.

Exercise:
Previously - one hour five-a-side plus one proper eleven-a-side game per week. No other training as I was already a veteran by then!
Additionally - 3 fifty minute runs per week, plus walking instead of bus/tube, time and weather permitting.

Diet:
Cut out sugar in tea/coffee and cereals, permanently
No alcohol for first 3 months
Only semi-skimmed milk, permanently
No snacks or biscuits between meals
No butter

I am not sure how I should attribute the loss but the exercise makes you feel good and denial makes you sanctimonious. I don't recall the exercise making me feel extra hungry. At the time I was running quite late in the evening so by the time I returned I just needed to to calm down and I was soon quite sleepy and less hungry.

[Otispunkmeyer]

okgo said:

I never changed my diet one bit, and still generally eat and drink what I like.

I went from doing no exercise to doing around 10-12 hours a week of cycling. I lost 20 kg in about 12 months.

I think for most people, the diet approach is probably the more prevelant with exercise being the minor contributor. I mean to really shift some fat you have to burn serious numbers of calories and its not going to happen with 30 minutes stern walking on a treadmill 3 x a week.

When I was a bit younger I used to train in the pool maybe 17-20 hours a week. 60 km a week most weeks and then dry land on top of that, + school, + doing sports at school. In hindsight I don't think I ate enough to really develop as a swimmer like my pals did. But in that instance we were doing so much that you could literally eat whatever you wanted and until you were fit to burst. I mean for some it probably got to the point where any calories in was good as it was better than no calories at all or you'd not make it through the next 2 hour set.

I didn't and still don't have a naturally big appetite. I can have a regular breakfast and make it all the way to evening meal time before I even get sniff of hunger pangs. Others I know are climbing up the walls for something to eat by 11 am!

So yeah for most, the diet is surely the thing. But there must be a point where sheer volume of exercise becomes the dictator. But for most people that level just isn't do able or sustainable because of real life (unless you're a school kid or are actually a professional athlete and are paid to exercise).

[Otispunkmeyer]

Hoofy said:

johnwilliams77 said:

okgo said:

I never changed my diet one bit, and still generally eat and drink what I like.

I went from doing no exercise to doing around 10-12 hours a week of cycling. I lost 20 kg in about 12 months.

+1 except I lost about 35kg and cycle half the amount but run about 20km a week and walk a lot.

WITCHES! BURN THEM!!

Ditto, really. Furthermore, I used to be ectomorph but then kept eating and didn't bother moving, starting becoming endomorph. Starting moving a lot again but included picking up weights, holy st, Batman, I'm now mesomorph.

Im ecto... can't seem to break 80kg though! But sitting on my arse eating is something I can't force myself to do either. Forever a pipe-cleaner.

[LordGrover]

Click.

[Otispunkmeyer]

ChasW said:

I have only done this once so it's by no means scientific. 10 years ago I had get to my BMI for medical reasons. It meant losing 40lbs which I achieved in 6 months through exercise and diet.

Exercise:
Previously - one hour five-a-side plus one proper eleven-a-side game per week. No other training as I was already a veteran by then!
Additionally - 3 fifty minute runs per week, plus walking instead of bus/tube, time and weather permitting.

Diet:
Cut out sugar in tea/coffee and cereals, permanently
No alcohol for first 3 months
Only semi-skimmed milk, permanently
No snacks or biscuits between meals
No butter

I am not sure how I should attribute the loss but the exercise makes you feel good and denial makes you sanctimonious. I don't recall the exercise making me feel extra hungry. At the time I was running quite late in the evening so by the time I returned I just needed to to calm down and I was soon quite sleepy and less hungry.

I can agree with most of those (though sugar is yummy. Especially sugar + butter in the form of a cake!). But the tea/coffee thing? Is this just from a caffine perspective or is there something else in them? I always thought tea wasn't to bad to drink. Certainly better than any soft drink. Green tea is even better!

[Pieman68]

Started running a couple of years ago and saw some gradual loss whilst not really getting to grips with my diet

I ran my first half marathon in September last year at 19.5 stone. It was a grind but I made it

After losing my Mother in law in late August the training and diet suffered over the winter and the weight crept back on

Started running again a couple of months ago, but this time I have changed my diet as well. Have currently lost around 2 stone and completed Leeds half marathon on Sunday, whilst taking 20 minutes off my time

Diet is definitely a massive factor. Believe that the 80/20 split mentioned above is probably about right

Now for the next 3 stone - see how my times drop with even more weight off

[RobM77]

I'll have to wait until after work to read the article properly, but I find it very hard to believe, because at the end of the day your weight boils down to a basic "calories in, calories out" equation. I'm living proof of this because I do a lot of outdoor sports, and during BST, when I have the time to do them, my weight drops steadily, and then once GMT starts my weight starts increasing again because I'm not exercising as much. I generally weigh about 65-70kg in summer and 70-75kg in winter.

I think one thing that people do seem to mis-understand is the sheer amount of calories in a lot of junk food and how this relates to exercise. For example, an hour after work on my bike burns about 500-600 calories, which for me is a lot because I eat healthily; making my own healthy sandwiches each day and cooking my dinners from scratch every night. However, if you're inclined to eat st, that hour on the bikes goes absolutely nowhere, but that's not the fault of the exercise, it's the food!

The other thing with exercise of course is that it builds muscle and your resting metabolic rate. Muscle also weighs a lot, which can mask weight changes. Sadly, fat percentage is very difficult to measure accurately.

[Blue Cat]

This whole area is interesting to me because I have recently started putting on weight and this was despite doing 19 hours a week of manual warehouse work and giving up sugar, cakes, sweets for the period of Lent, living on only meat, fish, veg and fruit

But I found that if I ate more than 1,000 calories, I was putting on about 2lbs a week and put on over a stone in weight in six weeks.

So at a recent visit to the doctor about something different, I mentioned this and he did a series of blood tests and found out that I have an under active thyroid for which I have started treatment and after two weeks, I can already see a difference, weight increase has stopped and I just feel overall better.

That's why I question the simple mantra is "eat less lose weight" as there are other factors which can play into it

[RobM77]

Blue Cat said:

This whole area is interesting to me because I have recently started putting on weight and this was despite doing 19 hours a week of manual warehouse work and giving up sugar, cakes, sweets for the period of Lent, living on only meat, fish, veg and fruit

But I found that if I ate more than 1,000 calories, I was putting on about 2lbs a week and put on over a stone in weight in six weeks.

So at a recent visit to the doctor about something different, I mentioned this and he did a series of blood tests and found out that I have an under active thyroid for which I have started treatment and after two weeks, I can already see a difference, weight increase has stopped and I just feel overall better.

That's why I question the simple mantra is "eat less lose weight" as there are other factors which can play into it

Oh gosh, yes, if you actually have a medical problem then that's another matter entirely! I think most people posting here, me included, are assuming we're advising someone who is otherwise healthy and normal.

[LeoSayer]

andy_s said:

It's pretty much common sense, god knows how industries have grown around it; 1 Mars bar = 60mins walk - pretty much everything you need to know can be extrapolated from that in respect to what's effective for weight loss.

and a full english breakfast = 2 hours jogging

Most people will find it easier to skip the full english than to run for 2 hours.