To explain that exercise does not affect your weight, or impact on obesity rates

[allmyown]

I see this misconception all over MN every day.

Exercise is fantastic for your physical and mental health in many ways, but it is not a weight loss tool.

Posters are forever quoting energy in -minus energy out = energy stored, etc, as if we are petrol engines or something! we are not - this is not how our body works.

It is more like energy available / energy required to maintain weight= energy body decides to use.

Your body burns off excess energy if you are taking in more than your homeostatic systems think you need. Your body slows down and uses far less energy if you have taken in less than your homeostatic system thinks you need.

And so if you lose weight, and go below what your body wants you to be, then your metabolism will just slow down massively to make the weight go back on. And if you exercise a lot, your metabolism will just adjust to accommodate that.

The key to weight loss is making sure your homeostatic systems decide you should be a healthy weight. You can lower the weight your homeostatic systems is attempting to maintain, with healthy eating, cut out sugar, HPF, vegetable oil, margarine, and cut down on wheat.

Eat plenty of fresh food and greens, nothing long dated.

Unless you are running 10K every single day, you are not exercising enough to change your weight, and even if you are, it won't stay changed.

The obesity epidemic is related to sugar, highly processed food, vegetable oil, margarine, etc, and poor diet in general, not too little exercise.

But don't get me wrong, there are other health problems caused by too little exercise, I am not saying exercise is bad, just that an obese child is not necessarily a child getting inadequate exercise, as so many people seem to think.

Read "Why we eat too much" by Andrew Jenkinson, he explains the up to date science in so much more detail.

Jesus Christ this thread 😳Let's please start teaching useful stuff at school as part of the National Curriculum.

Just start running 3k a day.
You'll lose weight. Problem solved.

I'm sorry but you are wrong. I walk a lot every day, briskly with the buggy and if I reduced this I would put on weight, that is just a fact.

OP I don’t think you understand the science, at all. Could you provide links to meta analysis?

I agree. I've lost a total of 7 stones in around 15 years by daily walking at least 10,000 steps. Over that time, I've continued to binge eat and generally eat crap, i.e. crisps, chocolate, pies, white bread - basically everything that's bad. It was eating like that which got me up to 23 stones in the first place, whilst I had a sedentary job, did bugger all exercise and drove an hour to and from work every day. When I gave up that job, started working closer to home (within walking distance), my weight had gradually come off, but I still binge eat. By bingeing I mean a six pack of crisps or a 4 pack of kit kat in one go, not even at a meal time, plus the odd sausage roll, pork pie etc mid morning or mid afternoon. My "diet" is absolute crap and I should be still putting weight on, but I'm not, my weight is still continuing to fall at the rate of about a pound a month, despite me stuffing my face with all the wrong stuff! For me, at least, regular daily exercise (walking) helps counterbalance the crap I'm putting in my body!

Can you link the research done on the prisoners please?

I work with prisoners and when they go on a weight loss journey, they are all encouraged to exercise in the gym as well as watch what they eat.

The men that don’t go to the gym to exercise alongside their diet, tend to lose a lot less than the men that exercise and diet.

Of course you cannot outrun a bad diet but you cannot truly believe that an Olympic athlete who trains for hours every day, requires the same amount of calories as someone who is sat down for the majority of the day.

I'm not clued up with science or competent with maths calculations, but this doesn't really match my experiences.
To be fair, I did bulk up when I did regular swimming years ago, but I had that explained to me by a more clued up friend that swimming is a type of exercise that tends to make you ravenous. It did me!
I've generally found, the less sedentary I am, the slimmer I am. It's possible I eat less crud when I'm less sedentary though. 🤔I did an old-fashioned type filing clerk job for a year, over a decade ago, and my weight stabilised easily, despite me eating cakes/choc/crisps daily. A big chunk of my day was taken up with retrieving and replacing files from a large storage unit down the corridor. Even then, most of the similar roles were going mostly down the 'scan the hard copy to the operating software and put the original in a physical file that will never likely be opened again' route.
I suspect that building muscle is very important too, and also not snacking. I'm trying to focus more on those areas 😀

I don't have an overweight child.

I also don't have overweight children, possibly because they grew up more like a lot of people in early decades did - in an environment in the countryside where (almost) everyone was very physically active daily, there was a lot of playing outside and roaming around and walking and cycling and so on. They ate what and when they were hungry around a 3 meals a day structure, and their diets weren't excessively controlled or obsessively free of treats and convenience foods, although the food was mostly home cooked and nutritious and there was nowhere to buy junk food on the way to/from school. When one of them took up elite sports, they had to consciously plan to eat more, because they easily lost too much weight otherwise if they didn't do that!

It's extremely unlikely that physical activity didn't contribute to weight control and weight loss in the scenario above and regardless, I can easily find nutritionists, doctors and scientists to explain to you OP why, even though you and the media you are quoting have some good points to make, you're not 100% right.

Unfortunately OP, you are also coming across as really patronising.

It's not true.
I'm sedentary, I gain weight. I'm active, I lose it.
There's nothing wrong with eating wheat unless you have coeliac disease.

*earlier decades of the early 21st and late 20th C.

Have a look at how many calories Olympic rowers have to consume. It's astonishing!

I have been using the Nutracheck app for 7 1/2 weeks and I've lost 13 pounds. I haven't been to the gym, running, cycling, swimming or zumba, I've just been doing what I normally do. Walking a bit faster around Tesco and light gardening. I get my pleasure from crafting and sitting on my arse.

@PyramidsOfMarsBar - last point, very true 👍

"it clearly lays out all the science and understanding from the last few decades of research into this area."

ALL the science? A proper review, including a critique of those advocating an exercise programme? I haven't read the book but I doubt it. Who did the prisoner survey, I assume it was a proper trial with control groups etc? Can you provide a journal reference because I'd like to read it properly.

Also, I know they're popular and I'm most likely cynical, but Van Tulleken has his fingers in the "make money pie". Its so bloody easy for someone to make money out of the "tell people what to eat" industry especially if you can stick Dr in front of your name. Come to think of it, why didn't I get into that scam - maybe because I was taught scientific rigor.

Tedious

Isn’t he referring to hunger hormones?

The maths isn't mathing, is it?! 😂

That whole paragraph reads like something Dr Who would say when trying to explain how the Tardis works, lots of sciencey-sounding words, no actual sense made whatsoever.

I know! There's so much poor science in it, it's annoying.

Obviously exercise contributes to weight loss and preserving muscle mass, but 'you can't outrun a bad diet' as the saying goes.

There's nothing wrong with eating wheat unless you have coeliac disease.

Agree with this, for many people it has come from nonsense testing and diet fads, with no purpose, and sometimes leads to poorer nutrition overall.

The exceptions go a bit further than just coeliac disease, because people with some other autoimmune disorders also find a low gluten or gluten free diet to be helpful, and some other people are otherwise sensitive to too much gluten in their diet and find that introducing a wider range of grains and checking for excess 'hidden gluten', and thus eating less of it overall, is better for their gut symptoms and/or general health.

Plus, some people have a sensitivity to wheat, not to gluten.

A dietitian can help decipher whether any of these are the case for an individual, and advise on what testing to ask a GP for, and the best way of meeting nutritional needs long term if a change is necessary.

https://www.bda.uk.com/about-dietetics/what-is-dietitian.html

There are other benefits of exercise. On days I don’t exercise, I want to eat more.

I think you’re looking at very simplistically OP.

Exercise is about much more than burning calories.

I feel like you are trying to say something and passing your message wrongly. Off course exercise is a tool to lose weight. Why would you say you cannot lose weight by exercising. You’re likely trying to say that just because you’re exercising does not mean you will lose weight which off course is true. You can be exercising and still be overeating and never lose weight. Also you may never exercise actively like weights, running etc and still lose weight or maintain absolutely because you’re not overeating. But please don’t make such a blanket incorrect statement.

Very true, @PyramidsOfMarsBar . Advising people to cut this out has just become fashionable. Where I live there's a whole "gluten free" cafe, always choc a block . Faddy. When I was a teenager it was "cut out potatoes".

Nonsense OP

doing exercise (a lot) over the past five years has massively increased my muscle mass , and therefore my metabolism

so doing the exercise has made me slimmer and stronger. more muscle. less fat

Would love to see a photo of you to compare how you look based on what you preach btw 😁

What I’ve heard (from people like the Medicinal Chef) is that once it knows it’s not a starvation issue and you are clearly well and healthy at the lower weight, your body accepts it.

Thanks, that’s encouraging.

I don’t think it’s right to say surgery will convince your body of anything. If the first part of that is right, then after surgery you would still just put it back.

Thought might be hunger hormones related? I Need to read more.

ETA: Just read this

“Bariatric surgery and set point theoryBariatric surgery (using the examples of gastric bypass and sleeve gastrectomy) creates physiological changes, which affect the levels of numerous hormones involved in appetite regulation.

Bariatric surgery increases satiety (as the stomach is smaller or bypassed so less food can be consumed before feeling ‘full’) and decreases hunger, physiologically encouraging your body to want to lose weight.

Bariatric surgery can help you to lower your weight ‘set point’ as a result of the physical changes to your digestive system, including hormones and nerve signalling. By lowering your body’s set point, you can achieve a sustainable healthier weight.”

Ozempic meds etc also of course reduce appetite