Nope, exercise Alone is NOT the way to lose weight

You can’t really “burn” enough calories to lose weight without changing your diet. You can hit the gym, walk, row, or swim all you want, but exercise alone won’t give you a svelte figure. Given that 1 pound of human fat is worth about 3,500 calories, you would have to add 3,500 calories of extra activity to lose 1 pound. You could walk 35 miles thereby burning 3,500 calories or do one of these 500 calorie activities for seven days:

• 45-minute jog at a 10-minute mile pace
• 60-minute cycling session
• 90 minutes on the elliptical
• 50 minutes on the Stairmaster
• 70 minutes of resistance training – i.e. lifting weights
• 45-minute breaststroke swim
• 45 minutes of treading water
• 2-hour walk at a moderate pace, about 6 miles
• 1-hour Zumba class
• 2-hour Power Yoga class

If you do one of these every single day for a solid week, you might lose a pound for that week, if you eat as you normally would. Whew!

In a large international study conducted by the Loyola University School of Medicine, the authors found that while physical activity burns calories, it also increases appetite, and people may compensate by eating more or by being less active the rest of the day. Physical activity has many proven health benefits, allowing people who are physically active to live longer and healthier lives, but it’s not necessarily a good weight-loss method by itself. You cannot outrun a bad diet. [1]

No matter what messages the government or PepsiCo may send out, physical activity and diet should not be given equal, um, weight in any plan to control obesity. The message from food companies has for decades been that it’s our laziness that makes us fat. Nope, it ain’t all about inactivity; it’s much more dependent on what we shove into our pieholes.

A better approach is gradual, slight changes to both diet and exercise.

• Eat more fruits and veggies and fewer refined carbs. You might want to lean heavier on the green leafy vegetables, other vegetables, nuts, berries, beans, whole grains, seafood, poultry, olive oil lighten up on the butter, red meats and hard cheeses.
• Increase that once-a-week stroll to a brisk daily walk.
• Step on the scales every month (no more often) and record the result.
• Make changes that are sustainable over the long haul.

Forcing ourselves to eat kale because it’s supposedly good for us and low in calories is as much an exercise in futility as buying a treadmill that ends up being a clothes rack.

It can be a lot easier and more healthful to reduce your calorie intake by 300 per day AND add a 500 calorie workout three times a week:
     300 x 7 days a week = 2100 diet calorie reduction
     500 x 3 times a week = 1500 exercise calories
That's 3600 calories per week or a little over 1 pound a week = 52 lbs a year. Substitute a piece of fruit for that breakfast muffin or simply reduce the sizes of all your portions.                                             
In other words, eat better for good. You’ll lose weight and be in better health in general. [2]


[1] Lara R. Dugas​ et al., "Accelerometer-measured Physical Activity Is Not Associated with Two-year Weight Change in African-origin Adults from Five Diverse Populations," PeerJ, January 19, 2017, accessed February 05, 2017, doi:10.7717/peerj.2902.

[2] Erin Brodwin, "We Should Never Have Told People They Could 'Burn Off' Calories," ScienceAlert, June 16, 2017, accessed June 17, 2017, https://tinyurl.com/SciAlert-ExercisNoBurnCals.

​
​Want more? Buy the book: Scam-Proof: Good Information & Critical Thinking for an Evidence-Based Life.  Amazon - $1.99 Kindle, $6.25 paperback

---