Why Exercise Won't Make You ThinFollow

Well, there are health benefits that come from exercise even without weight loss. At the higher obesity levels, metabolic syndrome kicks in, but if you're merely a couple of numbers above your ideal BMI, and you had the choice between dieting and exercising, go for the exercising. A few extra pounds won't hurt, and improving your cardiovascular health is much more important than fitting into size 8 jeans.

That said, I went to a fine arts high school and the ballet dancers, during Nutcracker season, ate lunch three times during the day. When I asked one of them how the hell she managed to fit into size 2 skinny jeans after eating four peanut butter sandwichs, she looked at me blankly and said "I'm dancing four hours a day right now."

Edit: You can tell which models exercise and which ones "cleanse" to stay thin without being toned. Its all in the knees. Models have horrifying knees in general, but those that exercise to stay toned don't make you want to vomit like the cleansers's knees do.

Also, flaps of loose skin. She really needed to hit the gym instead of drinking lemon juice for two weeks.

Edited, Aug 11th 2009 2:27am by catwho

The author is mixing up things. Having low body fat and being healthy. Low body fat is considered attractive today. But it's not the best measure for health. Being overweight is bad, but being skinny isn't necessarily that healthy either (see catwho's post). Our bodies are just not designed to sit in an office all day. It's important to exercise no matter how heavy you are.
Someone who eats very little and is therefore slim, but never does any sports, will have less body fat (and look slimmer = better by today's standards), but he will not be healthier (heart, circulation, bones, coordination etc.) than someone who eats a bit more and exercises an hour a day, but due to eating more is a bit chubbier. I'm talking BMI 24-29, not fatso fat.

Consider that an hour of running will burn around 600 kcal (depending on your weight and how fast you run). If you go every other day, that's an average 300 kcal you burn per day from sports, even with a relatively heavy regime. 300 kcal is a snack, and not even a bomb like crisps or so.

So it's pretty clear (and nothing new) that the biggest aspect of being slim is your eating. People simply eat way too much in developed countries.

Saying that exercise is counterproductive is just stupid. It's a discipline problem. It's not that exercise is bad, it's people doing something good and then immediately destroying it with a bagle. If you're trying to lose weight, you obviously need to change your habits. Changing ones eating habits is hard. Doing sports and then eating even more is simply stupid.

And anyway, if you want to be athletic, you have to do lots of sports and eat right. I think the article is just misleading.

Good post by catwho. Low weight is not necessarily a measure of good body composition or health (as I said).

Edited, Aug 11th 2009 9:00am by Turicus

/nod

I'm such a soup addict. Given a choice of food, I'm generally heading for soup over anything. Broth-based soups are a low calorie-high volume food. Cream-based soups can be healthy, but you just need to watch your portions.

Weight lost is easy, its calorie in, calorie out.

To lose a pound of body fat you have to burn 3500 more calories then you take in. To do that you have to create a calorie deficit, recommended 500-1000 calories a day. Leading to 1-2 pounds of body fat lost a week.

If you eat 500 less calories from food, and burn 500 calories in the gym, you get your easy 1000 calories a day. Assuming you have the self control. If you only get the 1000 calorie deficit from your diet, then your metabolism will crash, and so will your weight lost.

5 years ago I weighed 230 pounds, now I weigh 155 and I've gotten my bench press weight back up to what is was when I was in high school(when I was 230), I exercise 5 days a week.

Well put. It's just like when a big guy in Drive thru orders a Diet Coke with his Big Mac meal and thinks he's doing sooooooo good in reducing his caloric intake! Try walking to lunch and ordering a salad.

The Big Mac has 540 calories, the large coke has 310, the large fries have 500. So out of a 1350 calorie meal, by changing to diet coke he's reducing the total caloric intake by about 23%.

Obviously the salad would have vastly fewer calories (about 220-430 + 50-200 for dressing, so maybe 450).

Walking, for a heavy person, is maybe 300 calories per hour.

And what is unseen in that brief encounter is how long is that salad versus meal going to "hold" this person before they eat again?

I read the article a week or so ago and the point the author made is completely valid.



I think too many people that exercise pull a Clinton and just run to McDonald's. Eating ****** food will make you gain weight over time, adding running in just makes you not get fat as fast. Diet will typically have a stronger impact on health. Exercise can not make up for poor eating habits and heavy drinking.

I can't find the link or article but the basis of it was that due to the poor eating habits of many USAicans a large chunk of the populace is both obese and suffering from malnutrition. I'll try and ask my friend who showed it to me to re-give me the URL.

As for the Diet Coke, that is a whole other animal that should be avoided.

I gained 10-15 pounds after I stopped exercising. I'd say they're wrong. >:O

(lolfreshman15)



It sure as hell did in my case, maybe that's because my exercise was actually hard.. but meh.

Edited, Aug 11th 2009 7:46pm by Deadgye

Exercise is going to make you gain weight, but it'd be muscle weight. That's good weight. Even if you do eat more, the regular exercise is going to put the food to better use. By contrast, if you starve yourself, you're going to lose muscle before you start losing fat.

People spend way too much time worrying about how much they weigh. They should be worrying about how healthy they are.

Not necessarily. Most people excercise in a way that they just burn calories and don't build much muscle mass. They may tone up a bit, but the fat loss overcompensates the small muscle gains. You may not lose as much weight exercising and dieting because you maintain muscle and lose fat. Someone who just diets hard will lose fat and muscle. The problem there is, when you stop the diet, you gain fat back, but not muscle. A combination of exercise and eating right will always win.

If you want to gain significant muscle mass, you need to hit the weights hard. Jogging, riding a bike, going on the stepper or crosstrainer, rollerblading and swinging some low weight dumbbells will not make you bulk up much. You generally won't gain weight from cardio exercises.

Case in point: All the long distance runners. Look at the pros, they're skinny as hell.

I do agree, like I said before, that your weight is not the best indicator for your health. A bit more weight but exercise is a lot healthier than low weight and no exercise.

I've been on a weight loss kick, going on week four and I've lost almost 20 lbs. I've hit a mini plateu and can't seem to shed that 19th pound quite yet, although I've been sick for three days now and kinda fell off the diet bandwagon with it.

Either way, the secret, I've found, has little to do with exercise. Exercise alone won't make you lose weight, well ok, it might a little, but if you really want to drop weight it's all in what you eat. Whole foods, low calorie foods, more food in smaller portions more often throughout the day; but it's got to be good low calorie food you're eating. What the exercise does is allow you to eat more comfortably, though that doesn't mean you should.

It'll make me thin as long as you're the one that's eating it :P

I'm over weight, so I can give some insight (I guess).
I did Weight Watchers for a Month and a half and did ZERO exercising. I lost 30lbs and everyone in my group wanted to know what my father (he joined up with me)and I's secret was.
We just made up stuff, because "we do nothing" was not an answer to them.

I quit WW (cost per week is $11. I'm too poor to give $44 a month away) and put it all back on + more, and am now in the process of trying to lose some weight.

The real secret was we drank water, a lot of water, and did what the diet said (a point based system).

Exercise/weight lifting helped, but at the same time it didn't.
WW track you on weight lost. If you lose 5lbs in a week but put on a few lbs of muscle, it doesn't "look" good on paper.
I felt better if I lifted weights and did some light cadrio, but I didn't exercise 3+ times a week for 30+ min. Just when I felt like it.

For me, volumetrics is a key for me to lose weight. I hate feeling hungry as I get a headache, but I don't want to eat things that my body is just going to turn into more fat.