No one is saying don't exercise. The point is that exercise specifically for weight loss specifically is not necessarily time efficient or all that helpful.
The bulk of papers I've read all say the same thing: eat fewer calories.
Remember: one of the most common treatments for morbid obesity these days is stomach surgery designed to limit how many calories you can physically eat at one time. It's super effective.
The research generally also says that while exercise may well not help you lose weight, an overweight person who exercises regularly is waaaay better off. Not as well off as a thin person who exercises, not that far behind them either.
So even if you can't lose weight, or you lose it slowly, you should still exercise. It makes you healthier.
Exercise is beneficial for other reasons, but not all that necessary for taking off pounds.
The problem in this conversation is a prime example of how our culture conflates weight and health. Far, far too many see weight as the primary determining factor in health. Weight is one factor or health. Weight loss is just losing poundage. (Woo-hoo! I lost 10 pounds by cutting off my arm!) One's weight may or may not impact other health factors. Losing weight may or may not impact other health factors.
One can be a healthy weight and be unhealthy overall. One can be overweight and be healthy overall.
I hate ellipticals. They're boring, they're not analogous to any real world activity, and I don't feel like I got any exercise when I use them =(
See I like them because I feel I can more easily vary the cardio load on my body to get enough exercise. I can't seem to find a rhythm when I run, I always feel super winded and uncomfortable.
I hate ellipticals. They're boring, they're not analogous to any real world activity, and I don't feel like I got any exercise when I use them =(
See I like them because I feel I can more easily vary the cardio load on my body to get enough exercise. I can't seem to find a rhythm when I run, I always feel super winded and uncomfortable.
As someone who had knee injuries playing football they are the low impact machine of choice.
Just to be clear, I wasn't trying to use my personal experience as evidence. I'm just saying that I know the science to be true because I can see it happening for myself. I don't feel like I should have to prove my statements when they are easily found online.
News at 11: Eating too much and not sleeping may be bad for you!
I know I'm really bad about estimating calories and portion sizes. That's why it's so easy to over eat (and hard to lose weight via pure exercise). You need to burn approx. 3,500kCal a week to lose 1lb of fat. That's about 500kCal a day you need to reduce from your average calorie intake.
Take a look at what 200kCal looks like
Then think about how hard you have to run to burn 200kCal.
I've seen study after study where people who claim diet changes didn't help them lose weight ended up showing that those people have no idea what they're eating and grossly under-report.
I've seen study after study where people who claim diet changes didn't help them lose weight ended up showing that those people have no idea what they're eating and grossly under-report.
Relatedly, I told a doctor that I was having some medical issues and that I believed my weight gain was a symptom. The doctor insisted that my weight gain was the cause of my issues and did not believe my reported daily intake of 1000 - 1500 calories from nutritious, low-carb vegan foods until I kept a food diary for two weeks. I understand that many people are not fully aware of their diets, caloric intake, caloric output, and weight norms, but to effectively call your patient a liar is pretty uncool.
Agreed, totally uncool. However, I can see where he's coming from. Not in your case, obviously.
In my line of work, I have users constantly complaining of issues, then when I tell them the fix, they always without fail tell me they have already accounted for that and insist it's something more complicated. The first few times I took their word for it and drove myself crazy looking through log files and server rooms hunting down their issues. I then came to their desks and did the thing I initially suggested, and it fixed everything, while they sat there insisting when they tried that, it didn't work for them.
I don't believe them anymore. Horses and zebras and all that.
So, until late 2012 I used to run at least 10K every other day or at least 3 times a week. Then I got acid-reflux, and things happened in my life that prevented me from continue running. I still went to the gym, but nothing feels like running outside.
Last year, wanted to go back into running, but I was barely able to make it to 2 miles at 8.0 minutes per mile, which used to be a normal thing for me. Suffice it to say that I got discouraged very easily, and continue going to the gym. However, I was just doing weights, and I put proper cardio aside. I stopped working on increasing my stamina.
Then, a couple of weeks ago. I started reading "The Primal Blueprint". Basically, it was telling me to slow down, which is kind of hard at the beginning. So I slow the heck down, but I also run for a way longer time. On my first week I did my first 10k on almost a year, and since then spaced my running in order to allow my body to recover. Of course my pace went to 12 minutes a mile. But, I continued, and yesterday at my start of my third week I did a 7.6 miles at a 11 minutes per mile.
Of course a had to change my diet, but it was not anything out of the ordinary.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone that is having trouble into getting back into running or endurance training.
I keep careful track of my caloric intake. I eat, in the summer, ~4k Calories every day on average. More on running/biking days, less on climbing or idle days.
But I also run 10k as my default "short" run.
In the winter, I eat ~2-3k Calories a day. I feel it immediately if I start eating above that. In general, any time I start eating above my athletic output consistently, I lose my appetite and really feel it day-to-day until my weight gets back down.
My actual weight fluctuates up or down ~3lbs day to day. But if my average weight goes up by even a couple points, I feel it. If a gain a couple pounds, it takes a full week of diligent exercise and caloric restriction to drop them.
My problem is that I hate cardio workouts. Sure I generally feel a bit better overall when I work out consistently, but those 25 minutes 3 days a week I'm a miserable human being that hates all things.
Try taking it at a lower pace and just run to/from a destination for the enjoyment of it. Don't even track your distance or stats, and don't push yourself.
Or just get a DDR pad and start playing regularly.
Back in about 2006 or so I made a concerted effort to "get back in shape for good" after realizing the "college fifteen" hadn't gone away, and had in fact grown over few years since graduating. I started bike commuting (and never looked back), plus light strength training and yoga/stretching a few times per week. I also rigorously tracked (wrote down in a notebook, old school) *all* food I ate for about four months.
Regarding weight, I used this equation to come up with a daily calorie intake target to get back down to my desired range by the end of the four-month period, and it turned out to be *remarkably* accurate. I took the dual-pronged approach of trying to maximize my activity multiplier with a lot of biking as well as *very* strict adherence to my calorie intake targets. I dropped ~25 lbs and have stayed consistently within plus or minus ~5 lbs of my desired weight since then.
Rigorously tracking calorie intake for several months also *greatly* improved my ability to accurately estimate calorie intake once I reached my target and relaxed into my new steady state routine.
The self-powered commute has been the cornerstone maintaining exercise levels long-term. I really don't think I would be able to keep sustain it if I had to fit that exercise into my day as a separate stand-alone activity. To make it extra hard to skip biking, my girlfriend and I got rid of one of our cars, so now we share just one. I'm way less likely to skip cycling in if I have to deprive her of the car in order to do it.
That's a big part of it. If you put aside time for "exercising," you will likely not get far. You have to integrate exercise into your life. You need to live an active and athletic lifestyle. Walking/running/sports/whatever: they have to be either hobbies in and of themselves, or part of other hobbies or tasks you have day-to-day.
This is irrespective of your weight: an active lifestyle is objectively superior to a sedentary one.
The "goes to gym, gets n minutes y times per week, hates every second of it" BS only works if you have an iron will, and it's a drain on your happiness. If exercise itself is a chore, you're already pretty far down a road that you need to back up from in a hurry.
Try taking it at a lower pace and just run to/from a destination for the enjoyment of it. Don't even track your distance or stats, and don't push yourself.
The trouble with running so I "don't push myself" is that I feel embarrassingly slow. Like I feel like I'm that middle aged man shuffling at a barely a brisk walk and calling it "jogging."
Try taking it at a lower pace and just run to/from a destination for the enjoyment of it. Don't even track your distance or stats, and don't push yourself.
The trouble with running so I "don't push myself" is that I feel embarrassingly slow. Like I feel like I'm that middle aged man shuffling at a barely a brisk walk and calling it "jogging."
That's fine.
Emily had problems with this when she started increasing her distance (she's doing 10ks with me now). If you saw the pace I run a 15 miler at, you'd laugh. It's a lot slower than you'd expect.
Go as slow as you need to go, but go longer. You'll be so much better off, and you won't even notice how much better you're getting. A 5 mile "run" at like 4MPH will do more for you than a 1 mile "run" at 7MPH.
Don't do intervals or sprints or short distance runs until you can run a 5k multiple times week (at ANY speed) without serious pain.
Also, you have to bear in mind. It took me many years of training to get where I am now. I've been running regularly for some 16 years, and was a heavy street/mountain biker for the 5 years before that.
Runners make it look easy because you only see them running. You don't see them running every damn day, in the snow, year after year, building up that stamina. 10 years ago I was incapable of a half-marathon. Now I run them routinely. Took work.
Yea don't try and increase speed and distance at the same time, the best thing you can do is work on distance, don't give a crap about speed, work to get yourself to 3 miles, at a slow jog, then slowly add either speed and distance, I routinely will fast walk new distances for a couple of days first and then start running it.
I was never a runner, so I consulted with my podiatrist post-ankle surgery before I started training. She said that even new runners with perfect ankles should start their training by walking. Her recommendation was to start at a pace where one could carry on a conversation without any struggle to breathe. "Walk frequently and walk as far as you can." Once I'd done that for two weeks, she recommended adding in short periods of jogging - walk for 10 minutes, jog for 5; then slowly increasing the period of time I was jogging until I was jogging the entire time. After that she referred me to some running blogs about how to correct my stride and breath, increase my endurance, pick up my pace.
OMG. I could make a whole blog documenting the horrendous and ridiculous strides I see on the streets of NYC. My favorites are still the people with completely limp arms just hanging at their sides. Also, big ups to the people kick their legs way out to the side.
Here is the other secret I learned. Pure cardio workouts are probably the least calorie efficient exercises. I've had much better success with a mix weight/cardio workout using kettlebells. I'm running a program called Simple and Sinister, it looks like this
This workout is really nice since the swings get you into a pretty high intensity workout, while also helping build full body strength in combination with the get-ups. I started with a 35lb bell, but now I'm up to a 50lb bell.
Instead of long, marathon style cardio, you might want to try things like HIIT or tabata. Not only will they be more engaging (they are for me at least), you also don't need to spend hours to get an efficient workout.
Comments
No one is saying don't exercise. The point is that exercise specifically for weight loss specifically is not necessarily time efficient or all that helpful.
Remember: one of the most common treatments for morbid obesity these days is stomach surgery designed to limit how many calories you can physically eat at one time. It's super effective.
The research generally also says that while exercise may well not help you lose weight, an overweight person who exercises regularly is waaaay better off. Not as well off as a thin person who exercises, not that far behind them either.
So even if you can't lose weight, or you lose it slowly, you should still exercise. It makes you healthier.
One can be a healthy weight and be unhealthy overall. One can be overweight and be healthy overall.
News at 11: Eating too much and not sleeping may be bad for you!
Take a look at what 200kCal looks like
Then think about how hard you have to run to burn 200kCal.
In my line of work, I have users constantly complaining of issues, then when I tell them the fix, they always without fail tell me they have already accounted for that and insist it's something more complicated. The first few times I took their word for it and drove myself crazy looking through log files and server rooms hunting down their issues. I then came to their desks and did the thing I initially suggested, and it fixed everything, while they sat there insisting when they tried that, it didn't work for them.
I don't believe them anymore. Horses and zebras and all that.
Last year, wanted to go back into running, but I was barely able to make it to 2 miles at 8.0 minutes per mile, which used to be a normal thing for me. Suffice it to say that I got discouraged very easily, and continue going to the gym. However, I was just doing weights, and I put proper cardio aside. I stopped working on increasing my stamina.
Then, a couple of weeks ago. I started reading "The Primal Blueprint". Basically, it was telling me to slow down, which is kind of hard at the beginning. So I slow the heck down, but I also run for a way longer time. On my first week I did my first 10k on almost a year, and since then spaced my running in order to allow my body to recover. Of course my pace went to 12 minutes a mile. But, I continued, and yesterday at my start of my third week I did a 7.6 miles at a 11 minutes per mile.
Of course a had to change my diet, but it was not anything out of the ordinary.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone that is having trouble into getting back into running or endurance training.
But I also run 10k as my default "short" run.
In the winter, I eat ~2-3k Calories a day. I feel it immediately if I start eating above that. In general, any time I start eating above my athletic output consistently, I lose my appetite and really feel it day-to-day until my weight gets back down.
My actual weight fluctuates up or down ~3lbs day to day. But if my average weight goes up by even a couple points, I feel it. If a gain a couple pounds, it takes a full week of diligent exercise and caloric restriction to drop them.
Or just get a DDR pad and start playing regularly.
Regarding weight, I used this equation to come up with a daily calorie intake target to get back down to my desired range by the end of the four-month period, and it turned out to be *remarkably* accurate. I took the dual-pronged approach of trying to maximize my activity multiplier with a lot of biking as well as *very* strict adherence to my calorie intake targets. I dropped ~25 lbs and have stayed consistently within plus or minus ~5 lbs of my desired weight since then.
Rigorously tracking calorie intake for several months also *greatly* improved my ability to accurately estimate calorie intake once I reached my target and relaxed into my new steady state routine.
The self-powered commute has been the cornerstone maintaining exercise levels long-term. I really don't think I would be able to keep sustain it if I had to fit that exercise into my day as a separate stand-alone activity. To make it extra hard to skip biking, my girlfriend and I got rid of one of our cars, so now we share just one. I'm way less likely to skip cycling in if I have to deprive her of the car in order to do it.
Science ftw, and double-dip as much as you can.
This is irrespective of your weight: an active lifestyle is objectively superior to a sedentary one.
The "goes to gym, gets n minutes y times per week, hates every second of it" BS only works if you have an iron will, and it's a drain on your happiness. If exercise itself is a chore, you're already pretty far down a road that you need to back up from in a hurry.
Emily had problems with this when she started increasing her distance (she's doing 10ks with me now). If you saw the pace I run a 15 miler at, you'd laugh. It's a lot slower than you'd expect.
Go as slow as you need to go, but go longer. You'll be so much better off, and you won't even notice how much better you're getting. A 5 mile "run" at like 4MPH will do more for you than a 1 mile "run" at 7MPH.
Don't do intervals or sprints or short distance runs until you can run a 5k multiple times week (at ANY speed) without serious pain.
Runners make it look easy because you only see them running. You don't see them running every damn day, in the snow, year after year, building up that stamina. 10 years ago I was incapable of a half-marathon. Now I run them routinely. Took work.
Slow and steady...
This workout is really nice since the swings get you into a pretty high intensity workout, while also helping build full body strength in combination with the get-ups. I started with a 35lb bell, but now I'm up to a 50lb bell.
Instead of long, marathon style cardio, you might want to try things like HIIT or tabata. Not only will they be more engaging (they are for me at least), you also don't need to spend hours to get an efficient workout.