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.

I recently lost over a stone by doing low carb. And I DID ZERO exercise! ( not recommend ing that pp don't exercise obvs...)

If you build muscle mass, you burn more calories even at rest. Walking is not going to do that. It has to be intense strength training to make an appreciable difference. By this I mean you don't do what most people at the gym do, which is lift a few light weights and take a ton of rest in between sets looking at your phone. I'm talking balls to the wall workouts where you lift the heaviest you can for multiple sets per muscle group, going to the point of failure in every set, with as little rest as possible, with a frequency of at least three times a week. You keep increasing the weight and number of sets as you get stronger. That will make enough of a difference in your metabolism to effect your weight. It won't be enough to allow you to eat a horrible diet, so diet is definitely essential. Diet without exercise will cause you to lose muscle mass, lowering your metabolic rate.
When I was bodybuilding I actually had a hard time eating enough to fuel all the muscle growth. I'm still hitting the weights 25 years later, but as I'm a lot older I can't do three hour intense workouts anymore. I have no trouble keeping my weight stable even at an age where people lose muscle mass rapidly, because I am still working to maintain it.
Most people are not willing to work out so intensely, which is why it often doesn't affect their weight.

If exercise isn't even really exercise until you're pushing yourself "to the point of failure" though then I'd say that's a fairly strong argument in favour of what the OP's saying. I know almost nobody able to sustainably and repeatedly push themselves to the point of failure multiple times a week for a lifetime, given so many are being pushed to breaking point in other areas of their lives - caring for elderly relatives, advocating for their disabled children, working multiple jobs to be able to feed their families, helping their teens through mental health crises etc. Often while living with chronic pain, fatigue or stress themselves due to other health conditions for which there may be no treatment. It's unfair to say that people are "unwilling" to do the work when it's completely impossible for most of us.

And you have to build an absolute ton of muscle mass before you so much as burn an extra daily barley sugar (I remember Gary Taubes sets out exactly how much work is required to see even the tiniest of rewards in his book Why We Get Fat and it just isn't in the realms of feasibility for most people). Again, I applaud you if you're achieving this for yourself but for the medical authorities to tell people that weight loss is achievable through exercise and not actually mean a level of exercise that's in the realms of possibility for most of us then I think that's just misleading.

this exactly

we are all humans and out bodies are all fundamentally the same and function in the same way they have done for half a million years

Obviously, carrots are a better snack than biscuits, but both snacks are going to spike your insulin levels, which is unhealthy, and will lead to health problems and obesity eventually in many cases

This is also why artificial sweeteners are no better than full sugar when trying to lose weight, They still cause an insulin spike, and it is the insulin spikes that are damaging, rather then the actual number of calories

It is no mystery, UPF have a very high ratio of omega 6 to omega 3, which fills up cell membranes and disrupts the metabolism and leads to obesity.

It is nothing to do with the calories, you can eat low calory UPFs, but they are one of the main culprits in obesity, whatever calories they have

I'm not deluded, and Jenkinson is presenting the accepted science, and the consensus among anyone who has studied this. His book hasn't been criticised for lack of scientific rigour, it has been criticised for oversimplification in some ways, however it is meant for non scientists, and it gives all the references needed.

My personal experience is no more than an anecdote from some random on the internet to readers, so of what value is it to anyone? none at all, but reading the actual scientific studies is of value to you.

Why are people getting so upset about this? it has been well known for decades that exercise isnt a weight loss tool - no dispute about that. ALL scientific studies show this.

I put this thread up in response to the criticism I've seen on MN of parents of obese children not making them exercise more, and just to point out that it is well established that exercise wont make any difference to obesity.

Of course exercise has many many health benefits, and we should all exercise. But those obese children and parents being criticised here may well be exercising more than the people criticising them

Are these research papers actually claiming this though? It's very hard to tell when someone is saying "the body works like this" and means it as an absolute vs meaning it as a generalisation. From everything I've read I believe these to be generalisations as I do believe some people can and do lose significant weight with exercise, but most people can't and don't. I haven't studied this as a professional though.

almonds are a particularly unhealthy snack

Why is it that every time I increase the length of my daily walk, with no change in eating habits, I've lost weight then? I lost a stone when I took over the dog walking duty. I also lost weight when I took up jogging, once again with no change in my diet.

You can keep your up-to-date science, I'll do what works for me.

@ForGreyKoala You are very lucky if walking the dog caused you to lose a stone .it doesn’t do the same for me. I’m not overweight though. Were you ,if you do t mind me asking?

I'm not upset about this. I've lost weight in the past without exercising and this time I have lost weight while really stepping up my exercise.

I can say that this time I feel fitter, my blood pressure has reduced, my resting heart rate is down, I can do a squat to bend down, run for the train, all differences compared to when I started 6 months ago and of course the weight loss is contributing to that as is the exercise.

Reading that if I get up and spend all day on the sofa watching TV or if I get up do a two mile brisk dog walk and run a 10k later in the day that I will use the same amount of calories is a new concept to me and most I imagine given that all the fitness trackers/Mfp/TDEE calculators all add calories on for exercise.

@allmyown Almonds are VERY good for you.

I'm always surprised, though I shouldn't be by the lack of basic nutrition on MN. Yes, if you eat them in excess or eat the chocolate covered ones, it's probably not a good idea. But almonds are healthy.

Almonds are not a particular unhealthy snack, I could list plenty of things that are.

No, it's well know that exercise alone is not enough for weightloss because as they saying goes, you cannot outrun a bad diet.

To lose 1lb of fat you need to create a deficit of 3500 calories, which is incredibly difficult to do with exercise alone unless you are an elite athlete, especially if you are eating a high calorie diet.

Exercise can aid weightloss when combined with a calorie controlled diet. Calories burned by exercise or general movment can and does add to the calorie deficit.

Are you sure "insulin spikes are damaging"? Glucose spikes are risky for people with diabetes, because they don't produce enough effective insulin at the right time. But for non-diabetics, insulin is the healthy response to food & drink. It exists to keep our glucose levels steady. 'Spiking' after we've taken nutrition is exactly what it's supposed to do.

In what way do you believe insulin to be harmful?

If exercise doesn't count then why do people still lose weight when eating above their BMR but below their TDEE?

The average BMR for women is just 1400 calories day which means to lose 1lb a week we'd need to eat just 950 calories a day, which is extremely difficult to do and also very unhealthy.

Another question, if calories do not count when it comes to UPF then why do anorexics remain underweight when the majority of them eat only UPF?

Things in packets tend to be UPF and anorexics love things in packets because they are weighed and they have calories and fat labelled and counted for them. I met a lot of anorexics when being treated for it myself as a teenager and almost all of them would only eat things in packets, often pot noodles or supernoodles or low fat yoghurts and cereal bars. They all had a very low BMI.

@cocolocosmoko sounds like your health issues are pretty complex with having had multiple doctors working with you. The thing is if the fat releasing mechanisms in the body are not working correctly it will be difficult to lose fat through exercise or otherwise. If anything this thread does highlight how complex the body is and it can be especially complex when stuff goes wrong. I understand this, it would be like trying to put on weight with a digestive disorder. The digestive disorder would need correcting as a priority.

My own journey was that in my twenties when I started piling weight on I discovered low carb high protein which worked for a time. I must have had too much insulin circulating in my body at the time. I did get energy slumps and food cravings. However, I did plateau with this so I decided to combine in with eating at a deficit which worked. I suspect the plateau was either due to me losing weight and having less of a calorie requirement or my body becoming better at metabolising protein and fat so less was excreted as ketones.

Over the years I stopped counting and put on weight after becoming a mother. So I had another go but the low carb, high protein and eating at a deficit was enough by itself. Now and again I'd have a go and lose some of the extra only to plateau and put it back on when I stopped. I developed a bad back then got breast cancer.

After my treatment when they talked about reconstruction after mastectomy and how I would feel with my body image I thought it wasn't really that that was the worst thing. It was being overweight. So I decided to forgo the mastectomy and concentrate on getting fit and healthy straight away. I just hoped and prayed it would work! My motto was 'Something is better than nothing'.

So I did all the 'easy' exercises and 'exercises for invalids' on YouTube until I came across 'slow jogging' and discovered I can do that. 'Wow! I can run!' I thought. 'Runners are slim fit and healthy!' It was also great for circulation and heart health. Good news after having had lymph nodes out and chemo which causes vein hardening. So I did that. I also had decided to cut the portions of my meals in half then add in more salad / non starchy veg to fill my plate. Fast forward 3 years and I had lost 4 stone. Went from over 40% fat to 23% fat (body composition scales).

Now reading some of the science behind MAF it made sense that I was burning fat. Getting my Fitbit showed me I would have been pretty sedentary with a very low calorie expenditure before I started exercising. Regarding the lifting weights and building muscle model of weight loss, I tried had heavy weights years before but felt nauseous doing them. I was also petrified of dropping them on my foot! I know body builders can do this but it wasn't my favourite thing. But I love running and now do use weights and an isometric power ball and disk as part of my conditioning exercises.

The take away for me? The human body is complex. Fat burning mechanisms in the body can go wrong (fat is stored for a reason! What is the use of it, if it can't be utilised?) Different food affects the body differently. Different exercise affects the body differently. We are all individuals with different strength and weaknesses.

And I can get a bit upset when people have a dig at exercise, or specifically about running. With my history it can be a bit emotive. I associate running with not only weight loss but my recovery from cancer and the after effects of treatment. Running has been good for my mental health too. I think people should remember we are human beings.

@cocolocosmoko and with what I've just said, I get why people banging on about the benefits of exercise could be equally galling to you as it is to me when people criticise it. I hope you find some answers.

@Garlicker people are talking about when too much insulin is present for too long. It means the body is set to energy storing mode (as fat) in order to bring blood sugar down rather than energy releasing mode. This is like the body's equivalent of having a stiff light switch which is difficult to move. When both functions are important.