You cannot exercise your way out of obesity

[MillCreek]

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/843600

http://mashable.com/2015/04/23/obesity-exercise-uk-study/

Although exercise is beneficial in other ways.

[makattak]

Medscape requires a login.

As to the other article, I'd like to see some more studies on this.

I do find it humorous, though, that after my entire lifetime of decrying the dangers of fat... suddenly fat is fine. It's now carbs that are bad.

(Until we find out that carbs aren't bad. It's artificial sweeteners. And then we'll find out that it's fat, again.)

[MechAg94]

Not having read it, it is much easier to consume more calories than burn them off.  Gluttony is easy.

[erictank]

Not having read it, it is much easier to consume more calories than burn them off.  Gluttony is easy.

This.

Though skinny-fat is a thing, too. Eat right, but don't exercise, and you still don't look good. You just look thin.

Which is not a problem I suffer from, sadly. Because I eat too much.

[Monkeyleg]

I remember Rush Limbaugh talking on his show about him losing weight. He hired a chef to cook for him, and make meals that were low in calories, fats and other bad stuff. He said that he exercised, but that it was the diet that made the difference.

My ex went to the gym daily, outdid all of the young people on the treadmill, had calfs the size of telephone poles, but lost only a few pounds. Her diet was everything one shouldn't eat to lose weight.

[zahc]

I hit 230 in grad school and when I decided to do something about it, I came to the same conclusion:even working out rigorously could not burn enough calories to work off the lard at a reasonable rate. To a first approximation, diet dominates. I cut calories to 2000 per day (I'm 6'1") and lost 30 pounds in 4 months. I was hungry constantly. It sucked but it worked.

Then 1-2 years later I suffered from poor strength and energy and creeping weight gain as my metabolism shifted; but that still doesn't invalidate the "first approximation". It seems the magical formula is indeed diet and exercise, but you will lose more weight focusing on the diet.

[Blakenzy]

Measuring "weight" alone is not a good indication of fat loss particularly if you follow a stout exercise regime.

[makattak]

Measuring "weight" alone is not a good indication of fat loss particularly if you follow a stout exercise regime.

This is a good point. I was amused by the cross-country girls in high school complaining that they ran all the time but were putting on weight.

"Muscle weighs more than fat, honey." And it looks a lot better.

[mtnbkr]

Well duh.

I exercise, count calories, and read labels.  Why?  I'm not a fit person naturally.  I have to work hard for every bit of fitness and strength I have.  Otherwise, I tend to gain weight and fall below the average in terms of strength.  I'm genetically unlucky I guess.

If I did a 4 mile run that involved 1200+ feet of climbing, I will burn about 600 calories.  That is a 1hr effort.  I can consume all that and more with a single trip to McDonalds, even being careful with what I select.  A 600cal meal from most restaurants is depressingly small.

Knowing the above, I can cut weight fast and keep it off as long as I maintain my willpower.  Unfortunately, I like to eat and have a sweet tooth as well as a salt tooth. Frankly, I like to eat.  No amount of exercise will offset the damage caused by my fork.

A pound of fat is roughly 3000 calories.  Every 3000 calories you consume over what your body needs is another pound you've gained.  It doesn't take much and it sneaks up on you.  It only takes an extra portion or two per day to hit that number in a week.  The only way to lose weight is to burn more than you consume, which means you're going to be hungry.  Sucks doesn't it?

Chris

[Blakenzy]

Ice Cream. I hold empiric evidence that icecream (particularly the brands that are the tastiest) hold a 1:1 ratio of mass consumed to mass of fat gained. It goes straight up in there, it's called the mouth-fat icecream shunt.

[mtnbkr]

I remember Rush Limbaugh talking on his show about him losing weight. He hired a chef to cook for him, and make meals that were low in calories, fats and other bad stuff. He said that he exercised, but that it was the diet that made the difference.

First time I actively tried to lose weight, in 2005, I did so entirely through portion control.  I went from 215 to 185.  I got back into biking and weight lifting the following year, but I stayed at or below 185 until 2010.  I lost control of my eating and slacked off on the exercise and went back up to 205 as of the beginning of 2014.  I got back on the portion control and exercise bus and am now at 182.

For weight alone, portion control is king.  Exercise just ensures you have fitness.

Chris

[brimic]

I'm genetically unlucky I guess.

Or you can look at it as you are genetically lucky and are equipped to survive feast and famine cycles that are actually the rule and not the exception on this planet.

[mtnbkr]

Or you can look at it as you are genetically lucky and are equipped to survive feast and famine cycles that are actually the rule and not the exception on this planet.

I was speaking more specifically to the lack of natural strength and my inability to maintain it if I don't go to the gym regularly.

Chris

[lupinus]

Yep. It takes an insane amount of hard physical activity to offset eating pretty much whatever you want. An hour at the gym a couple times a week doesn't offset not monitoring your diet. Hand working fields or training like an Olympic athlete might, but your zumba or whatever class ain't coming close when you sit on the couch munching chips the rest of the time.

[brimic]

Yep. It takes an insane amount of hard physical activity to offset eating pretty much whatever you want. An hour at the gym a couple times a week doesn't offset not monitoring your diet. Hand working fields or training like an Olympic athlete might, but your zumba or whatever class ain't coming close when you sit on the couch munching chips the rest of the time.

Being a teenager doesn't hurt either. My son pretty much cleans everything edible out of my pantry, he might even be eating the packaging too for all I know, he's like a 110lb locust swarm.

Edit: I now know why my parents were frustrated with me going through a box of corn flakes every day...

[makattak]

Being a teenager doesn't hurt either. My son pretty much cleans everything edible out of my pantry, he might even be eating the packaging too for all I know, he's like a 110lb locust swarm.

Edit: I now know why my parents were frustrated with me going through a box of corn flakes every day...

I've told my wife we're not allowed to have another child until my son is 5. That way, we can ship him off to college before having to worry about another teenage mouth to feed.

Incidentally, 15+ years later, people at my old church still talk about teenage me at potlucks. In addition to normal teenage metabolism, I ran an average of 6 miles per day...

[Monkeyleg]

First time I actively tried to lose weight, in 2005, I did so entirely through portion control.  I went from 215 to 185.  I got back into biking and weight lifting the following year, but I stayed at or below 185 until 2010.  I lost control of my eating and slacked off on the exercise and went back up to 205 as of the beginning of 2014.  I got back on the portion control and exercise bus and am now at 182.

For weight alone, portion control is king.  Exercise just ensures you have fitness.

Chris

My closest friend weighed 250 in high school. At the end of the first year of college he was down to 180. The reason was twofold: we didn't have much money for food, so he didn't eat a lot. We also walked everywhere, several miles a day, so he got a lot of exercise. Of course, being young didn't hurt.

[vaskidmark]

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/researchers-identify-6-types-obesity-article-1.2195819

Based on the responses to the questionnaire, the research team was able to identify patterns in clinical characteristics and establish six types of obese patients:

- Young healthy females, who have not yet developed complications from obesity such as Type 2 diabetes.

- Heavy-drinking males, who consume at least 12 drinks per week.

- Unhappy and anxious middle-aged individuals, predominately women with mental health issues.

- Affluent and healthy elderly individuals, who are in fairly good health overall but have higher alcohol intake and high blood pressure.

- Physically sick but happy elderly individuals, who exhibit good mental health but suffer from chronic conditions such as arthritis.

- Poorest health individuals, who are economically deprived and suffer from a greater number of chronic conditions than the other groups.

Wow!  Now I'm a type.  makes me feel so much better.

stay safe.

[AJ Dual]

Of course this is true. Why is the fact you can't "exercise your way out of obesity" some sort of revelation?

I can eat 1500 calories of dbl-bacon cheeseburger in about 10 minutes, an hour of jogging is only going to burn about 350-500 calories, and that's depending on how fast, how hard, and how uphill your run is.

So you can consume 5000 calories/hr, but even the hardest exercise even remotely possible, a near Olympic-level effort running at a 11mph pace for an hour straight, is only going to burn about 1200 calories.   The best Kenyan finishers of marathons have done it in 2:04 about an average 13mph pace, but I'd guess their bodies are so efficient they're actually burning less than the 1200 calories/hr...

So you can EAT calories almost five times faster than the fastest/strongest people in the world can burn calories.

Duh.  

[Blakenzy]

[Nick1911]

Indeed.

Weight gain and loss are relatively simple mechanisms to understand - it's baffling that so many people seemingly don't get it.

Of course, the other half the problem is maintaining discipline over duration.  This is a skill that many have not developed growing up and living in a very instant world.

[mtnbkr]

I rode my mountain bike for not quite 1.5hrs tonight.  The terrain was rolling hills in a stream valley with a lot of short, steep climbs.  According to my Garmin, I burned 823 calories.

Details here: https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/755102257

Dinner was a chicken, hummus, and spinach salad, a bowl of black bean soup, and a whole wheat roll.  According to the nutritional info (purchased at Panera), I consumed about 700 calories.  I also had an 80cal whey isolate protein gel after the ride.  So, 1.5hrs of strenuous exercise was almost completely offset by one meal and the post ride nutritional supplement.

Chris

[Northwoods]

I rode my mountain bike for not quite 1.5hrs tonight.  The terrain was rolling hills in a stream valley with a lot of short, steep climbs.  According to my Garmin, I burned 823 calories.

Details here: https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/755102257

Dinner was a chicken, hummus, and spinach salad, a bowl of black bean soup, and a whole wheat roll.  According to the nutritional info (purchased at Panera), I consumed about 700 calories.  I also had an 80cal whey isolate protein gel after the ride.  So, 1.5hrs of strenuous exercise was almost completely offset by one meal and the post ride nutritional supplement.

Chris

Except for probably the whey gel you'd have eaten that dinner (or something equivalent) anyway.  With or without the exercise.

Weight loss (or gain) is a matter of calories in vs calories out.  Eat more than you burn and you gain.  Burn more than you eat and you lose.  You absolutely can lose weight through exercise alone, but that also requires that you not increase your eating to an amount above the new, increased burn rate.  The problem most people have is that they eat too much anyway, and then when they start to exercise they increase their intake by as much as they burn in their exercise.  And then wonder why they still are gaining weight.  My weight has been steady at 210-215 for several years now, so clearly my overall food intake is matching my burn rate.  If I add exercise, but keep total food intake the same I will lose weight.  Or if I burn, say 600cal 3x per week with exercise, I have to keep my increased intake below 1800cal/week if I want to actually lose weight.

[mtnbkr]

Again, duh. 

The root issue is that most people believe they burn more in exercise than they do.  Ask folks how much they would burn in a 5k run and I am certain any non-runner would say they burned 1000+ calories.  I burn roughly 250 (depending on length of time, which has a greater impact than effort).  I don't even earn a candy bar from running a 5k race, much less a full meal.

Chris

[Viking]

Indeed.

Weight gain and loss are relatively simple mechanisms to understand - it's baffling that so many people seemingly don't get it.

Of course, the other half the problem is maintaining discipline over duration.  This is a skill that many have not developed growing up and living in a very instant world.

Consider all the people who attempt to lose weight and fails. If weight loss = burning more calories than you consume, then failing at losing weight = your fault. Now imagine some of the more creative excuses - "genetics made me this way", "big boned", "thyroid issues", "PCOS" etc...then your failure to lose weight is not really your fault, is it? And yes, I've seen people "arguing" that calories out exceeding calories in will not lead to weight loss.