BBC say weight loss is diet not exercise

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

He’s a writer, not a bodybuilder. Have you ever seen a picture of the man? And all he’s selling are words, so he’s not unlike the editorialists in the OP.

That said, read what he wrote. It either makes sense to you or it doesn’t. Since his whole point is that the state of exercise science is something of a sham, you’re not going to be able to refute it with surface EMG studies of partial one-legged squats performed on bosu balls. You actually have to do some critical thinking about the state of exercise “science” and the fitness industry in general.

Do you believe that knowledge can be gained through experience and observation? Or is it exclusively obtained from studies published in journals by professional researchers? The answer to this question will determine whether you consider the experience of thousands of successful coaches and athletes over the last century, or whether you dismiss anyone outright who doesn’t have a bevy of papers to point to.

42

Also, I’m not calling out the BBC as unscientific. I’m calling the fitness industry in general and the researchers who publish bogus papers that support whatever happens to be the miracle product or method of the day unscientific. And I linked to an essay explaining why I think that, and warned people to keep it in mind when they read fitness articles in the popular press.

Is Rippetoe’s 40 years’ experience “science”. Of course not. Does it represent more experience, observation and success than the bozos publishing pink dumbbell beach ball dance studies? Absolutely. Exercise science isn’t physics. It isn’t even medicine, where over 50% of the literature contains unreproducible results. It is an immature field that is chasing extremely overpriced woo salesmen trying to catch some of their money.

43

IME, if you don’t exercise, you WILL gain weight. If you do exercise, you will tone up your body, but you won’t lose weight unless you cut calories.

44

Say that you eat 500 units of food a day. With your inactive lifestyle, your energy usage is only equivalent to 250 units of food. The amount by which you are overeating is 250 units.

Let’s say that when you exercise, you use 4 times as much energy as when you’re being lazy or asleep. If you exercise for 1 hour a day, then that increases your daily energy usage from 250 to (250 - (250 / 24) + 4*(250 / 24) = ) 281.25. The amount by which you are overeating is 218.75.

Alternately, you cut back on your portion size by half, so that you are only eating 250 units of food a day, while still living an inactive lifestyle. You are no longer overeating.

Obviously, in the above case, exercise isn’t nearly as useful as cutting back on diet.

On the other hand, if you work on a farm, plowing, picking fruit, hacking down stalks, etc. then that’s equivalent to exercising for 10 hours a day. So your energy needs per day go up to (250 - 10*(250/24) + 410(250/24) = ) 562.5 units of food. In this case, you’d be losing weight if you retained you 500 food unit diet.

In this case, exercise is everything you need and more.

Assuming that you’re an average office drone, it’s more likely that you portion sizes are too large than that you need to exercise more. Exercise is good for your overall health, but when you’re sitting on your butt or asleep 23 hours of the day, it just doesn’t add up to very much.

Calorie guidelines are mostly useless. They’re probably based on your average 20 year old in the military, back in the 50s. Someone who isn’t doing a bunch of physical labor or who is less than 16 or older than 30 probably has widely different burn rates and a metabolism.

If you’re fighting a pooch, then adding an hour of exercise to your day may well be enough. If you’re overweight, you probably need to shrink your portion sizes. It doesn’t matter that you only eat 2000 calories a day. That’s clearly not how many calories per day your body burns.

45

It’s finding the right balance of both. That’s what makes it so hard.

46

Well, that a what? Five minute walk? I’m not surprised that isn’t a viable weight loss plan.

47

When I gain a few pounds and want to diet them off, I turn to this website, which I learned about from SDMB. I realize that our understanding of weight gain and exercise is imperfect, but I have good luck with their approach, which is:

  1. Find your Basal Metabolic Rate (based on age/weight/height/gender) - in my case it is 1193.
  2. Determine your daily caloric needs by multiplying your BMR by the appropriate number based on your activity level. I’m moderately active so get to multiply by 1.55, which means I can eat 1849 calories/day.

On the other hand, if I were sedentary I could only multiply by 1.2, for about 1431 cal/day to maintain.

So by the estimation of that website, I get to eat about 417 calories/day more that I would if I were a couch potato because of my exercise levels.

I know that exercise is good for health, so I’d do it even without the benefit of being able to consume more food. But I also appreciate being able to eat more - for me, 417 calories is quite a bit of food/enjoyment every day.

48

Indeed, but it doesn’t purport to be a complete review of diet and exercise, it’s questions the food industry’s attempts to focus on exercise as a way of enabling people to compensate for - and therefore carry on - stuffing in excess calories.

49

I’ve never made a concious decision to lose weight by exercising, it seems counter-intuitive as I’ll probably change my diet to add protein if I’m lifting weights, or carbs if I’m it’s aerobic.

No, if I need to lose a few inches I’ll change my diet. Less meat, more vegetables, maybe less booze, definitely less cheese. And I’ll only eat when I’m hungry, cooking for one does have that advantage.

50

First let’s accurately portray what the BMJ Editorial argues:

  1. Exercise matters, greatly, for health. It helps prevent and manage many chronic diseases. It just is not the be all and end all for obesity management.

  2. Messaging calorie counting as a means to achieve a ‘healthy weight’ (their use of quotes) is “unhelpful.”

  3. In their estimation it is the quality of the diet that matters much more and in particular beat on added sugar (they are fine with fat).

  4. They claim the Food Industry intentionally misleads the public into the belief that it is okay to eat junk so long as you exercise and you keep your total calorie count down.

Not much room to debate point one.

Point two is arguable as calorie counting does work for some and for weight loss definitely can work, even if limited calories alone is unlikely the best for health outcomes long term.

On point three, few debate beating on the evils of added sugar drum and that the quality the diet matters, even if their is lots of room to debate it as the sole item. Most experts have moved more into thinking of complete dietary patterns and emphasize diets that have lots of real foods that are high in fiber. The BMJ editorialists claim that fat is particularly satiating is uncited mainly because it is simply not what the literature supports. Fiber and protein are most satiating (we’ve done this one before but if anyone insists can dig up the citations again).

Point four? Do they? I guess Gatorade is a good example of that.
Anyway, I’d to highlight this post:

Exercise can and does improve the decrease in percent body fat even though most will loss some muscle mass along with fat mass as they drop weight. Adding muscle mass while losing weight is not impossible but it is very difficult and web experts who crow about losing 40 pounds of fat while putting on 20 pounds of muscle are bullshitting to beat the band. It is very possible to lose relatively little muscle mass though by including some weight training. Best bit though is that exercise helps people in particular lose the most harmful fat from a health POV. It does seem to help prevent weight regain pretty effectively and may help reset the body’s “set point.”

Not sure that there are really too many experts who disagree that exercise has huge health and huge body composition impacts and that calorie deficit impacts weight loss most. Nor with the idea that a diet lower in added sugar is better for long term health outcomes and that one high in high satiety foods (which all agree includes real foods high in fiber) makes it more likely for people to be able to achieve that calorie deficit.

51

One thing that tends to be lost in this type of conversation is weight lost actually needed for good health? If you are only 10 - 20 pounds overweight per BMI, do you need to lose that 10 pounds? Especially if all other health indicators, such as cholesterol and blood sugar levels are within normal range.

There have been studies that have shown moderately overweight person, not obese has more chance to live longer than thin person. cite: http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/02/health/overweight-mortality/index.html

From personal experience, I don’t think you can lose weight from just exercise. But exercising can help with full range of motion and cardio activities. I think exercise itself should be the end goal, not weight lost.

52

I’ve been back on the fitness path lately, going to the gym 4 or 5 times a week. I haven’t altered my diet very much - all that working out makes me too hungry to cut back significantly - but I’ve still lost about 6 pounds this month.

I’ve swapped Diet Coke for water - which should, theoretically, be a zero exchange, in addition to working out. My idea of a workout is a brisk walk on the treadmill for 60 to 90 minutes, 4 or 5 days a week , plus 3 or 4 aerobics classes per week.

So maybe it has more to do with the amount of exercise involved - 20 minutes on the treadmill isn’t going to significantly change your calorie output, but 90 minutes burns around 500 calories for me. If you’re willing to commit the time, and it’s probably more exercise time than you’d think, then you can lose weight that way. It’s just not what people generally do.

53

Anecdote:
Since going low-carb almost three years ago, I’ve been able to maintain a BMI (I know, it is just one metric) about 2.5 points lower (from ~25.8 to 23.4).
Nothing else changed and I’m pretty sedentary, especially during our long winters where my only exercise is working the gas and brake pedals.
After the initial adjustment, I’d say it is a very easy diet to keep although it seems I’m a lot more strict just maintaining than most people I know who claim to be actively dieting actually eat.
I also recognize that I’ve never been obese so my losing 20 pounds isn’t what the article was really about.
However, I was surprised how fast the weight came off and how well it has stayed off by making some changes that, at this point, seem easy.

54

My impression from the web is that diet soda is likely just as bad as regular soda (no cites, just a general “vibe” I get from many articles). So by switching to water instead of diet soda possibly does equate to a major change in diet.

55

When I lost 30 pounds several years ago, it was mainly by keeping a daily calorie count. But I also did a lot of walking. Now I’m keeping the calorie count, but haven’t been walking as much so my weight loss has been minimal. I gained weight after quitting jogging many years ago, and have been overweight since then. It makes no sense to me though because my exercise only consumes about 300-400 calories max, and I’d usually eat a few hundred extra calories in the form of an energy bar or other carb source before or after exercising. In fact, I hardly ever paid attention to my calorie consumption back then, but was never overweight.

56

In simple terms, I agree with them. If you are fat, you probably got that way from eating too much. You burn so many calories just sitting around. I can lie in bed all day, eat around 2000 calories and never gain a pound. It might fluctuate for me personally, and for some people it will be more and for others less. If I add a Big Mac to my daily diet and still lie in bed, I’m going to gain weight. To lose weight, it’s going to be much easier to cut out that Big Mac and go back to calorie maintenance or deficit than it is to create the same deficit from exercise, even given some metabolic improvements due to increased activity.

Diet is a low-hanging fruit for most/all people. If you are overweight, unless you have some other medical condition, there is probably some super easy way to cut out a couple hundred calories without even really trying. A lot of people consume things like soda/pop/“coke”/soft drinks, for example. Some otherwise ostensibly healthy people drink that (or beer/wine, sweat “tea,” juice, whatever) by the 2-liter or case. There are probably millions of people who would lose a lot of weight if they just decided to stop drinking carbonated water with 40 grams of sugar per cup. or, you could cut back on cake, ice cream, chips, donuts, bagels, whatever. Cut out processed foods. Have 2 eggs instead of 3. To not shove something in your mouth, to me, is relatively easier than making a conscious effort to exercise.

When I exercise a lot I normally eat much more, it might be a wash but my composition is a little different. I tend to get more muscular and more fat. or I maintain and spend a lot of time in the bathroom. For me, it’s exercising for short periods of time a few days a week and just not eating stupid food, for the most part.

57

Agreed. I was talking to my doctor last week and he said that overall fitness was what was most important, not where your weight falls on a predetermined chart. If losing weight was the end all, be all of the equation, he would recommend heroin and cigarettes. They work wonderfully as far as weight loss goes.

But weight is just one factor, albeit an important one, in overall health.