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.

Exercise helps ease my bloating and helps me feel more comfortable in clothes. Looking forward to my usual walk tomorrow as it also sets a routine for the day.

@Itsarecipefordisaster I know, if anything the menopause (I went through an abrupt one after cancer treatment) has shown me how important it is to keep exercising to maintain good mobility. However because I was overweight, I lost weight during my menopause. I am now the same weight I was when I was a teenager (before I gained too much weight). I do far more exercise than I did then though although I think my rest times might be more sedentary. I am working on that though.

A friend of mine recently lost a stone in weight. She didn’t go on a diet and she didn’t change the amount of food she was eating in any way. What did change is that she started walking the 1.5 miles per day to and from work that she used to drive. She wasn’t even trying to lose weight, she was just trying to save herself the cost of parking when it went up in price. Took about 6 months to lose, give or take.

It is baffling how difficult it is to convince people of this, despite much scientific evidence supporting it.

The myths around the morality of weight loss are dramatically unhelpful to the actual issue.

Interestingly, coca-cola were the original sponsors and promoters of the idea that the key to weight loss was exercise.

It's provided a distraction that they and other UPF food producers have hidden under for decades.

@toomanytonotice
I maybe didn't express that very well. I am saying the body is more likely to store fat when insulin resistant. The resistance means that the body produces more insulin because what is resistant is the insulin receptors which cause insulin release to be regulated IIRC which means the sugar will be stored as fat. Insulin resistant means that insulin regulation is 'broken'.

And yes, your body is taking in more energy than it needs but this becomes difficult to regulate as hunger signals are released for it to do this (because the fat releasing mechanisms are not operating correctly.) So food is consumed and a large amount of the energy stored but this is in the body's version of assets which cannot be immediately utilised (fat). The body then needs more immediate energy just like someone would need spending money even though they might have assets in property for example.

But the good news is that it is possible to train the body to be better at burning fat. Exercise does this. Eating a less sugary diet helps as it does not exhaust the body's insulin releasing / regulating systems. Sugar is such a high energy food it will store as fat and if you never use that fat but just eat more sugar the hunger / fat storage can become a vicious circle.

Please can you post links to the prisoner/tribe studies you mention so we can all have a look for ourselves? What you say is interesting, but you just repeatedly assert it is all fact without producing evidence. Thank you

But it is not a scientific consensus at all. And the hunter-gatherer study has lots of flaws and is based on 30 individuals.

Not denying the importance of diet btw

This is really interesting. So as a menopausal woman who has put on 2 stones over the past year, what's the best thing I can do to lose it?
I used to run until last year but fatigue put paid to that.
Thanks.

@Anotherdayanotherhangover

What intensity did you run at? Have you tried slow running? But as a menopausal woman, post cancer treatment, I lost weight by running, walking and resistance training plus eating at a calorie deficit. I used Fitbit to log my food and exercise. I also will run fasted and have employed intermittent fasting to keep all systems 'up and running'.

Thanks heyhohello I ran 4 - 5 days a week. 3 × 5k runs and 1 or 2 10 to 12k
I live in a hilly town! At my best 8.5 minute mile average but by last year was down to 12 minutes.
Have done nothing more exerting than walking & some swimming since last autumn.
My eating (& drinking) has also deteriorated; my mental health has been the catalyst for this.

@Anotherdayanotherhangover don't be too hard on yourself. Walking is great. Have you got a fitness tracker?

I run 10k a day but on a totally flat easy, predictable route (I will do circuits to achieve this and will run inside too). I don't run fast or in a way that is too difficult. I could sing and run for example. I also walk 5k which definitely helps (started the walking during lockdown). With the eating and drinking I plan my meals and like to cut portions of sugary / fatty foods rather than deny myself foods altogether. Same with alcohol. I get alcohol free versions of drinks too, to mix in when people are drinking around me. Some low alcohol lagers have a lot less calories than the alcoholic versions and they taste pretty much the same.

Mental health often improves with exercise due to improved circulation and hormone release / regulation. It helps me deal with the anxiety of having had pretty aggressive cancer treatment a few years ago.

@Anotherdayanotherhangover I find running everyday good as becomes really ingrained as a habit. If circumstances mean it can't be fitted into the day for some reason it feels odd and I celebrate this feeling because that means I enjoy getting back to my 'normal'. 🙂

I have exercised every day since Feb this year every weekly update says 7 days spent exercising. It’s the horrid change of life which won’t change this fact.

The general point of the book seems to be that the body does not make the exact mathematical calculation of calories consumed and calories expended. Because if you went on, say for example, a 500 calorie per day diet, then your body would sort of go into a self-preserving mode by lowering your metabolic rate

The amount of calories expended by exercise needs to be fairly significant to have a weight loss effect without altering diet.

But to say that exercise does not have an impact on weight loss seems a little reductive because it is objectively possible to lose weight through exercise alone.

Exercise has also been shown to increase metabolic rate.

It’s the horrid change of life which won’t change this fact.

@Ladymuck2022, what, you mean you are overweight/ putting weight on? I'm sure there must be more to it as I lost weight when menopausal (after cancer treatment). Kept it off 6 years now (in my 50s). Do you log your food? What sort of training do you do?

Exercise aside, I do not think your diet tips are sound.

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

I don't like this because it puts a burden on some people both price and time wise and is simply incorrect imo.

Many foods I believe are better frozen compared to fresh which has been transported and hanging about on shelves losing nutrients. Frozen foods such as green beans are much cheaper frozen. Ditto berries (obvs texture different) - remain valuable nutritionally and cheaper and probably less waste as can have whatever portion is needed.

Nothing long dated? Yes I agree no UPF but what about tinned chickpeas, legumes, tomatoes? They're all whole foods. Again, if someone looking for a healthier WOE, this may put them off unnecessarily.

You are dead wrong on the exercise part, but you save yourself with your detailed explanation regarding intake. I am something of an expert in this regard because I have used mere walking as a weight-maintenance tool since 2011. The key to everything is a balanced diet. While eating mostly healthily, exercise will swoop in and make all the difference. Weight can be maintained with eating practices, but it's unlikely to lose you weight, outside of insane unhealthy practices such as fasting for days. Even fasting will only work for so long because the body takes it to mean that food is in short supply and will diligently begin to store whatever it can as fat.

You do make some good points with what people eat. I personally believe that people's unwillingness to cook at home is a huge part of the issue. When we eat out we have no control over the ingredients. Restaurants (especially of the "quick" variety) are there to make as much profit while keeping costs low. Ironically, while a healthy vegetable-rich diet can actually be quite reasonable as far as costs go, restaurants tend to go for high fat foods that cause people to throw caution to the wind.

It's not rocket science. The key to being healthy is to eat no more than you need to, and to have some kind of exercise regimen. It doesn't even have to be anything crazy. I used to walk 6 to 9 miles every day after work, sometimes another 3 during my lunch. But a 30 minute vigorous walk every day is all that is needed. I went in hard right from the start and lost over 40 pounds (almost 3 stones) in four months. This could never have been achieved with diet alone, although I did cut out ALL sugar for a couple of years. I've moderated my needs since that time, but I still shy away from most sugar and allow myself the occasional treat. Possibly the biggest change that made this all possible was to completely cut out soda (fizzy) drinks along with so-called healthy fruit juices. If I drink fruit juice at all, I dilute it with two parts water. It's actually way more refreshing like this with a glass full of ice. I could do a TED Talk with the data I've gathered. But one thing I absolutely reject is that idea that exercise is pointless. You must be quite mad to say such a silly thing. I believe you are rejecting common wisdom because you don't want to submit to doing exercise.

I think if you change exercise to activity it highlights how nonsensical this is. We are designed to be active! When we are not active mobility, flexibility and strength can be lost in various ways. We lose physical fitness. A body that is not working properly also can have difficulty with regulation in terms of utilising and storing body fat. Metabolic diseases do not help weight management. Being active / exercise helps prevent metabolic disease. It keeps the body working!

This isn't true for me, I lose weight when I exercise more.

Metabolism does, in fact, increase during exercise and for some time thereafter. The issue is that it is hard to excerise enough to burn off calories consumed. Therefor, relying on exercise alone is a poor way to lose weight. HOWEVER, combined with a sensible diet, NOT a starvation diet, it works very well. It is starvation diets that cause metabolic slow-down.

No of course not - but it may well drop far lower than you might expect and remain lower for much longer afterwards so that the marathon ultimately has little to no impact. The rebalancing could easily take place over a longer period than a day.

Objectively possible for some people but not for most of us as the studies show. I can add vast amounts of exercise to my week and not change my diet (calorie counted) and nothing happens to my weight at all. It's a study of my own personal biology that I've run many, many times now. Exercise does nothing for me and that is the experience of many many others and what has been shown in the research. If you're one of the lucky few who can get results from increasing your activity then good for you but it just doesn't work for most of us at all.