Why Doesn't Exercise Lead To Weight Loss? 978
antdude writes "The New York Times' Well blog reports that 'for some time, researchers have been finding that people who exercise don't necessarily lose weight.' A study published online in September 2009 in The British Journal of Sports Medicine was the latest to report apparently disappointing slimming results. In the study, 58 obese people completed 12 weeks of supervised aerobic training without changing their diets. The group lost an average of a little more than seven pounds, and many lost barely half that. How can that be?"
Re:Because... (Score:2, Interesting)
That doesn't account for the absence of change in metabolic function that is supposed to accompany a regimen of aerobic physical exertion. The article does not mention at what time of day the exercise took place, though. My personal experience has been that exercise undertaken first thing in the morning transforms the whole day, allowing dietary or controlled substance ingestion choices throughout the day to be dealt with more effectively.
Take it from the horses mouth (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:How can that be? (Score:5, Interesting)
Or go with the flow. As TFA points out, whether you lose weight or not, work out a few hours a week and you're healthier.
My own experience confirms this. All my life, I was too thin. Then I left school and got an office job about 5 years ago. All the sudden I'm not having a problem keeping on the pounds. I never got noticeably overweight but I was getting a little soft around the center. Signed up for a 24-hour fitness membership a couple years ago and was surprised that my weight continued to inch up.
Finally, earlier this year, I changed up my workout. More cardio, less weightlifting. Also went from around 4 1.5-hour workouts a week to 6. I just treat it like my job. As soon as I get off work, it's off to the gym for two hours (which has the advantage of waiting out traffic.) I also made some adjustments to my diet. Less fast food. Replaced cola with coffee (caffeine) or lemonade (sweet). And though my sweet tooth is as sweet as ever, I am more conscious about eating that extra snack or the dessert that was left in the break room, and consequently, I probably eat a few less calories on average.
But my real secret weapon: the Nintendo DS. I needed something to distract me from the drudgery of the stairmaster and lifecycle and I can only gawk at the girls for so long. I don't play video games otherwise, so I look forward to an hour or so playing with the DS while I sweat. Turned-based games like Advanced Wars (or chess) are perfect for the stairmaster.
The result: for the last 6 months, I've been shedding a pound or so every 2 weeks, about the same as the study. A few months of that will add up.
Re:How can that be? (Score:5, Interesting)
Shortcuts are never tasty
I highly recommend getting a book called "The Okinawan Program" which is a study of some of the healthiest people on the planet and their diet and lifestyle.
It contains some delicious healthy recipes that leave you feeling very full, are exotic and tasty as hell and yet keep you below that horrific calorie level needed for weight loss
To take what someone said earlier and expand on it. "Stop eating so much fatty, and learn to cook!"
Re:Take it from the horses mouth (Score:4, Interesting)
If you eat a lot of food, or if you eat food with a lot of fat in it, then you gain weight.
I started a low carbohydrate diet last July and I found, to my amazement, that it doesn't work that way. I've been eating more fat than I ever did in my life and for some reason I am losing weight. But I almost completely cut down on carbohydrates eating only those on green vegetables. Although I don't count calories -- I feel that I am eating more calories now, compared to my previous eating habits which, while not excessive, lead to gradual weight gain.
I am not saying the body defies the laws of physics but obviously we are not storing everything we eat.
(The argument about the density of muscles isn't strong either: I had to buy new sets of clothes as well. That means I didn't simply replace "heavier" muscle with "lighter" fat)
Re:Simple formula (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact, it's quite possible to starve to death with excess body fat still in place, simply because your metabolism slows too much and available energy stores aren't being depleted.
I was always under impression that fat is stored in body primarily to be burned when no food is available, as a survival mechanism; and secondarily, to provide thermal insulation. What you describe is essentially in direct contradiction to that. Can you provide any references to your claim (something explaining how such an arrangement could have evolved would also be interesting)?
Re:Hackers Diet FTW. (Score:5, Interesting)
Muscle mass is also a good way to lose weight long term. Short term, it weighs more than fat, so you get the surprising (to naive people) result that exercise can make you put weight ON if nothing else changes (and subconsciously you get more hungry due to the calorie burning).
Long term, muscle mass needs feeding. That's why your body gets rid of it if you don't use it - it's a waste of energy. You put muscle mass on, you burn calories whether you use it or not. Granted, it takes a lot. The best to focus on (so I'm told) is leg muscle, as they're already big and building them up is relatively easy (running/cycling/walking all do it).
But sure - exercise alone and diet alone isn't going to lose you weight. You need to do both.
Re:Simple formula (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually, this is very well known. As for evolutionary concerns, It is basic atrophy. You don't use your muscle mass (Because you are not excersising), and so your body deems it expendible. Muscle mass consumes a lot of standing calories, and so, if the body is 'starving', will eliminate the "unneeded" body tissue. fat cells take comparatively little energy to maintain.
Fat burning requires a whole series of biochemical signals to be continuously produced in order to happen; Your muscles must be actively releasing stress hormones (from activity), energy demand on the body must be high, and food intake needs to be reduced, but not totally depleted. This triggers the body to start using stored energy (fat.)
Fat cells are directly tied to the endocrine system, and secrete hormones that play a role in regulating hunger. They require lots of chemical signals to change gears from "No, I only store energy" to "Ok, I need to release energy to the body now." Normally, when the cells are not at capacity, they tell the body to go seek food to restock the larder. There is actually a disorder where the rest of the endocrine system is unable to silence the hormones produced by the body's fat cells, and the persons are perpetually hungry with uncontrollable hunger pangs, despite being morbidly obese (from over-eating.)
The major benefit of a good muscle building exercise regimen is the production and maintenance of raw muscle mass. Muscle mass, as earlier stated, is expensive for the body to maintain, and consumes lots of "standing calories", which means it causes your body to burn more energy when doing nothing. This allows your body to better rid itself of the energy stored in that naughty little bite of doughnut you just had, than say-- the person with very little muscle mass. It makes your body more fault tolerant to over-consumption, (at the deficit of actually NEEDING a higher calorie intake.)
This is why people that do super absurd hard physical labor (and thus, build and maintain a large amount of muscle mass) can get away with eating "lumberjack" sized breakfast and dinner portions, without resembling jabba the hutt; while your typical slashdotter office jockey cannot.
Conservation of Energy (Score:5, Interesting)
I know a lot of people are going to talk about CoE. After all, that's the driving equation here. It is absolutely correct, but can we not glean more insight into the problem?
IWAHTE (I Was A Heat Transfer Engineer), so my guess is that what's going on is that people spend the vast majority of their calories maintaining body temperature. If you eat less, your body's first reaction might well be to reduce skin temperature, maintaining core temperature. This theory links the fact that women eat less then men by 20% with the observation that women are complain about being cold earlier than men. Less calories burnt to keep skin temperature high.
In the case of someone who is overweight, they have an additional layer of blubber (yes, basement /. denizens, you are coated in blubber) that insulates them and maintains their core temperature for free. Maybe there's a hysteresis? First the body weight comes down, then the body learns it can waste excess heat maintaining skin temperature, and then, and only then, the body is free to consume additional calories.
Now, I don't do human anatomy, so a doctor would have to chime in and confirm just how much of the body's caloric consumption is lost to heat, vs. other bodily functions.
A personal example: on an average day, I eat some 3500 calories. But I am athletic, and only weigh 70, so this is a "good" 3500 kCal. What I notice is that my skin temperature is always warm, especially compared to women. In fact, I am very comfortable when the temperature is around 15deg inside. I go outside on a 5deg day in nothing more than a sweater and a top hat. I routinely mock my friends who wear a sweater, coat, and scarf when I'm sitting around in short sleeves. Certainly, my body is horribly inefficient, and if society falls in some sort of catastrophe, I will certainly be one of the first to starve (if my 20/800 eyesight doesn't make me walk off a cliff first). However, in a society that has mass amounts of overconsumption, it seems to fit me just fine.
A second personal example: I dated a German doctor who as a 16-year-old doing a year-abroad in Minnesota, had been anorexic. After she came back, she put on a lot of weight: obviously her body reacting to the extreme abuse she had given it. Now as a 25-year-old, she was in the Bundeswehr (German army), and this girl could RUN. She ran marathons. She ran 2 hours with 25kg of weight attached to her. And yet she was always, always overweight by 8kg or so vs. her pre-American anorexia bout. Not a lot, but she was... pudgy. She'd been to doctors, etc, and could do nothing to get her weight down. I lived with her for a while, I can guarantee she ate nothing but healthy food, and only somewhere around 1600-1800kCal/day. However, she liked her rooms warm.
So I am less physically active, yet consume twice as much. The only thing that can explain this is that physical activity just doesn't use that many calories, not compared to maintaing body temperature. Since I go outside without a coat, I burn more calories than she does to maintain the same core temperature.
My two cents, but I certainly welcome other /.er ideas, though.
Re:How can that be? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Hackers Diet FTW. (Score:1, Interesting)
This will allow you to prepare a normal amount of food (instead of piles when you're "fucking hungry"). Then you exercise and kick up your metabolism which will help you use the calories more efficiently when you eat the meal.
Just don't cheat and add a snack to the meal after exercising because you think its not enough. Your brain takes 20 minutes to catch up to your stomach so just wait if you're still hungry after the meal, and then drink a glass of water.
Re:Hackers Diet FTW. (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, exercising makes me fucking hungry.
Really? I'm finding that I'm anything but hungry when I come home from training. Thirsty, yes. Hungry, no.
Re:Unfortunately not (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll just add a little to what you wrote if I may, for the benefit of anyone looking for advice. If you drop your calorie intake more than around 15% of what you actually need to maintain your weight, you're pretty much guaranteeing that you'll put your body into mild starvation mode, reducing your resting metabolism to conserve weight.
And on the subject of fat or muscle going first, yes - it does make sense if you're not needing that muscle for running or weights to start shedding it at the same time you shed fat. You might think that it makes sense to save the muscle for last, but you know that your not actually in a famine. All your body knows is that there's an unspecified amount of time with less food ahead of it. If it waits until the last minute to shed all that massive muscle of yours, then its going to have lots of muscle cannibalizing itself. Whereas if it starts early with the muscle, then that reduces the calories it needs for its daily activities and it can eek out both the muscle and fat a bit longer. If you lost your job and didn't know when you were going to get a new one, you wouldn't wait until you'd exhausted all your savings before you cut back on your spending, would you? Fat is your savings, muscle is your spendings. Your body is the one in charge of your finances, not the conscious mind saying "the diet will only last 1 month". That's why you convince your body that the spendings are necessary purchases by exercising, rather than just letting it all go to waste.
Re:Hackers Diet FTW. (Score:4, Interesting)
Not to ebrag but when I go to the gym I burn around 700-900 calories...
Burning only 300 calories isn't go to do much of anything. You could replace that with a walk.
Re:Hackers Diet FTW. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hackers Diet FTW. (Score:3, Interesting)
Fat loss is more important than weight loss. (Score:2, Interesting)
There is only one way to lose fat, and thats a healthy low calorie diet combined with exercise. I'm poor so losing weight is actually cheaper and easier than gaining it. When in a cutting cycle I save money on food because I consume less. To lose 3lbs a week requires no exercise at all. To lose 5+lbs a week requires aerobic exercise 30 mins 3 times a week to keep the metabolism from slowing.
So to lower your body fat percentage you bulk, cut, bulk, cut, bulk, cut, bulk, cut, for the rest of your life. Eventually after a few years of bulking and cutting cycles your body fat percentage will approach the single digits. Bodybuilders who aren't on drugs get that ripped look by doing this. And once you get that ripped look and lower body fat percentage down to the single digits its near impossible to get fat because your muscle to fat ratio is so off balance that even if you pack on weight, you still will look ripped. I know because I packed on 30lbs, but because I bulked cleanly and slowly at a pace of 5lbs a month, and because I had a very low body fat percentage when I started, my body fat percentage is still low and I just weight 30lbs more. This is how athletes bulk up, as oppose to drinking a lot of beer and eatting junk food and bulking up so fat that you gain mostly fat. Whenever you gain weight you will gain muscle and fat if you do it slowly and you lift weights, and the next time you cut down, you'll lose weight but you'll keep a lot of the muscle you gained.
What about the slowing metabolism? (Score:2, Interesting)
You are correct on paper but not in practice. If a person never exercises at all their metabolism will slow to a crawl and they'll stop losing weight after they reach a certain weight. Usually that certain weight is either slightly overweight, or within the healthy range. The problem with this is they'll look like a smaller fat person rather than a fit person.
Weight loss is not as important as fat loss. It's better to be ripped and obese, than to be small and chubby. The only way to lose fat is to combine weight lifting and exercise with a low calorie diet.
Re:Hackers Diet FTW. (Score:2, Interesting)
I understand your situation as a woman: I went through all this with my girfriend, and she's my workout partner. She did get down to flat abs and muscular legs, but she had to watch her carb a lot more than I did in order to get to that point. It was a lot harder for her, but we used essentially the same system.
That's because no matter what your body type, "eating less and exercise" is going to be the same basic system. :) It's just a question of the type of exercise you're doing, and that's commensurate with your personal fitness goals. Mine is to lose weight. I'll never be "petite"; in fact, with my height and bone structure I'll probably never be less than a size 18, maybe a 16 (US sizes), but I should still work towards reaching and maintaining that. And the best way for me to do that is to focus on cardio exercises that will help with muscle tone while burning off fat, rather than to focus on exercises that will build muscle.
As you said, women have a lot less testosterone: it's really difficult for most women to pack on muscle. From that standpoint, I don't think very many women have to worry about becoming muscle-bound, unless they're on hormone therapy or something.
This much is true. It's extremely rare for females to be taking testosterone in general... the only ones I've ever known who did take it were actually female-to-male transgenders. HRT in women is usually a combonation of estrogen and progesterone, though sometimes women do take small amounts of testosterone to increase libido. I don't think that the dosage involved would be enough to promote muscle growth, though. And I have known a few male-to-female transgenders, and they're in a completely different boat entirely... because they're blocking testosterone production and uptake, period, they actually have lower testosterone levels than natal females.
There's also this whole genetics situation. I was 110kg and failing to drop weight virtually no matter what I did. I decided that if I was destined to be a big guy, I might as well make my chest an legs larger so that my waist looked smaller in comparison. My gal was the same way. She'd been big her whole life. Over the last three years, her legs went from big and flabby to big and strong. I don't think there was an option C (for small legs). She's a muscular 65kg and hhhhot. Who's going to bitch about that?
I wouldn't complain about it :P But I'm 180cm tall and athletic, so getting down to 65kg is very unlikely for me... 85kg is a more realistic and healthy goal, IMO. Those tables that they publish are completely out to lunch, I think... they just don't take into account people who have a healthy amount of muscle on their body. I'm guessing that your girlfriend is at least 10-15cm shorter than me, right?
Re:Hackers Diet FTW. (Score:4, Interesting)
You need only one article [nytimes.com] to refute the idea that fat makes you fat — Taubes has done the work for the rest of us. Some asshole wrote a big ugly rebuttal to his article, but it was entirely filled with falsehood; if you are really interested (which you might be if you want to cite Taubes' article, because people will come along with the uninformed rebuttal and quote it like it was the bible — irony intended) and you may need to shoot them down.
Short form: We've known for decades to centuries that eating carbs makes you fat and raises your risk of heart disease. You can see it strongly amongst italians (greeks, who are intermixed heavily with them due to the wages of history, eat less fat and have less problems) and amongst peoples of the carribean. Mixing fat and carbs is the problem, because carbs regulate energy storage, period the end. Also, unburned carbohydrates are actually more likely to be converted and stored in a fat cell than unburned fat! Finally, carbohydrates are addictive in that your brain becomes more resistant to them over time (very simplified, but bear with me) and it takes more carbs to feel full, causing the eating of more and more food. Eventually you burn out your pancreas and become a diabetic.
Exercise is, however, absolutely necessary for health. You have about as much lymph fluid as blood but there is no organ tasked to moving it around. This is why you see fat people with super fat ankles; there's not much actual fat there as you know if you've hit those protruding ankle joint bumps on things, but if you don't move around the lymph just settles in your body.
Re:Fat loss is more important than weight loss. (Score:3, Interesting)
If you only ate 2000 calories a day (be it 2000 calories of salads, ice cream, lard or refined white sugar), you'd definitely lose weight. Calories in - calories burned gives you a great idea of if you'll gain or lose weight, regardless of what "kind" of calories they were.
It sounds weird, but if you consume just 100 calories more than you burn in a day, in a year that's 10 pounds. That's assuming you keep increasing your consumption as your BMR rises when you gain weight, but it's close to that and I don't feel like calculus this early in the morning. But do that for a period of time and suddenly you're 100 pounds overweight.
Re:Hackers Diet FTW. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, I know where you're coming from, but surely feeling full would help? I work night shifts a lot at a hospital, and for months I was running on sugar buzz - every time I felt tired I bought something from the vending machine to wake me up for 30 minutes. I've been overweight almost all my life - not massively - but enough to always feel self-conscious and not want to go to the beach etc.
In the end I realised that I had to do something (or else go shopping as all my clothes were getting too tight). I decided I really wanted to do something, made a plan (which as I said was along the lines of the Hacker Diet) and also told all my friends. The last bit really helped - whenever they saw me with food (other than a meal) or on a webcam or whatever I'd feel guilty and get rid of it.
The other thing is, I found that if I cut out all of the high calorie snack foods, there's no reason at all that I can't enjoy a good meal whatever the calorie content. Since I started trying to loose weight, I've still had a takeout meal about once I week, I still eat whatever I want at a restaurant. If, like me, you eat loads of snacks, then you're actually in quite a good position to cut those out and still enjoy a decent meal when you want to. The other week I went out for a meal with my wife and sat and watched her eat cheesecake at the end - I didn't fancy any so I didn't have it - which would have been impossible for me six months ago.
Please don't think I'm being egotistical - I'm rubbish at being self-disciplined - but I just decided that I really wanted to feel OK about myself in this regard, not to suddenly be a male model but to get it under control. It is possible, harder for some than for others, but if you want it then you can do it. I think the Hacker Diet is great because it's not about a two-month crash but a long-term plan.
Another thing lots of people don't consider (Score:5, Interesting)
Even more people (including researchers) don't seem to think about the energy excreted in the feces (or other ways).
I hardly ever see any mention of it in studies related to weight loss, diet etc.
Go check out how many researchers actually take samples and work out how much a subject is excreting.
Then there's was also a study which showed that mice in a bacteria free environment could eat a lot and not put on weight.
See: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95900616 [npr.org]
And another which had the bacteria free mice getting gut bacteria from obese mice and ending up fatter than if they got gut bacteria from skinny mice.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6654607 [npr.org]
Based on these, it should not be a surprise that some people will actually find it hard to lose weight despite eating and exercising the same as skinny people. Of course, your diet also affects your gut bacteria populations. I bet consuming lots of "sugar water" isn't going to help breed gut bacteria that makes it easier for you to be skinny.
Bunkum (Score:2, Interesting)
There a few points which should be made about the first story and the Denver study (didn't bother reading the second).
Firstly, they did lose weight. On average about 3kg (7 pounds) over 12 weeks.
Secondly these folk were obese when they started out. Presumably they haven't been exercising much and on average their hearts, muscles and bones aren't that strong. 55% HR could probably be achieved just by raising themselves up out of a chair. If these people kept exercising for longer than the 12 weeks they would start to see physiological changes: 1. a stronger heart pumping a higher volume of blood per stroke 2. a higher volume of blood 3. stronger muscles and bones 4. more capillaries and mitochondria in muscle tissues etc .
A year later these people would be able to sustain much higher work rates at the same percentage of maximum heart rate, they would also be capable of exercising for longer periods and more often. The weight loss would quicken over time until their bodies came to reflect their new lifestyles.
Thirdly this stuff about low intensity leading to maximum weight loss because it's in the high "fat burning zone" is utterly wrong. Whilst the percentage of of calories taken from fat is higher at lower intensities, the total energy used at high intensities is so much greater that more fat is burnt overall (i.e 40% of 1000 is more than 80% of 300). Also it's really the total energy spent that matters.
The point is exercise DOES work. A little exercise only works a little. If you want big results you need to build up to higher intensity and more frequent workouts. Running is the best exercise for weight loss and general health. Cycling and swimming are also great.
The author of this article probably should read this study: Reduced disability and mortality among aging runners: a 21-year longitudinal study [nih.gov]
Spend time at exercise to really benefit (Score:1, Interesting)
Nobody on this forum has a clue what it means to live a life style with "exercise". Lolly gagging around for 30 minutes at the gym every other day is just toying with the concept. You need to get involved in real exercise sports and spend time at it. But it's really a lot of fun doing stuff that take exercise. Once you get in shape, if you miss a few days or a week, you really miss the workouts.
I take several 7 day long backpacking trips a year, and carry a 70 lb pack (on my 200 lb 6' 2" frame) 10 miles a day. I eat till I'm full each day, and come back with more muscle and in better shape that I started with, and lose 1 lb of weight a day!
When I take a weekend climbing trip on Mount Ranier (10,000' elevation gain, 15 miles, 40 pound pack) I'll loose several pounds.
Several times a month in the summer I'll just take a day hike into the mountains outside of town, swim and have lunch at an alpine lake, then return home. 5,000' elevation gain over a 5 mile trail outbound is about 3 hours of continuous max heart rate and my cardio watch says about 3000 calories round trip in 5 hours (for my 62 YO body - I could do 3,000' elevation gain an hour when I was younger).
Now my wife is more into bikes so I do some road and mountain bike trips with her. But my butt gets sore. Still, going out and riding a rural road on a sunny day in the spring is really nice. We do a 2.5 hours 35 mile loop with 1000' elevation gain. That burns a good 1/2 pound. Some mountain bike trails we ride take a good half day and probably burn off almost a pound of fat.
Then there is the cross country and downhill skiing in the winter. 25,000' of vertical descent at the ski area takes an incredible amount of energy and strength. It usually takes me 5-6 trips to get strong enough to do that much in a day. And we skate ski in the evenings during the week after work, 10-15K two - three times a week, 90 minutes.
We also go to the gym a few times a month to work on certain muscle group strengths. And we still both work full time. Just a few more years till we can retire and play all the time! Which we may need to, as I find that as we age, the muscle mass disappears from disuse much faster than it did when we were young, and it takes longer to get it back, meaning you need to work at it longer each week. And yes, we can pretty much eat anything we want and don't carry very much excess fat on our bodies. So if you want to lose weight through exercise, get interested in an exercise sport and spend time at it.
Re:Hackers Diet FTW. (Score:3, Interesting)
I happen to be in peak physical condition and my basic routine consists of about 15 hours a week of moderate to high intensity activity. I split about 50/50 between aerobic and anerobic activity.
Anyways only about 2 hours of that total time is spent doing "stuff" at the gym like running on the 'mill and lifting. The gym is godaweful boring, SOOO boring, after about an hour I want to shoot myself. Just about its only redeeming value is that its 5 minutes away and open every day 'til 10pm. Everyone complains that the gym is boring, and its TRUE.
The bad news is that there isn't really a substitute for the time expenditure... 60 minutes/day is the baseline. The good news is that there is a whole huge world of other activities out there that are WAY more entertaining.
For example, rock climbing: anaerobic activity, builds strength and balance, but its also a never-ending mental puzzle. Lots of geeks are into climbing, its VERY mental activity, and its a social activity. Trail running: I can run for 60-90 minutes outdoors no problem, it keeps you awake (otherwise you'd trip on a rock) and the constantly changing contour is better for your joints than running on a treadmill. I can only last about 20 minutes on a treadmill before I want to tear my eyes out. Dance! Depending on the type its usually a moderate aerobic activity, plus CHICKS dig it. Whoah. If you want higher intensity check out West African dance. If you really just want to ordinary "gym" stuff then check out your local CrossFit group, which is a kind of circuit training routine that is always changing, there is nothing like doing it in a group to keep motivation and have fun. And there is so much more... parkour, yoga, ultimate frisbee...
Some people here have recommended Nintendo WiiFit etc which is a typical geek solution, but I wouldn't. Two reasons: 1) its not a social activity, and 2) its highly repetitive which is generally not good for the joints and you risk overtraining certain muscle groups (this can later lead to injuries)
Re:Hackers Diet FTW. (Score:3, Interesting)
You didn't sound that way to me. I appreciated your honesty, and I congratulate you on finding something that works for you. I'm in a pretty similar boat - I'm 38 and just starting to feel like I really need to change my diet. Your story was inspirational to me, so thanks.