In defense of exercise : why exercise will make you thin
October 2, 2010 18 Comments
Lately, I have been so busy that I have had a hard time posting new posts. Between studying physiology of exercise and neurology, I still managed to keep up to date with the paleo – or not- fitness community. I have come to the conclusion that there are a lot of fitness myths that are spreading in the online world. Usually, I don’t care much about debunking these myths because I find them entertaining. Plus, most of the time, they get debunked by other bloggers before I get to do it. However, when I read that people are pushing the idea that exercise won’t make you thin, I had to do something about it.
Some people exercised way before 1960-1970.
I think it all started with this Times article [Link here]. The idea that is being sold by the author is that we have dramatically increased our physical activity in the last 30-40 years and yet, obesity is in rise. This necessarily means that exercise will not make you thin (or healthy, for all that matters). It only takes common sense to really understand how flawed that argument is. I won’t even waste a paragraph (or study time) on explaining how flawed it is. Instead, I will write my concerns in quick to read bullet points :
- While it’s true that we have started doing more ”organized” physical activity (gym time, runs, etc.) in the last 30-40 years, it is impossible to say that it has failed to make people thin.
- 30 or 40 years ago correlate with the rise of processed foods. Are processed foods worst for your waist line than exercise? I will let you come up with the conclusion.
- The author is not a knowledgeable person on the subject. I’m sorry, but it’s taking me three years (or more if I go for a masters/PhD) to understand how the body works biomechanically and how it impacts the metabolism of a person (healthy or not). Some of my professors are some of the finest researchers in this domain. In no way this article holds water with what I am actually learning in school.
- Tons of sport enthusiasts have used a good training program (and diet) to lose a few -or a lot- pounds and make weight. This is the case of boxers (or other martial artists).
- Telling people they don’t need to exercise is a great way to sell copies of your magazine, but it’s not a great way to make people healthy.
- I’m concerned with the fact that this article, which completely insults my intelligence, has been tweeted 1790 times (now, imagine the number of people who read this and actually believed this).
- His knowledge of evolution is ridiculous : ”Fundamentally, humans are not a species that evolved to dispose of many extra calories beyond what we need to live.” This is very naive. For example, they still have not found a upper limit of body fat you can have on you. This means, so far, you can put on as much fat as you want (nothing will prevent you to do it). Plus, the ability to put on fat is an evolutionary must! How would you survive time of famine? Granted we are not hippos, but we did evolve to dispose more calories than we need to live. Sorry.
Old school boxers knew how to modulate their weight through physical activity
Anyway, this type of article probably influenced some of the latest articles I have been reading. As a soon-to-be exercise professional (that’s right, I’m biased), I had to debunk that myth. Exercise can make you thin and I intend to prove it to you. Again, to make this quick and straight forward, I will use bullet points.
- I have written about the extremely useful impact of exercise on insulin sensitivity in the past. I won’t sum it up again (I don’t want to bore long time readers with it in every post!) so I will link you to the full articles I have written in the past [Link here]. In the same article, I discuss how people who have insulin problems (who can’t get glucose in the cells) can manage to get blood sugar in the cell during exercise. This is very useful if you have weight to lose (if you have insulin-related problems)
- Increased muscle mass through physical training means increased metabolism. In other words, increased muscle mass means more calories burned (you require more energy to keep the muscle mass active). How good is this for your waist line?
- Physical activity simply makes you healthy. Endurance training, for example, makes you have a higher Vo2 max (which is both an indicator of endurance training performance and health). Physical activity enhances – or optimizes – numerous hormonal reactions in the body. Higher Gh or testosterone levels means more fat burned. Being healthy definitely correlates with a normal weight, so why not do something that helps you be healthy?
- Physical activity burns calories. While calories are not the whole picture, you have no choice but to burn more calories (be more active) when you live a sedentary life (too much seated and TV time, for example). The idea that you should live your life with as little effort as possible is very ridiculous to me. There are two types of people : leaders (force of the nature) and followers. Can you be a force of the nature without ever doing any physical effort? Your body was created to be active. We have more mobility than most other biped animals. Doesn’t that tell you something?
- As with anything, there are two ways of doing things : the right way and the wrong way. Training with someone who can show you the right way (a real exercise specialist) will make you lose weight. There is enough clinical data to prove this.
- Unlike what you have been told, healthy humans are good at mobilizing fats. This is why we can pack on pounds quickly and we can also lose them when it’s needed. It’s a basic defence mechanism of the body that ensures its survival through harsh times. It’s definitely an advantage that people have enjoyed in the past [link here].
I will be honest, the first three bullet points are where the money is at. Being active enhances a numerous of chemical and hormonal reactions in the body. All of these reactions enhance your health. A large number of these reactions also improve your weight. There is no doubt for me : Exercise will make you thin. Plus, you should never blame your lack of success on the game. That’s not fair. How can we be sure you played by the rules, anyway?
You know, people with no nutritional wisdom were able to get bodies like this. Is it the rise of exercise or processed foods that have destroyed our body?
The point is that it can make you thin if it’s properly done. It can also fail to make you thin when it’s not properly done (too much weird advice online that is just not miraculous). And while exercise is very important for health reasons (and weight reasons), it’s important to point out that it’s only a [large] part of the equation. Sleep, food quality and intake, stress management, health record, etc. all matter too. This is why every successful person has something in common : they don’t put their effort in only one variable of the equation. They know that you need to address your whole lifestyle to make a real change.
The plain and simple truth!
Word!
That’s exactly the point that the Times article put forward – that exercise ALONE will not make you lose weight.
“And while exercise is very important for health reasons (and weight reasons), it’s important to point out that it’s only a [large] part of the equation. Sleep, food quality and intake, stress management, health record, etc. all matter too. This is why every successful person has something in common : they don’t put their effort in only one variable of the equation. They know that you need to address your whole lifestyle to make a real change. ”
So you actually agree with the argument the journalist was making. It’s possible that people read the headline of the article and made their own assumptions (like the way many studies are ‘understood’ by the content of the abstract, not an understanding of the data itself.
The article has it right – you can’t out-exercise a bad diet/lifestyle. If you eat crap, and lots of it, you can’t burn it off with 1hr of cardio. If you’re over-stressing your body, it will hold onto fat through survival impulses. If you reward your gym efforts with food, you’re wasting your time.
In the end, what you eat is more significant in determining your body composition – exercise just tweaks the edges and improves overall health. As you say, which is worse? The gym bunny living on refined carbs, or the Paleo eater who lives a sedentary lifestyle? I’d vote it is the former, since we keep seeing those folks drop dead of heart attacks…
Hi GGP,
I stated that the Time article probably created the tons of articles that are stating that exercise is completely useless for weight loss. As you say, most people just read headlines (or abstracts) and then a false idea spread around. It’s this false idea that I am attacking (the misunderstanding that this article may -or may not- have created).
To be honest, what I read was that exercise was a waste of time. I figured it might be because of this article (because of the title).
And, to be fair, you can out train a diet if you are somewhat healthy to start with. Many people in jail can prove this. Or, tons of teenagers. Or, tons of people studying at university (Many people in my classes drink a lot and eat crappy foods all the time and yet are more muscular than me and very lean).Is it healthy? Optimal? recommended? Intelligent? no,no,no and no!
So I guess the point I was trying to make is that we need to be objective when we read stuff online. Sometimes it’s easy to misinterpret and this leads to the kind of articles I have been reading recently. You can definitely see the influence of some of the people he quoted in this article. For example : ””In general, for weight loss, exercise is pretty useless,” (Eric Ravussin)”. This is what I was trying to address.
Reading back, I realize I was not clear. I should have said ”the idea most people get from reading the title” instead of ”the idea the author is trying to sell”.Thanks for pointing it out.
I had a few friends respond bitterly when I passed that Times article around on Twitter, retorting that they had lost their weight ‘just exercising more’. With very little probing, they would admit that they had to actively watch what they ate, even if it was just to ensure they didn’t eat to compensate for the rise in hunger they felt – i.e. ensuring caloric deficit. They couldn’t read between the lines – increasing activity wasn’t the whole story, they also had to ensure they no longer ate to hunger as they usually did. If they had eaten when they were hungry, they would have maintained their original weight despite their increased activity levels.
I haven’t seen any articles stating that exercise is useless per se – I’ve seen a few notes by Dr. Briffa stating that exercise is not enough and by itself cannot cause fat loss. I’ve personally found this to be true, and the science tends to support it. Our bodies want to maintain a steady fat ratio, and tend to compensate for periods of high activity by minimising NEAT etc during the counterpointing sedentary periods (i.e. during sleep).
Your examples, to be honest, are pretty poor. Have you seen what prison is like? Inmates hardly get to eat as much as they like. They end up calorically restricted, with a deficit if they also decide to pump iron etc. Inmates often leave jail quite strong, but not necessarily fit. Teenagers are in the prime of their biological health – many can get away with eating crap and sitting around without ill metabolic effects. Many, but not all. And reality catches up with them in the end – notice how so many people gain weight when they go to University? Plus, studies have shown that activity levels in children haven’t changed as much as some parent groups would like us to think, and yet obesity and diabetes have sky-rocketed. It’s the food, not the lack of activity. You University mates who are managing to stay thing whilst destroying their metabolisms through poor lifestyles will have their reality check when the magic metabolism stops working and they end up with middle-age spread. Jogging on a treadmill won’t return them to their peak form. And the naturally-lean skinny-fat types are more likely to die at a younger age than those who are fit yet carry more weight. The fact that you can be fat and fit in itself tends to disprove the ‘exercise will make you thin’ theory.
I don’t only read stuff online, but even if that was my only source of information, of course it’s crucial to be objective and open-minded when reading media articles or even peer-reviewed studies these days. The sheer fat that the low-carb, low-fat and vegetarian proponents can ALL claim that their ways of eating can lower LDL and improve insulin sensitivity, etc, makes it clear that we’re all individual mutants. For some, exercise may well burn lots of fat – for others, hormonal balance and food intake will rule this possibility out until nutrition needs are sorted out. Others can find effortless weight loss in diet changes alone, and cortisol issues and fat-loss stalls when activity levels rise.
Exercise alone can be helpful in the general health sense, but I still believe that ignoring the other aspects of health and putting all your belief in exercise as fat-loss savior is ignorant and destined to fail for at least 95% of folks. And the 5% who feel as though exercise was their miracle cure probably unconsciously started to eat less and/or more healthfully anyway.
GGP,
My example were not poor. They just proved that you can do it (that it is possible). The inmates situation proves that you can do it under an army-like set of rules. Teenagers prove that you can do it if your metabolism is optimized (At the top of their game). And, my buddies prove that you can get away with it until you probably reach your 30. All these example are extremely not practical. Not everyone lives (or is willing) to live under an army-like set of rules. We don’t stay 16 forever (although, you can probably optimize your health so much that your metabolism will be 16 for a longer time). And, my buddies don’t have any responsibilities other than studying. Still, the point remains, the human body -under the right situation- can do it.
Athletes have done it for ever, too. People did it way before they knew what a calorie is. Boxers, strong man in the 1800, etc. It’s possible but I don’t recommend it because too often it necessitate that you work too hard for too long. Only true athlete can take this beating (until they get in their 30′s and can’t anymore). However, just because it is possible, does not mean you should do it, though. But, we both agree on the same thing : the optimal way to lose weight (and be healthy) is to consider (and optimize) every variable of the equation. Anything short of that is a non optimal way to approach weight loss/health improvement in my opinion. Taking out a full variable (like exercise) is just wrong, in my opinion.
At a very basic level, this is due to the fact that exercise tend to lower malonyl Coa which in turns make us burn more fat (low malonyl Coa means more CPT1 means more fat burned (dietary or bodyfat)). High malonyl Coa is seen in most sedentary people. High malonyl Coa means optimized Lipogenesis (less CPT1 means less fat transportation in the cell to be burned in the mitochondrion) . This could explain why we are fat (their fat burning machine (the best machine for body energy) is basically broken or not functioning properly). This is why we recommend to diabetic and obese people to workout (Or, why you should not listen to the author of the quote I mentioned earlier) I kept this very simple but there are more variables that influence this. The point I am trying to make is that our body is hardwired to lose pounds. Otherwise, it would make no sense evolutionary speaking.
The problem arise when people destroy their metabolism with disgusting fake foods and think the same old recipe will work. It would work if you ate real foods because your metabolism would probably be better at dealing with it. But, if you eat fake food (and become nutrient deficient (malnutrition) and destroy about any chemical reaction that is happening), you can’t expect to out train it. It’s impossible to have a healthy weight if you have an unhealthy metabolism (broken metabolism). But, then again: Why would you want to try and out train a bad diet? It’s way easier (and healthier) if you consider the whole equation.
Just because some were able to do it before the rise of processed foods does not mean we should ignore what we now know. This is why a good diet, a good exercise plan, some meditation if you are very stressed (or a walk), a good night of sleep, etc, is the way to go. No arguing there. This is really what I wanted to promote here (that exercise is a way bigger part of the equation than people realize).
As for hunger, I would go back to this bullet point of mine : ”As with anything, there are two ways of doing things : the right way and the wrong way. Training with someone who can show you the right way (a real exercise specialist) will make you lose weight. There is enough clinical data to prove this.”
For example, this study seem to demonstrate that proper exercise will reduce hunger (thanks for the link Matt Metzgar). Perhaps going really hard for hours and hours is the reason people get hungry. I personally don’t get hungry after a workout. Nor do some of the people I help/coach/train. If you can optimize your exercise template, you can optimize the hormonal reaction. If you can do this, you also probably don’t get hungry (unless you psychologically make yourself hungry because you were brainwashed by a gatorade commercial).
”This study demonstrates that 1) hunger is suppressed during and for a short while after resistance and aerobic exercise, 2) acylated ghrelin is suppressed during resistance and aerobic exercise, and 3) PYY is increased during and after aerobic exercise. In particular, the suppression of hunger and acylated ghrelin during resistance exercise and the increase in PYY for a prolonged period after aerobic exercise are novel findings.”
Honestly….I read the article and agree with it to an extent. For the last 2 months I did not exercise at all. This was an experiment on my own body and my weight did not fluctuate at all. I wish i could run a longer experiment but i like to run and do bodyweight exercises too much. One thing i did notice was I ate less food. Do I think exercise is the only way to lose weight…NO. I think most people who agree with CW WILL gain ALL the weight back if they do a biggest loser weight loss technique (which is the standard in weight loss). If people eat a normal diet of fake-food and exercise their asses off, the fake-food will win every time! Take a paleo man/woman in the same scenario and they will be over trained and miserable, the exercise will win. Is exercise good for you? YES Do we have to to stay healthy? Depends on your diet! If you eat fake-food you better exercise your ass off…..if you eat paleo…don’t put a lot of emphasis on it.
Thanks for sharing your experiment.
However, I really think that exercising is a must for everyone. Even the paleo dieter.
Repeat after me: You cannot out exercise a bad diet. You cannot out exercise a bad diet. You cannot out exercise a bad diet.
First, let us define bad diet (with regards to weight gain & loss). One in which you take in more calories than you burm. It’s a sinple law of physics called thermodynamics that I’m sure you’re familiar with.
This is why there are plenty of people who are thin who do NOT exercise.
Exercise does not raise your metabolism. That is a myth. In fact, exercise lowers your metabolism. The more you exercise the more your body adapts and becomes more efficient the fewer calories you burn. If that’s not enough as you lose weight your metabolism is lowered again. The result, fewer calories burned.
You want to become a metabolic burning machine? Get fat. Your internal organs are the biggest burners of calories & the fatter you are the more work they do the more calories you burn.
The biggest predictor of who will be thin or not as scientists are quickly learning today is the extent of NEAT a person engages in.
Here’s a link to the Mayo Clinic: http://mayoresearch.mayo.edu/levine_lab/
A quote: “It appears that NEAT is far more important for calorie-burning than exercise in nearly everyone.”
And read more about it at the bottom and when you’re done that read even more about. It’s a fascinating subject.
No offence, but I doubt you read the post. Most of what you said was covered in posts I have written in the past (posts that are linked in this very article). You don’t need to go all attitude on me when what you wrote is exactly what I have been writing since day one.
Except, I really think you can out train a bad diet (not in an healthy way although).
Just look at modern athletes (e.g Phelp and his 12000 calories of junk food).
To paraphrase Gary Taubes, Lance Armstrong isn’t thin because he works out but works out because he’s thin.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2007/oct/28/healthandwellbeing.features1
“Ultimately, the relationship between physical activity and fatness comes down to the question of cause and effect. Is Lance Armstrong excessively lean because he burns off a few thousand calories a day cycling, or is he driven to expend that energy because his body is constitutionally set against storing calories as fat? If his fat tissue is resistant to accumulating calories, his body has little choice but to burn them as quickly as possible: what Rony and his contemporaries called the ‘activity impulse’ – a physiological drive, not a conscious one. His body is telling him to get on his bike and ride, not his mind. Those of us who run to fight fat would have the opposite problem. Our fat tissue wants to store calories, leaving our muscles with a relative dearth of energy to burn. It’s not willpower we lack, but fuel.”
Hey, it’s cool that you read taubes. Now, read some books about metabolism.
Endurance athletes store fat differently than normal people. They store it IN the muscle instead of UNDER the skin. This is probably why they appear to be way leaner than they are. I don’t want to sound rude, but I just don’t get what you are trying to prove with all your quotes and your attitude.
I’m sorry to break your train of though, but Lance Armstrong is just a guy. There are way more people that have out trained a bad diet for pretty much all of their life. Again, I go back to what I was saying : It’s better to take into account every variable -instead of just one- if you want to be healthy and successful.
We were made to burn and store calories. That’s evolution 101. Again, I said all this ages ago.
Actually, you are a clueless wet-behind-the-ears dick with a rudimentary knowledge of metabolism, chemistry, evolution, etc. Go back to eating poutine you primal poseur. You’re so lucky this blog isn’t widely read or you would be ripped to shreds, you hairless cunt.
Too bad you did not like what I had say. I did not obligate you to read it and/or comment. Looks like you had some time to lose if you did not like it. But, i will give you that : Internet trolling is very original.
There is nothing like using insults instead of intelligence in a discussion.
By the way, Chris Robbins, you don’t need to alias. IP are a good way of knowing who you deal with.
The funny thing is that what you were trying to prove are things I have written about (and agree with).
Also, I don’t pretend to know everything (and I have said it many time). Anyone who acts like knowing the universal truth is probably not worth reading anyway.
I think that the point that was made about people exercising more to burn off calories was a valid one. I think to some extent thin people will exericse more if they are eating more. I do believe this is a physiological drive. Animal studies could confirm this. This doesn’t negate your theory though as I don’t believe they are mutually exclusive. We hare complex animals in a behaviourally complex environment. Many factors come in to play.
BUT wow that reply was completely out of line. I think commenters have missed your point somewhat.
I like your website JP.
Thanks mate!