The Myth About Exercise

[pelagius]

From page four:



Other similar discussion on page four.

Runs counter to my experience. When I exercise regularly, I seem to have more overall energy.

No, I don't mean in the time article I mean in the paper:

Changes in Weight, Waist Circumference and Compensatory Responses with Different Doses of Exercise among Sedentary, Overweight Postmenopausal Women

I actually can't tell if there was compensation over this dimmension. I can't tell if the steps measure includes or doesn't include exercise. The paper'd authors aren't clear on this point

[pelagius]

Jeff, the author in time is wrong ... The study she is riffing off of (and most of the papers cited in the aticle) didn't find a reduction in non exercise activity for the high exercise group. Here is what the authors say: "Our step counter data suggests [are they treating data as singular?] that there was no change in outside activity in the exercise groups, nor were there any differences in average daily steps among the exercise groups. "

[ERCougar]

I will say this: One of my pet peeves is when patients that are extremely overweight say something like, "I really need to start exercising."

My response is usually something like: "The main thing you need to do is start eating less. Exercise is good for you, but for you it's not going to be a good method for losing weight."

Another point against exercise: People who are extreme, high-impact exercisers in their younger years often end up destroying their joints to the point that they are pretty disabled in their retirement years. I'm not sure the trade-off of extreme cardiovascular fitness in your 20s through 40s is worth needing knee and hip replacements and having very limited mobility in your 60s through 80s.

I agree with you on high-impact extreme exercise, but I disagree with your first counsel. There's good data to suggest that it's better to be overweight and in shape than to be of a normal weight and out-of-shape. So, in my mind, exercise should be the first counsel, then lose weight.

[DrumNFeather]

I think that eating more after exercise might be the case when you first get started, but if you are serious about losing weight and becoming more healthy, I think you cut back.

[cowboy]

Also, she seems to be creating a strawman. The real enemy is not exercise, it is lousy eating habits. Of course we all get hungry when we exercise....that is where proper diet comes into play. It is incumbent on each individual to educate himself or herself about what to eat and what to avoid. Clearly, those hitting up Starbucks after the gym are not serious about weight loss. Those going home and eating an apple and some grilled sirloin for lunch likely are serious about losing weight.

Fixed that little typo for you. No thanks necessary; just happy to help. I figured you must have been watching the outdoor channel's Alaskan fishing show looking for the latest flannel fashions when you posted this. I knew what you really meant.

[marsupial]

Exercise might not make you thin but it helps make the weight you're carrying look better. I often hear people say after they started exercising, "I haven't lost very much weight but my clothes fit better and look better on me."

I also know "thin" people who don't exercise. They don't have much fat... but they don't have much muscle either.

And as for me, I may not be skinny, but I love to eat whether or not I workout so I believe exercise keeps me from putting on the pounds even though it has yet to make me look like a super model.

[mtnbiker]

So... how about reasonable moderation in all things? Exercise is good, as long as you're not extreme about it. It does seem to take a week or two before seeing the benefits of an exercise or diet program. The body adjusts. Muscle weighs more than fat, so the scale doesn't always tell the whole story. Reasonable diet & exercise has long been the key to long-term health and fitness.

It's interesting to see different studies and their conclusions. I've read that people who cycle exclusively can be more susceptible to osteoporosis, since cycling is not a 'weight-bearing' exercise. But other studies show that mountain bikers, who take a heavier pounding over rougher terrain, don't show the bone loss that roadies do. If you worried over every little thing that could possibly go wrong, you'd never get out of bed. Oh, wait, laying around all the time isn't healthy, either.

I know some people in my stake whose knees had deteriorated to the point that they could no longer run. I suggested biking, and a year or so later they came up to me and said that they had finally given cycling a try, and were so happy to be able to get out again. Yeah, that's only a couple of people, and not a formal study, but the point that all of us agree on, I think, is that reasonable diet & exercise is the key, regardless of what a Time-writing couch potato says.

[Jarid in Cedar]

Anyone read this article in Time?

http://www.time.com/time/health/arti...914857,00.html

Pretty depressing. But I can't help but believe that the author was exaggerating and slanting the facts a bit to support a bold premise.

The argument is that exercise is actually detrimental to weight loss because people who exercise end up eating more. Furthermore, if you do intense workouts, you are more likely to sit around and be lazy the rest of the day (this one is particularly hard for me to believe).

Thoughts?

Her premise is waaaay off. The issue with overweight and obese is eating too much for your metabolism.....period. Exercise does increase food consumption to some degree, but the impact is offset by the calories burned while exercising. Now she is correct in one sense that you cannot lose weight by exercise alone. The calorie deficit made by exercise is typically not enough to elicit large weight loss, It takes a deficit of 4200 KCal to lose 1 pound of fat. You get that deficit by eating 1800 KCal instead of 2400.

If you want to look at it this way. Diet changes help you lose weight and exercise helps you maintain your weight loss. The database of people who have lost 30% of their initial bodyweight and maintained that loss over a years time, shows that they exercise and average of 60-90 minutes a day to help them maintain their weight.

[TripletDaddy]

I've read in several places that 3500 equals one pound of fat. Is that number inaccurate?

[pelagius]

I've read in several places that 3500 equals one pound of fat. Is that number inaccurate?

It's 7700 for a kilogram so, that's about 3500 for a pound

[pelagius]

My thoughts on the author is that she is as she claims to be: overweight. She appears to use food as a coping mechanism, therefore it is no surprise that she can never seem to shed pounds.....life will always be throwing you one curveball after another.

Just for the record; I saw the author talking on CNN ... He wasn't a she and he was actually reasonable fit looking.

[Jarid in Cedar]

I've read in several places that 3500 equals one pound of fat. Is that number inaccurate?

This is one of the more common misperceptions.


3500 KCal = 1 pound of adipose tissue which has fat, connective tissue, blood vessels etc. The latter have little caloric content.

1 lb of fat=454 grams/pound x 9 KCal/gram=4086 KCal a pound.

[RC Vikings]

But other studies show that mountain bikers, who take a heavier pounding over rougher terrain, don't show the bone loss that roadies do.

Whatever it takes to get a little lighter.

I think this study was looking at those people who go into a gym for a couple of hours and burn maybe 200 calories because all they do is walk around and talk to others.

[bluegoose]

In response to several comments about the negative effects of running and the possibility of developing arthritis in the future, I did a quick internet search for articles linking moderate to high intensity running to the eventual development of hip and knee arthritis.

Here are a few of the better studies that I found on the subject, all from reputable, professional, peer-reviewed journals:

• A Danish study published in 1990 found that a group of athletes that ran 20 to 40 km per week for 30 years had an incidence of osteoarthritis that was no different from that of a comparison group.

• A study published in 1985 found that the incidence of osteoarthritis in a group of runners who competed between 1930 and 1960 was lower than a matched group of swimmers who competed at the same time.

• A 1996 longitudinal study (6 years) determined to assess whether long distance running was associated with increased musculoskeletal pain and disability. They found that high intensity running was not associated with increases in pain reports, and may even cause a decrease in pain ratings. They also found that vigorous physical activity is associated with greatly decreased levels of disability and with decreased mortality rates.

• A 1986 study found that runners with an average age of 60 who had run an average of three hours per week for 12 years did not have a greater prevalence of osteoarthritis than a comparison group.

• And finally, in the most definitive resource available, Runners World , an article from the August 2004 edition written by Amby Burfoot addressed this very question. He cites a 1984 longitudinal study which tracked pain and disability ratings in runners (n=565, run more than 26 miles per week) versus non-runners (n=301, run less than 2 miles per week), with all of the subjects being over the age of 50. The results of the study report that the runners group reported 25% less reports of pain as compared to the non-runners group over the 14 year period of study.

As a runner, I may be a bit biased in my analysis of the articles that I read. But anecdotally, in my personal experience, I cannot recall a single total joint replacement patient that is a former long distance runner. This comes from a sample size of several hundred post-op knee and hip patients. On the other hand, the majority of my post-op hip and knee replacement patients either are or were at one time classified as obese or morbidly obese.


I'll leave the cardiovascular risks and benefits of running to the MDs and DOs to dissect and discuss. But from an orthopedic standpoint, the conventional thought that long distance running causes pain and disability in later years appears to be unfounded as evidenced by my personal observations and a quick sampling of the available research in the area.

Take all of this for what its worth.

[Pheidippides]

This article is disappointing, esp from a generally-respected rag like Time.

My thoughts on the author is that she is as she claims to be: overweight. She appears to use food as a coping mechanism, therefore it is no surprise that she can never seem to shed pounds.....life will always be throwing you one curveball after another.

In an article about the efficacy of exercise, she is posting about emotional issues: self-medicating, self-denial about how much she claims to exercise vs. how much she actually exercises, etc.

Also, she seems to be creating a strawman. The real enemy is not exercise, it is lousy eating habits. Of course we all get hungry when we exercise....that is where proper diet comes into play. It is incumbent on each individual to educate himself or herself about what to eat and what to avoid. Clearly, those hitting up Starbucks after the gym are not serious about weight loss. Those going home and eating an apple and some grilled salmon for lunch likely are serious about losing weight.

We don't inherently "crave sugary drinks." We train ourselves to want them by drinking them all the time. Again, with our without exercise, people drink soda.

Weight loss is a mental war as well as a physical war. If you want to shed pounds, it is hard work. VERY hard work. It requires discipline, self-sacrifice, more discipline, and then toss in some more hard work. I think the author of this piece is disillusioned because she apparently seems to have dramatically different expecations. Maybe she thought weight loss would be easy.

Agreed and amen. After my own experience, I am convinced that it takes both diet and exercise to make weight loss work, with diet being the more important of the two in my view.