REVOLUTIONARY Revelation Revealed!
by Andrew Heffernan on Aug 19, 2009 3:01 PM EDT
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PrintWell, here it is, folks, a deliberately controversial article by a guy who's had it--absolutely HAD IT--with exercise. He hasn't lost weight in eons, despite daily efforts in the gym, and he's so darned mad about it that he wrote an article claiming that exercise doesn't help you lose weight. For interested parties--once again, here it is.
John Berardi and Josh Hillis--two fitness bloggers I read on a regular basis--have already poked plenty of holes in this guy's arguments, the main one of which seems to be that when you exercise, you tend to eat more, thus cancelling out all the weight-loss benefits of your workout.
None of this will come as much of a surprise to any trainer worth his ACE cert, all of whom have known for a long time that you can't out-train a bad diet.
One test that John Cloud -- the author --cites is a comparison in weight loss between groups of women who work out for different designated periods against a control group which does no exercise at all. Essentially there was no difference in among any of the groups:
On average, the women in all the groups, even the control group, lost weight, but the women who exercised — sweating it out with a trainer several days a week for six months — did not lose significantly more weight than the control subjects did. (The control-group women may have lost weight because they were filling out those regular health forms, which may have prompted them to consume fewer doughnuts.) Some of the women in each of the four groups actually gained weight, some more than 10 lb. each.
Okay, folks, once more with feeling: You can't out-train a bad diet. With no attention paid to caloric intake, macronutrient profile, or any other of even the most basic dietary guidelines, well, of course no one lost much weight. Among the exercisers, their activity levels went up, and then they compensated with more food.
But here's the real test: four groups, one of which diets, one of which exercises, another of which diets and exercises (including a periodized strength-training program), another of which watches reruns of Sanford and Son. Body comp is checked at the end of, say, three months. My prediction, and I imagine the prediction of just about everyone else reading this, would be that the dieters would lose pounds but probably stay the same or gain a little in body-fat percentage; the exercisers would lose, gain, or stay the same in scale weight, but body comp would improve; the diet plus exercise folks would improve body comp and scale weight would drop (especially in people who were overweight to begin with).
But look, guys: even if exercise doesn't do much for scale weight on its own (and again, no one reading this should be surprised to find that it doesn't), the other benefits, as well as its association with fat-loss when combined with a good diet, make it a no-brainer, even for people who refuse to address dietary problems.
There's a lot to Cloud's piece--comments open for additional feedback.
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I’m amazed at his doggedly ignorant perserverence in exercising. On the one hand, he’s able to slog away at exercise he apparently hates despite getting no results for years on end. On the other hand, he keeps doing something that gets no results and expects things to change.
Are most people like this? Can’t we teach people to use that mushy mass inside their heads and think for themselves? Obviously, he notices that the muffins and doughnuts are counterproductive towards the weight loss goal. Does he take it a step further and note that maybe he could be eating something less… sugary, caloric, glycemic, processed, junk-foody, carbtastic (take your pick)?
Well, at the end of the article, he does come to the conclusion that diet matters more in losing weight. Did it take him this long to figure out something that most people in the fitness industry have known for a long, long time? Later on he asks a good question… “how did the exercise-to-lose-weight mantra become so ingrained?”. I’d ask, since when has anybody said that you can eat whatever you want as long as you exercise and you can still lose weight? Is that myth prevalent among the overweight? Is this article actually telling those people something they didn’t already know from experience?
From experience...
…or common sense, indeed.
Another point you allude to which bears underscoring is that he HATES the exercise he’s doing. So one wonders how much commitment and focus he puts into it. If he were to find something he enjoys—which I think almost everyone can do—he might have better luck.
As a side note, it doesn’t sound like his program is particularly tailored to fat-loss. And at 160-something pounds, does he really have a lot of fat to lose? He’s close to “refinement” mode—which means that diet is all the more important.
by Andrew Heffernan on Aug 19, 2009 9:26 PM EDT up reply actions
The wrong questions and answers
Apart from the valid observation about caloric intake and body composition, the Times author has missed a major flaw in his situation.
Given how much he eats, how much would he weigh, what would he look like and how would he feel if he had NOT exercised lo these many years. Without the exercise and maintining the same diet, he’d have put on God only knows how many pounds of fat like, how about just 5 pounds a year; after 10 years, that’s 50 freaking pounds.
The fool has used exercise to maintain excellent body weight and comp for years and he’s too dense to realize it. As a “contrrol”, just look at stats on how many pounds average guys gain over time; it’s a very big number: like 30 pounds.
So, the reality is that exercise has worked at weight loss for this dunder puss for many years and he just failed to observe it… If, after 10 years, I’d be 50 pounds heavier without exercise, I’d say that my fat loss success was astoundingly good… And, we can all do the simple caloric math, although EPOC would be tough to judge without knowing the light bulb’s intensity levels.
by siliconwarrior on Aug 20, 2009 10:14 AM EDT reply actions
Another way of putting it:
The Times author has used exercise successfully to maintain his eating habits over many years without fat gain. That was his choice. He could have, but did not, alter his nutrition to achieve fat loss —probably because he was fairly content with his actual weight and his eating habits.
by siliconwarrior on Aug 20, 2009 10:17 AM EDT reply actions
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