The latest hot topic around the water cooler is; are the benefits of exercise overblown? With all the hype that surrounds weight loss and exercise it’s easy to see how we’ve arrived at this discussion. Not only do gyms market themselves as the most effective way to lose weight, but there is also an onslaught of reality TV such as The Biggest Loser, Celebrity Fit Club and Workout that reinforce the message that by exercising you “will” lose weight. The idea that we can lose weight by exercising and without dieting is very appealing.
So here are the facts, to lose weight we need a net loss of calories at the end of the day. Scientists refer to this as the energy gap, and with the obesity epidemic increasing; the medical community is trying to figure out how to broaden that gap. A recent issue of Time Magazine brings attention to several studies that found exercise didn’t help overweight women lose weight. The article explains some potential reasons for this happening. One of the reasons found, is that after working out, people tend to be less active in their daily lives so their energy gap is the same with or without exercise. Another reason is that burning calories with moderately intense exercise makes people hungrier and therefore they will eat more, or even reward themselves with a highly caloric post-workout snack. Lastly, using your will power to exercise for 60 minutes depletes your sense of self control for the next challenging encounter, which may possibly involve food choices.
So does this mean that you should tear up your gym membership? No, because being physically fit can reduce the risk of many diseases and is also good for your overall general health and longevity. On a positive note, there is good news about exercise and weight loss from the Time article:
Many obesity researchers now believe that very frequent, low-level physical activity — the kind humans did for tens of thousands of years before the leaf blower was invented — may actually work better for us than the occasional bouts of exercise you get as a gym rat. “You cannot sit still all day long and then have 30 minutes of exercise without producing stress on the muscles,” says Hans-Rudolf Berthoud, a neurobiologist at LSU’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center who has studied nutrition for 20 years. “The muscles will ache, and you may not want to move after. But to burn calories, the muscle movements don’t have to be extreme. It would be better to distribute the movements throughout the day.”
Perhaps the most important thing to know surrounding exercise and weight loss is that you have a choice. Exercise is great medicine for general health, and a great addition to eating healthy. So if working out at the gym like a maniac, or running multiple marathons makes you feel good, keep doing it, but also understand that exercising like this isn’t essential, perhaps think more about what you put in your mouth on a daily basis.
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