How Do Geeks Exercise? 1806
An anonymous reader writes "I have always been thin but all the sitting in front of the PC is taking its toll now that I'm getting older. I have begun to get a little heavier around the waist. I don't eat a lot but the weight seems to stay on these days. Most of the time I don't have the luxury of just getting out of the house/office. And being an introvert, I'm not enamored of the idea of exercising in full view of *shudder* people. I regularly do press-ups (60 per night) and sit-ups (30 per night) and some fetching and carrying, but that is all and these days it isn't enough. I need a solid and effective routine that will tone all my muscle groups efficiently. Do any Slashdotters have a regular workout routine that can be performed in the privacy of the home to stave off those pounds?"
Bike to work (Score:5, Insightful)
Bike to work. (Make living close enough to bike a priority.)
Video Games, of course (Score:3, Insightful)
Martial arts (Score:5, Insightful)
They're cool enough to do in front of other people, no matter how bad you are, and you have something to show off to your friends. It's a win-win scenario.
Walk (Score:3, Insightful)
All Muscle Groups (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you've got the luxury of a huge amount of space, the only way you're going to come close to exercising all groups is via free weights.
Multi exercise machines don't even come close (more on that later). Treadmills/stationary bikes are great for burning calories which'll do most of your weight loss goals but you're asking about all muscle groups. BOSU balls, steps, jump ropes are all more limited in application. The other great full body exercise, swimming, isn't really an option in the privacy of your own home unless you're rich enough to have a good sized pool.
The problem with free weights, and this comes from being married to a physical therapist who's also an ACE certified personal trainer, is: You're doing it wrong.
Don't feel bad. Just about everyone does. From the Navy guys I've watched prepping for their PRTs by holding a dumbell in one position and flapping their elbows like chickens to those who swing weights and let the momentum carry them through the weak spots to those who only really focus on a few core groups.
This is what a good personal trainer will do for you (and, yes, I hate the idea of paying the meathead ones too). A good one will slow you down and perfect your form: meaning you're actually building the weak points not just swinging past them. A good one will start you on machines (really good for isolating the exact form you need but lousy at exercising all of the supporting groups) and then slowly move you over to free weights (really good at exercising a lot of supporting groups, lousy at teaching you good form). A good one will also teach you a whole range of exercises so you're not just bulking your biceps with no work on your triceps, strengthening abs without matching your lats, working on your upper body with no attention to your chicken legs (yes, you, 95% of guys in gyms).
Look at it this way...
How good of a coder would you be if you never learned from other people's code and never had anyone review yours? Sure, you might be a prodigy and do some cool trick most people have never thought of. More likely, you'll write messy, inefficient code that seems like it works while leaving memory leaks everywhere.
In the same way, you might manage to learn everything about lifting from message boards and videos. More likely, you'll get a fair amount right but still be doing a few gastly things that it never occurs to you they're wrong.
This is why we suck it up, venture in to a gym, find a good trainer (being willing to fire the bad ones until we get that one we vibe with), and learn the technique first... so we can then get it right in our splendid isolation.
Re:Build some muscle (Score:2, Insightful)
Neither will weights, if your goal is to lose pounds. Weight training is good for what it's good for, but it's not the best option for burning calories. And burning calories is what it sounds like this guy needs.
Re:Well not quite, BUT... (Score:3, Insightful)
Being an introvert is not a problem. Letting it rule your life may be, but then letting any one characteristic rule your life is a problem.
A sports league is good, but it is not what the questioner asked for: regular, daily, exercise. It's usually twice a week at best. For all you know he may actually be part of a sports league, and just not consider it to be enough exercise to be worth mentioning in his post.
Agreed (Score:2, Insightful)
Exercise in front of people anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
So you're an introvert. Big deal! Exercise in front of people anyway.
Look, no one's going to make fun of you for going to the gym; in fact, they are more likely to make fun of someone who needs exercise and doesn't go to the gym.
The gym isn't Counter-Strike. No one cares if you're an exercise n00b. In fact, in my experience if you screw up at the gym, someone who knows what they're doing will show you the proper way to exercise so you don't injure yourself.
If you can afford it, and if you really care about your fitness and attractiveness, there is no reason not to go to the gym.
I can tell you what not to do. (Score:2, Insightful)
the MOST effective exercise is the exercise you don't even know you are doing. park the car at the far end when you go to the shopping centre, walk to the corner store. these all add up.
Re:Crossfit (Score:5, Insightful)
Just want to put another nod out there for crossfit, I'm going to a crossfit gym but if you're the introvert type and can handle being extra careful to observe good proper form on your own, doing the WOD (workout of the day - scaled to your fitness level) will give you a good all around workout over time.
I watched most of the theory vids before deciding to try it out:
http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/excercise.html#Clips
I'd recommend starting with the video "intro to intensity"
l4h
Re:Bike to work (Score:5, Insightful)
and makes you better than everyone else.
I laughed at this, but why do some cyclists have that attitude? I'm talking about the type who scream at motorists to "share the road" because "bikes have the same rights as motor vehicles," and then proceed to run the next four red lights.
/rant
Cycling is great for geeks and introverts (Score:4, Insightful)
Do any Slashdotters have a regular workout routine that can be performed in the privacy of the home to stave off those pounds?
I literally just got back from a cycling workout - for me this means thrashing around town for an hour during the evening/night. OK, so it isn't in the privacy of the home, but regular cyclists know too well that nobody pays much attention to them :)
Cycling is familiar territory for geeks since it involves a machine that's easy to tweak and upgrade components for performance and a lot of technology surrounds it. Cycling also suits introverts since it doesn't require much human interaction or a gym.
Re:Bike to work (Score:2, Insightful)
Water Rower works well (Score:1, Insightful)
Yoga (Score:1, Insightful)
Seriously, full body tone, stress relief, its even a cardiovascular workout if you do it right. On top of that, its low impact (good for those old joints) and its an ancient practice that has nothing to do with technology (also a bit of a relief).
As an added bonus, most yoga classes are full of chicks.
Yoga. (Score:3, Insightful)
Geek Exercise Toys (Score:2, Insightful)
After the doctor told me that unless I started to exercise more, I was going to have to go on blood pressure medication (at age 25), I started cycling. I found the best way to get me going was to buy some geek gadgets to help me get excited. Garmin make some nice GPS bike toys which monitor your heart rate, altitude, position, etc and allow you to load it up to your PC afterwards via USB. They also make a wrist watch version.
Re:Wii Sports (Score:3, Insightful)
To the OP, I'd suggest both biking and running. I'm an introvert and I have no problem doing either of those things (of course, everyone is different). I mean, once you get out there and start moving, it's not like you're actually around the same people for more than a few seconds at a time. And if it feels like you've been following someone for too long (or they've been following) then it's easy to head down a different road or change direction or something.
If you're concerned about some pudge, just get some baggy gym shorts and a dark wicking t-shirt. Seriously, if you get out and ride 10-15 miles and run 3-4 miles every few days (say 3 times a week), you'll start shedding weight pretty quickly. And you'll feel a whole lot better, too!
Re:Masturbation (Score:1, Insightful)
One word for you... sores
One word for you... lube [astroglide.com]
Re:Bike to work (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, because finding a new job and home is such an easy thing to do.
Re:Bike to work (Score:5, Insightful)
That's simply not true. Muscle mass burns calories all day long while aerobics only burns while you perform that particular exercise. Metabolic rate is increased around 11hrs post-resistance training & only 1 hr aerobically. You really need to do both to be fit though, as well as the 3rd piece of the puzzle - flexibility.
Re:Bike to work (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry you're an introvert.
Don't be sorry for us (you insensitive clod!)
It's not like it's a disease, bad in anyway, or meaning that one does not enjoy being outside.
It's probably different for everyone - for me it means that I don't like being in crowds and
am more likely to relax being alone or with (a few) close friends.
But I digress.
Re:Bike to work (Score:1, Insightful)
Screw biking its overrated and you have to find a place to put that silly thing when you get somewhere.
I do a hard walk to and from work 3 miles each way, 5 days a week, 8 years. Not only do you get the work out it helps with your posture, social skills and a list of other things.
Besides its what humans were designed to do for a long time.
Parkour! (Score:1, Insightful)
Parkour. Most exercises require only an urban landscape and a minimum of equipment.
Re:in your commute! (Score:2, Insightful)
Yoga, Cardio and Plyometrics (Score:3, Insightful)
Yoga (hire a tutor if you want) and Plyo can easily be done in the home.
Most people don't need free weights, they are all the weight they need. See here [functional...rcises.com] for specific exercises and examples.
Start with the Sun Salutations (lots of youtube links, but be sure an actual instructor sees you do it before you begin your practice). Flexibility and range of motion is important. Relax into the stretch, don't actively stretch. Learn to breathe (yeah, I know, sounds dumb, but most people do it wrong... diaphramatic breathing aides in relaxation among other things, and is more efficient). Move on to (any of a dozen different kinds of) pushups, canoe/reverse canoe, one-legged squats, wall sits. Start walking in the morning before your shower.
Change it up. Your body adapts really quickly to stress loads it has experienced before. The hardest part about working out isn't exertion, it's figuring out what to do and how to do it.
Also, before you start trying to get ripped by maxing out and doing pyramids, keep in mind that time under tension is far more important than percent of maximal effort, and you can efficiently tear muscle down with less injury risk just by dropping the weight and increasing the rep duration.
Supplements are a waste of money. The correct diet is safer and far more efficient. Don't overdo the protein grams. Most people get too much protein as it is (and not nearly enough fiber, dark leafy greens and good fats).
Also, give the Shangri-la diet [wikipedia.org] a try. It worked for me.
Re:Bike to work (Score:3, Insightful)
I plan on living to the end, not just surviving until I succumb to a heart attack.
I'm in the best shape of my life now, and it makes life more enjoyable.
Re:Bike to work (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a myth that's been going around for quite some time...there's absolutely no basis for claiming that a well muscled person burns more calories when sitting on the couch.
How about the fucking laws of a physics? If that extra muscle isn't decaying, and is being maintained alive, it takes energy to do so.
The same thing is true for fatter people too. They burn more energy just sitting around. It's one of the reason for the yo-yo dieting. They lower their food intake, lose weight, thus their body requires less energy for maintenance of their thinner body. Now their lower intake of food isn't enough to make them lose weight at the same rate, and eventually they'll stop losing weight altogether. This causes them to becomes disheartened, they quit the diet thinking their new weight is good enough, and start eating at their older levels. Except that their older levels is far more energy than they need and they quickly gain the weight again.
Advice to everyone who intends to lose weight. This sucks, but until you accept this as the truth, you'll never succeed: you don't go on a diet until you lose the weight and then it's over. You go on a diet, you lose weight. If you stop losing weight, it means you'll have to cut more calories. Eventually you'll reach the weight you want. Then you don't get to eat any more calories. You just found your equilibrium calorie point. That's the maximum you get to eat forever.
Unless you put on some muscle and do enough cardio to burn more calories. Then you get to eat a bit more.
Re:Bike to work (Score:3, Insightful)
So bsically waste food. Sorry, but if you're going to only eat half the fries, DON'T FUCKING BUY THEM! Honestly wasting food, especially with the costs these days, is just fucking sick.
The key to losing weight is to do both... (Score:3, Insightful)
... resistance training (multiple sets of situps, pushups, crunches, bicycle crunches, bench/military presses, etc.) followed by cardio (interval training on a real bike mounted on a trainer), not the other way around. This basically guarantees that your muscles will be toned but will not bulk up plus your metabolism rate will increase so you continue burning calories even while inactive. I do this 2 times a week indoors... the other 2 or 3 times I either cycle to work or participate in a group bike ride.
Another key to losing weight is to sleep at night feeling a little hungry.
Re:Bike to work (Score:3, Insightful)
Another myth [uihealthcare.com]. And while it can cause problems with erection, that's only if you go numb down there. Picking the right saddle, adjusting it properly, having the right clothing (cycling shorts are padded, which helps but certainly isn't required) and simple practice will prevent any problems in that department.
And besides, chicks dig cyclist legs. That'll do far more for your erection and your fertility ...
MOVE! (Score:2, Insightful)
It all boils down to the fact that you've got to move. Sitting all day destroys your body. After almost three decades of sitting in front of a computer, I decided two years ago to start moving and I can honestly say that despite a few temporary set backs, life just gets better.
Start small if you need to; I started with a fifteen minute walk every day. When things started to get easier I did more. After two years I'm at the point now - though I'm not (yet) the finest example of physical fitness - that CrossFit (www.crossfit.com), strength training (www.startingstrength.com), and rowing (www.concept2.com) are the best tools in my fitness routine. You gotta change things up regularly if you find yourself bored.
The key is to move. Do new things all the time. Challenge your body and you challenge your mind.
You'll find that living life upright is much more enjoyable than life sitting down.
-Fred.
Re:Bike to work (Score:4, Insightful)
See, the thing about sharing is that you don't get to do whatever you damn well please whenever you want to. That's what makes it sharing rather than being selfish.
Do you feel the same way about school busses? You'll share the road with school busses and children when they travel at 30mph without stopping or crossing the road? I presume you also think that anyone over 60 should have their licenses confiscated because they rarely travel at the speed limit. And while we're at it, let's get rid of all heavy vehicles, all tourists who are confused about where they are and drive slowly looking for street signs, all people driving slowly looking for a parking spot, and all learner drivers. I'm sure that will solve all your problems.
Re:Bike to work (Score:2, Insightful)
I find in my area there are a great number of places to cycle at. (Trails, suburban areas and even huge tracks of land)
However, none of that stops the cyclist from making traffic a nightmare.
Me, I do cycle, but I also have the sense not to screw around in high traffic areas.
I really haven't seen a good deal near the highway since I witnessed an accident though.
Bike vs Car, car wins.
DANCE!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Bike to work (Score:5, Insightful)
Bikram Hot Yoga! (Score:2, Insightful)
I do many kinds of exercise (biking, weights, cardio, regular yoga etc.) and have been physically active for many, many years. By far the most effective and pleasing exercise available is Bikram Hot Yoga. It's growing in popularity, so there should be a studio near to you.
The routine is carefully designed to work from the inside out, top to bottom, and to increase flexibility, strength, and circulation. Almost any ailment you may have will be addressed - its hard to oversell the benefits as it engages the entire body.
If you google 'hot yoga' or 'bikram' and your area I am sure you can find classes. However, not all hot yoga is Bikram (I have also tried Moksha, for example), but the Bikram routine I find far superior. I would strongly recommend it for everyone as it sheds weight, strengthens muscles, and improves joints considerably.
Re:Bike to work (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with not weight-training, is that when you lose weight there's nothing there other than loose skin and bone.
Re:Bike to work (Score:5, Insightful)
The minimum caloric needs of your 380 lb corpulence are ~2700 calories/day.
I've seen other people make similar reports. You're quoting an average number, but I've never seen good data on the outliers, which this guy could well be.
Also, data like that you quote is generally taken from people on normal diets. The body has a number of low-calorie adaptations do deal with times of famine.
Although the AC you reply to is not typical, you won't be able to know that he's actually wrong until you get him in a lab for a week. Which, given that you feel confident enough to be a total dick about it, I'm sure you've already done, right?
Re:Exercise in front of people anyway (Score:3, Insightful)
So you're an introvert. Big deal! Exercise in front of people anyway.
Yes, I too find it completely effective to dismiss stated the preferences and core personality characteristics of others rather than taking them seriously.
Are you an extrovert who needs to spend time with people? Suck it up and just work from home.
Have a speech impediment? Don't let that stop you from a career in broadcast journalism.
Are you caucasian? Don't fall for that sun-block jazz. Just go out in the sun and you'll adapt. Tall? Sure, buy that Smart Car. Short? No, you won't look silly in that H2. Enjoy coding? Ignore that and get a sales job. Dyslexic? The career for you: librarian!
The only kind of exercise program that people stick with is one that suits them, one that they enjoy. Introversion is not something that you shake off or get over; introverts find it draining to be around strangers, and will no matter how much they practice.
Re:Bike to work (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of good suggestions here, but what you people are also missing (amongst other things) is the number of calories that get used up building extra muscle. It takes something like 24 calories to build a gram of muscle which would only yield 4 calories if eaten (insert cannibal jokes here), so there's a lot more to the weight-training-picture than all of the above posts take into account by focusing on the number of calories that get used in the activity.
Also, people who only focus on calories are missing 90% of the nutrition picture. If calories were the only thing that mattered when it came to body composition, then we could all drink vegetable oil and eat sugar without any worries. There is a lot more to the nutritional picture than calories, such as vitamins, minerals and the "side effects" and chemical interaction of any food upon the body. For example one can obtain amino-acids from nuts or tobacco leaves but I can guess which one we would all prefer.
When it comes to diet, just try and eat "clean" i.e. stay away from food you haven't prepared yourself and learn to read food labels. This will generally keep a lot of hidden crap out of ones diet. Learn to like rice, lean meats/fish, raw/lightly cooked veges and fruits. Eating a good deal of fibre and nutrient-rich food will go a long way toward moving ones body composition in a favourable direction, and in my experience will solve 90% of the problem
Re:Bike to work (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Bike to work (Score:2, Insightful)
As someone who was (and sometimes still is) intensely introverted, I think the grandparent post was simply nudging toward the fact that introversion can be stifling and is, in that sense, often unfortunate. In my view, anything that limits one's options is.
I'm happy as an introvert being alone, but I'm happiest when I don't have the requirement of being alone to enjoy myself. KnowwhatImean?
When it becomes an impediment (or inconvenience) to staying healthy, a person would be wise to not assume themselves permanently incapable of operating outside their current, relatively confined comfort zone. I think this is true in all areas of life and adapting/learning.
Re:Bike to work (Score:5, Insightful)
There are some great ideas here as you say but there are also some dangerous ones from my learning experiences. I will quantify/qualify...
I went through about 13 years as a NON-PROFESSIONAL body builder. Not a weight lifter. (spacing intentional) At my peak I managed to hit 198 pounds with a 3% body fat. (For those interested in the perspective I'm a hair under 5' 10" tall.) At that time I was spending two to four hours a day in a gym and actually striving to get in a couple hours a day of some other heavy physical activity such as running or playing a sport. It was an obsession, prior to this I had been fat.
I will NOT say that I know what I'm talking about because at 33 years old I suddenly started getting chubby but, by that time, I was already down to 172 pounds, not muscle, but chub. If I'd chopped the chub off (cardio) I'd have been nothing but 152 pounds.
There are reasons at both ends of the spectrum for me.
The first is diet and exercise. I ate well, I ate a lot. I ate healthy. During build cycles I'd consume 10k calories a day and think nothing of it. (I still love me some peanut butter.)
The second, latter days, is due to lack of diet and lack of exercise.
Today I've gotten to a healthy weight of 165.5 pounds (went to the doctor's this week) and pretty much sit there. I'd estimate that I engage in some sort of low impact exercise two to three times per week.
However, I only eat two meals a day and only have two snacks per day. My caloric intake from beer is enough to maintain the weight and my limited activity keeps me from sagging.
I would say that diet, nothing else, is more important than any other aspect of weight control. For each person it WILL be different. The idea that we, as geeks, can apply metrics is patently absurd because the human body ranges in scope from person to person to such wildly different degrees that we simply can't.
This being said, I'm not a doctor and a doctor is the best choice to start with. Look to see what you're healthy enough to do and to find the best methods to achieve your weight control goals. To put it into geek terms there is no right choice nor a better choice for an OS/app but the one that works best for you. In my case it has always been diet constraints/allowances as the single most important factor.
For anyone else it may be different.
Re:Bike to work (Score:3, Insightful)
I totally agree.
I do about equal amount of driving, cycling and skateing to work, depending on the weather and how much time I've got.
I always cycle and skate as if I'm driving a car.
Why? Because I fall under the same traffic rules as cars.
99% of the cyclist around me doesn't. They dont stop for redlight, they turn without signaling, they go the wrong way on one way streets, don't respect right of way, etc, etc.
Some even get annoyed and shout at me when I stop to let cars cross when it is my duty to stop!
People who skate tend to be even worse!
There should be a license required to operate a bike, so that all cyclists at least have the required knowledge of the traffic rules.
Re:Bike to work (Score:2, Insightful)
This is why I've started proposing the "put down the fork" diet. It's really simple: eat whatever you want. Just don't eat so damn much of it. I don't count calories (though I do look at the packaging to see what I'm taking in at any one time. If I really like a food, I don't care what the calories are, but if I could take it or leave it, I'll eat something lower in calories), but I do notice the weight of the things I put in my body. The law of conservation of mass says that I can't gain any more weight than what I actually put in, and curbing weight gain is a good start into promoting weight loss. It's helped me lose 25 pounds so far, and I'm not any more hungry than I was. I'm less lethargic (as I'm not constantly digesting food), and can now do more exercise to keep myself losing and get down to a better fighting weight.
Also, table sugar really isn't that bad for you. If your plan is to just switch from using sugar to Splenda, you're not gaining much unless you're eating WAY too much sugar to begin with. So if you like sugar in your coffee, just use sugar.
For your comparison, I'm 6'4", ~250lbs. At my worst I was 277, which is where I realized I needed to stop eating so damn much.
Workout at home? Rowing Machine! (Score:3, Insightful)
Whatever you do, don't join a gym! So many people pay a monthly fee but just don't go often enough.
I used to cycle, but that did very little for my upper body. Nowadays I row on an indoor rowing machine. Rowing has a lot going for it:
1) Low impact. Less wear on your knees than running or cycling. Swimming is another low impact exercise.
2) Works every major muscle group in the body - arms, legs, back, stomach, chest. http://www.rowsport.com/rowsport/index.php?page=get_page&id=XJSC4F8-UHUNAG0-93C15ZR-SL280W1 [rowsport.com] Swimming, Nordic skiing and Nautilus machines do this too.
3) Uniquely, when rowing you work both legs together, then both arms together. Other exercises work your limbs alternately. I theorise that you can expend more calories this way. Rowing with a sliding seat has been the best way to get maximum work out of a human body for the last couple of hundred years. It's stood the test of time.
4) Since it's an expensive machine just for exercise, that's an incentive to make use of it. It's sort of a gadget, like a PDA. Boys like toys and enjoy playing with them.
5) As you refine your technique: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXnKyJdA01w [youtube.com] you can achieve new personal records, then try to beat those records. That helps with motivation.
6) Unlike running or weight training, rowing provides a dynamic load to work against. The harder you pull, the greater the resistance.
7) Having a rowing machine at home means you don't waste time commuting to the gym. That makes it easier to exercise every day.
I've been rowing since February 2007, and at one point I lost 14 pounds in four months. This isn't much compared to some, but slow and steady is better for you than crash dieting.
Rowing is not for everyone and some people really do well with a gym membership, I'm sure. This is just IMHO - YMMV.
Re:Bike to work (Score:3, Insightful)
Good luck building muscle on a calorie deficiency.
There's tons of advice floating around the first few pages and it varies from very good to very, very poor. Of course, everyone is an expert :)
Weight loss and body shaping is not, and will never be, just a simple math equation as above. Is doing something better than doing nothing? Of course. Is lowering your calorie intake and weight lifting 2 hours a day going to help? Not much.
Re:Bike to work (Score:3, Insightful)
Thanks for the advice, but how does it fit in with the monotonous refrain of "eat less than you exercise - it's simple physics!" that I hear from everyone else?
When someone has difficulty losing weight, first they are told to eat less and exercise more. That having failed, now you tell me to eat more and exercise less!
Between them these two recommendations seem to cover all the possibilities.
Triathlon have high geek factor (Score:1, Insightful)
Triathlons.
You can really maximize the geek factor when you work all three disciplines. Swimming is very technique oriented and non-impact.
Cycling has a huge array of toys. You can get fairly affordable carbon fiber or titanium bike (esp used). Training by power is all the rage, so that's more toys. What is your functional threshold power? normalized power per ride? correlate with heart rate (you are wearing a heart rate monitor, right?). At least one new power meter will hook into your Garmin or PDA with open source software coming out in the next year or so (e.g. http://www.quarq.us/). Dozens of software package let you over analze all this stuff with great charts and things.
Running allows you to justify additional toys like the Garmin or Polar cadence/pace/gps/time/heartrate systems, with associated analysis software.
Plus when you get into longer events like half or full iron distance events you can play with nutrition as well. Maximizes digestable calories on the go with custom-designed gatorade (http://www.infinitnutrition.us/).
Surely that's geeky enough!
You do have to actually exercise though. You can't just mount the bike on the wall. All that exercise, might make you more fit and lose weight too, but that's just a side-effect.
Re:Bike to work (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason is your body is adaptive.
WARNING: The following will be a really, really bad car analogy.
So, think of your metabolism as a car engine running. Your metabolism when you are doing nothing, is like the car idling. When you decide to take part in exercise, you have to raise your metabolism to meet the extra demand. This is like increasing the RPMs on your engine when you actually want to drive forward.
The big difference is your car only has 1 engine. Your body has an engine that adapts to the environment, demand placed on it and the fuel you give it. So, an athlete might have the equivalent of a Dodge Viper engine, while a casual athlete has a V6, and a couch potato has an engine from a Geo Metro. If you take all three people and have them sit there, and eat the same number of calories, the athlete will gain less weight than the couch potato. Why? A Viper engine at idle still consumes more fuel than a Geo Metro idling. The athlete's body has adapted so it can deliver a lot of energy on demand, so it needs more calories to maintain baseline activity.
Now, here's where the adaptive part comes in. Your body has essentially one goal - to keep your brain alive. To do this, it will adapt to hostile environments by trying to consume fewer calories for other functions and build up reserves. So, if you have the Geo Metro engine and decide to go on a starvation diet, your body realizes that it isn't fuel efficient enough and, over a few weeks, will change it's metabolism to be a Vespa scooter engine. In addition, it will start throwing things out the window to reduce weight so it doesn't need to expend as much fuel to drive at the given speed - this is losing muscle which costs the body calories to keep around. So now, if you go back to your baseline diet, you gain more weight since your body is consuming fewer calories at rest. In addition, your body worries about the availability of gas stations, (since there has been a gas shortage), so it decides to carry a few few extra gas cans in the trunk - except it is extra fat, not gas cans. This is why going on and off diets causes people to gain weight - they slow down their metabolism and scare their body into storing energy reserves - exactly the opposite behavior of what they want.
So, if you do eat fewer calories than you burn, then you will lose weight, since you have to use gas from the gas cans in your trunk, but you are also destroying your ability to burn the excess calories on the days you do eat more than you burn. In addition, since your body is downsizing your engine, you will have less strength, less speed, less ability to heal and will have reduced abilities overall. Now, is this going to be worse than being 100-200 pounds overweight? Probably not. But it won't be as good as someone who does things slowly, with an eye on convincing their body to maintain a larger "engine". To avoid some of the engine downsizing, don't "under-eat" by more than 200-300 calories a day so you don't "scare" your car (body). If you want to increase the size of your engine, stress your body a little bit more, and in different way every day. Remember, your body wants to keep your brain alive and it doesn't know you aren't running from a sabre-toothed tiger when you hit the treadmill. So, if your body thinks you need to be able to run a 7:00 min/mile to avoid predators, it will adapt to do that - but it will take time.
This is why I really hate the physics diet. Yes, it is accurate that if you expend more calories than you eat, you will lose weight. It is also true that it is easier to monitor calorie intake than energy expended since it's hard to measure overall metabolic rate. However, you are destroying your bodies ability to perform physical activities and, by extension, it has some impact on your mental abilities. If you don't believe me, eat normally, run a few flights of stairs as fast as you can, (time it), and take some sort of mental test. A week or two later, under-eat for a few days so you are almost always
Re:Bike to work (Score:3, Insightful)
But if the calorie deficit causes your appetite to increase and your energy level and possibly your mood to decrease day after day you eventually reach the point where you overeat, stop exercising, or both. Hence the tendency of most people to yo-yo in their diets.
The difficult part is finding a combination of foods and appropriate exercises that maintain the calorie deficit without having your appetite, mood, or energy level spiral out of control. Millions of people succeed at it. Millions more don't. Sometimes the difference is raw willpower, and my hat is off to people whose will is stronger than mine. Sometimes it's knowing how to properly structure your diet and exercise, and my hat is also off to people who have done better research or gone through trial and error to figure out what works.
Again, your basic statement is true but not helpful. The specifics are more helpful. I had a far easier time maintaining a healthy weight when I was in college and had the opportunity to walk everywhere I needed to go and exercise an hour or more per day. Now I have a job, a long commute, and a family, extremely convenient opportunity for hours of exercise per day is gone.