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.

In fairness I did state ‘walking to the shops’ i.e. a ten minute round trip. Walking for several kilometers / an hour plus is obviously ‘exercise’ as that is an extended period of elevated heart rate. I do however still think the term exercise has been watered down to mean almost anything. Many people view any kind of movement, no matter how short lived, as ‘exercise’ and kid themselves into believing they are doing enough each week to maintain a healthy level of fitness and therefore no other action is required.

NHS recommends about 30 minutes of moderate physical activity daily, a few brisk walk is definitely classed as that. Whether you want to call it exercise, movement or whatever.

I used to walk 10-20 minutes here and there on my daily commute in London and travelling to different offices in a previous role and walking around offices & schools.

It added up to around one hour of walking a day, that was certainly enough for me to maintain a healthy BMI and had decent fitness levels, until I stopped doing that and became sedentary.

If anything we have more gyms or people focused on higher intensity exercise nowadays and less people doing the type of “accidental” exercise (NEAT) that is actually really helpful for health and boosting metabolism and overall more sustainable (and kinder to joints) as part of an ongoing healthy lifestyle.

I usually buy my almonds from Sainsburys. One serving, which is only a fraction of what IMO is not a huge pack, is 200 calories. I’m often tempted to have more than serving! 🤭 so yeah you do the math 😅 it just doesn’t end well for me so I steer well clear most weeks to avoid piling on an extra 200-400 calories a day. I’m one of those best people who is just better off not snacking.

https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/sainsburys-whole-almonds-200g

Plus it’s a protein so you don’t absorb all the calories

Interesting. I’ll look into it more.

@TheCadoganArms

Many people view any kind of movement, no matter how short lived, as ‘exercise’ and kid themselves into believing they are doing enough each week to maintain a healthy level of fitness and therefore no other action is required.

That too. A great way around this is to get a fitness tracker and log food and exercise.

I remember being shocked at how little energyI burn compared to my husband and son even when I (on the surface) appear to do more activity. Apart from being me obviously very energy efficient 😇!!! I think there are so many factors (height, weight, bone and muscle mass) affecting how much we burn fitness trackers really help. I'm also trying to improve my resting activity after comparing my tracker to my sister in law who did less 'exercise' but burnt nearly as much as me after a 10K run and 5K walk on a pretty relaxed day for her. Her only exercise being a walk around a stately home and gardens they had visited! Her activity chart was constant and mine had definite high points and slumps!

I try and do both, though the incidental exercise can be harder when you are tied to a desk for several hours a day. I have a dog so that helps. I used to pooh pooh walking as exercise but I think it is very good and underrated by many people.

Having said that, I am much fitter and in better shape now I both go to the gym, lift weights and run as well as doing the walking and yoga plus eating healthily- my waist is the slimmest it has been in years, I lost 5" off it in a few months, it's now well below the diabetes risk level and in the healthy range compared with my height even if my BMI is still a little high, and I am no more than a size 12 in all shops whereas my default size for the last 15 years or so (since I had DD2) has been 14, creeping up to 16 and 18 at times.

I also have so much more energy and find everything easier, which is not to be sniffed at being in my late 40s, plus the muscle tone is so important as by default I'd be losing muscle tone and that has an effect on all sorts of things. If I could lose weight with exercise alone I ought to be a size 6 by now 😆 but it is certainly important to me and makes a big health and wellbeing difference, plus I feel confident in clothes and in photos.

During lockdown1 I got into the habit of walking the very hilly terrain around where my mum lived (i was staying with her during the plague) normally for 2 hours walking and about an hour of sitting on top of hills and when I was finally able to go back to my real sport I was noticeably more aerobically fit than I had been in the previous however many years

I know skinny people who do now exercise and fat people who do loads.

In my experience it's mostly the food.

Exercise is great for many many reasons - but on it's own, unless you are exercising a ridiculous amount - isn't going to make you lose weight.

@BigDahliaFan,

I know skinny people who do now exercise and fat people who do loads.

In my experience it's mostly the food.

It's not the whole picture granted. Overall activity levels even with 'exercise' can be surprising. Because it is possible to not do much else for the rest of the day. Also not all exercise does the same thing. You only have to look at 'The Strongest Man' contenders to appreciate that. All serious athletes who train and have very specific diets. But it's certainly geared towards strength and very definitely not for weight loss! (Can you guess I love YouTube videos where different sports people try disciplines different from their own?😂) But food only is part of the picture too. If I were sedentary my calorie requirement for maintaining my weight is only 1500 calories. Eating at a deficit doesn't really cut it for weight loss. I like to be able join in with family meals and eat out too! Low carb even stopped working for me. I think your body adapts so that it can burn the fat / protein more efficiently - so the energy of it is not all excreted as ketones. What does work (for me at least) is exercise, physical activity plus not over eating and eating at a calorie deficit if weight loss is required.

Because if you have low calorie expenditure, with a sedentary lifestyle, I don't know how possible it is to get a balanced heathy nutritious diet whilst eating at a deficit. Lack of fibre alone could be a major issue, not to mention lack of vitamins, healthy fats and protein. Something has to give. It is far simpler to increase exercise or at least activity for most (relatively able bodied) people. Even people with mobility issues can often do some form of physical activity/exercise.

This is a handy little calculator which shows the sort of calorie expenditures you can expect at your personal height, weight, sex, activity level etc.

tdeecalculator.net/

Quite eye opening! Just like my fitness tracker has been!

Although, as the op points out, it's not usually linear. We are constantly changing! Different types of exercise and different foodstuffs affect the body differently.

That TDEE calculator is adding over 500 calories a day for me if I am moderately active compared to sedentary.

And giving 2091 calories per day for 54 year old me ☺️

CVT explains this in Ultra Processed People as well.

Wow, @Alainlechat you lucky thing! (Well if you like your food anyway).

I add in quite a fair bit of exercise to get me to that. Yesterday my track told me I burnt 2458 cals but that was with activity of 10k run, 5k walk, some strength and conditioning work plus finished unpacking from our holiday, though, but I didn't do too badly.

I think I must be slighter than you. Generally the heavier, taller and more muscular you are the more calories you need to maintain your current weight.

As I said previously- fat people who do one exercise session a day then sit on their arse, will burn less than skinny people who maybe don’t exercise, but move constantly.

dh is a skinny non- exerciser. But he also never sits still, and even when he is sitting a leg is jiggling or he’s fidgeting.

it has been shown that “naturally” thin people do tend to have this subconscious constant low level activity, which burns many more calories than one 10k run + 15 hours of sitting still.

I would say that my diet is probably about 85% healthy, by that I mean lots of veg, fruit, pulses, fish, little to no red meat, lots of water, zero processed foods and cooking from scratch etc. However, my Achillies heel is cheese, dark chocolate, wine and the occasional curry ice-cream. I can get away with consuming the latter stuff now and again because I do fuck ton of exercise. ... I love the latitude exercise gives me insofar as being able to occasionally blow out. You simply cant do that on a calorie controlled only
diet with no exercise.

I totally agree, @TheCadoganArms .

Additionally, most people who exercise have a different attitude to both their health and food. They tend to think in terms of long term benefits/damage rather than focusing on dieting in order to get to some kind of 'ideal' weight. They find foods that are healthy, nutritious and tasty, so eating is enjoyable and 'dieting' is unnecessary.

@heyhohello I'm 5'7 and at the top end of the healthy BMi weight. Still some to lose so not eating up to the TDEE given at all.

I am going 3 runs a week up to 10k and 2 HIIT/crossfit sessions and plenty of steps on top for the most part. Hoping I can eat up to around 1900 once I start trying to maintain. Going to be trial and error.

@Alainlechat, sounds like a good plan. Have you got a fitness tracker whereby you can log your food and exercise? Fitbit worked really well for me.

I run 10k every day now and walk 5k and do strength and conditioning exercises 4 times a week. Usually between 21,000 and 26,000 steps a day. I'm the same height as you and at the lowest end of the healthy BMI weight. I am slight though (size 8). I am in my 50s and my body composition scales tell me I've more muscle mass than I did in my 30s (same set of scales). I can see some muscle definition but I look pretty normal, not particularly thin. I'd love more muscle but I think I'd have to go at it like a bodybuilder which might interfere with with my running which I love.

@heyhohello I use MFP for food logging and have an Apple Watch. I'm a size 12-14 probably on account of a larger than average bust!

Checking Apple health it's estimating 1667 calories for resting and a further 766 added for activity which does go up and down depending on my exercise for the day.

@Alainlechat just looked at my stats for Fitbit yesterday. Exercise totalled 1113 cals and daily total expenditure was 2458 so only 1345 cals was spent resting. Might have been higher but I took my Fitbit off to charge whilst I had a bath and got dressed and again when I was doing some housework. Think it's there or thereabouts.

Keep having to remember to charge the thing at night if I am monitoring resting low level activity. I've not been a natural potterer in recent years (cancer treatment in 2017 and before that a bad back).

My secret to adding extra exercise in is going for a walk for an hour or so. I'm still trying to be more active and sit less at home. I've given myself neck ache before being on my IPad (MN!) for far too long! I've recently stated looking at my screen time and was more shocked by that than my fitness tracker!!!😂

Really I want more balance. Love the running and walking but there is a lot in the house that gets undone. I have a lot of rest periods (hence screen time or if I'm cutting down on that it can be just reading!) I'd like to be a bit more productive. So I'm trying to be more of a potterer and build up an appetite for that and organise my house better beyond basic cleaning and tidying. Hurt my back a bit a few weeks ago though so have to careful. Running and walking was still possible and actually loosened it up, thankfully. Probably something I need to stretch or strengthen.

But it's that healthy lifestyle isn't it? Like those people in the blue zones..active but not going hell for leather then wearing themselves out. Eating healthily but not being obsessed over their food. I think we've got so far away from this in our society it doesn't necessarily come naturally.

Fitbit does not give you an accurate representation of your calorie use. We can't do that with this level of technology yet. If it seems about right for you that's great but you have to remember all the people like me who get laughable data.

Re the blue zones there was an article in the paper a few months ago. Apparently something else all these zones have in common is a history of very poor public record keeping around 80-90 years ago. There were simply not accurate birth records for many born in these countries before a certain time and when this cohort began approaching retirement, many took advantage by claiming they were older than they are so they could stop working and claim their pension. So many of these amazing centenarians are potentially just fairly ordinary octo and nono-generians. I'll be interested to see if anything more comes out about that!

@cocolocosmoko what happens with your Fitbit data? Did you have a heart rate monitor? What exercise did you do & what did you eat? What didn't add up?

Fitbit data isn't perfect but it is pretty consistent. Their methods are tested and have been corroborated. From what I remember reading running is pretty accurate, walking is sometimes slightly overestimated in terms of calories burned. But it's consistent so if anything is not working you can tweak intake accordingly. I don't eat all the calories it says I can to maintain. I have to lop a few hundred off that. But with the data you can find patterns which work.

I haven't used the fitbit in years so I can't remember the specifics other than the fact it told me I'd burnt loads of extra calories when I started exercising having been largely sedentary for several years before (due to illness). I'm in the majority of people (according to current thinking at least) who loses no weight at all from exercise no matter how much I do though so it was meaningless. I suppose you could argue that I was genuinely burning those calories while exercising but that when I was at rest my metabolism was slowing down by the equivalent amount to offset them (not unlikely to be fair given that's what the research suggests is happening) but it doesn't make it feel any less meaningless.

I eat very little due to multiple health conditions (less than 1000 calories a day - weight piles on if I increase even slightly). I've worked with multiple doctors and nutritionists to try to increase my intake to healthier levels (I have bad malnutrition) but I always have to stop as the weight just piles on as soon as I start eating more.

I tried walking 7 or 8 hours a day then working a further 7 or 8 hours on my feet for several months in my twenties. Zero weight loss although I remained on the same calorie intake I'd been on for the few years i was almost totally sedentary before. In my early thirties I gave up my job for 6 months to try doing 7 or 8 hours of aerobic exercise a week plus 4 or 5 hours of walking again without changing my calorie intake. Again zero change on the scales - weight remained exactly the same throughout as it had been when I'd been sedentary. I now walk a few hours a week for other health benefits but it does nothing for my weight. And I'm under no illusions that increasing the amount I do or upping the intensity would make any difference. I have disabilities so I was pushing myself to my very limits when I did these high exercise drives (hence having to give up my job the second time as I was having to recover by resting between classes and wouldn't have been able to communicate with others due to the exhaustion).

I think it just comes down to whether your metabolism remains roughly the same when you change something (those people are blessed and can lose by dieting and exercising) or whether it's "responsive". If your metabolism responds to a big increase in exercise or reduction in food intake by slowing down to keep your body weight the same then there's nothing you can do short of lipo. I know many in this situation although that's partly because of the conditions I have. Many are very common though.

Again, while many on this thread are questioning the science because their body doesn't work like that, there are many people whose bodies do work as this science suggests. Effectively you burn no calories at all when you exercise if you're in this majority.