Great article in TIME--Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin

maslowjenkins · Post by **maslowjenkins** » Sun Aug 09, 2009 12:15 pm

great article! quick summary: forced exercise (gym, running)=bad; general movement (leisurely waking, taking stairs, [urban rangering])=good!
http://www.time.com/time/health/article ... 57,00.html

bluebunny27 · Post by **bluebunny27** » Sun Aug 09, 2009 1:56 pm

Cheers !

Marc

Disclaimer : I am following a more extreme version of the 'No-S' diet.
I made my own personal modifications to the original plan (Diet & Exercise)
What I am doing should not be misinterpreted as being a typical 'No-S' diet experience.
11/01/2008 : 280.0 pounds
08/09/2009 : 199.6 pounds
( 9 months 9 days / -80.4 pounds )
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Goal : 11/01/2009 : 190.0 pounds ( 1 year / -90.0 pounds )

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Sun Aug 09, 2009 2:17 pm

Moderation in all things -- including exercise! I've suspected this might be the case for a long time.

This reminds me of what Michael Pollan said in "Our National Eating Disorder":

A food-marketing consultant once told me that it's not at all uncommon for Americans to pay a visit to the health club after work for the express purpose of sanctioning the enjoyment of an entire pint of ice cream before bed.

BrightAngel · Post by **BrightAngel** » Sun Aug 09, 2009 3:08 pm

maslowjenkins wrote: http://www.time.com/time/health/article ... 57,00.html

Thanks for the link.
I very much enjoyed reading it.

~reneew · Post by **~reneew** » Sun Aug 09, 2009 3:29 pm

Good one, thanks!

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Sun Aug 09, 2009 4:09 pm

The conventional wisdom that exercise is essential for shedding pounds is actually fairly new. As recently as the 1960s, doctors routinely advised against rigorous exercise, particularly for older adults who could injure themselves. Today doctors encourage even their oldest patients to exercise, which is sound advice for many reasons: People who regularly exercise are at significantly lower risk for all manner of diseases â€” those of the heart in particular. They less often develop cancer, diabetes and many other illnesses. But the past few years of obesity research show that the role of exercise in weight loss has been wildly overstated.

Sometime in the last couple of years I read that if lots of exercise is good, then Olympic level athletes, for example, should be very healthy and live longer lives than those of us who don't exercise at that level. But they often aren't.

Bushranger · Post by **Bushranger** » Sun Aug 09, 2009 10:27 pm

wosnes wrote:
The conventional wisdom that exercise is essential for shedding pounds is actually fairly new. As recently as the 1960s, doctors routinely advised against rigorous exercise, particularly for older adults who could injure themselves. Today doctors encourage even their oldest patients to exercise, which is sound advice for many reasons: People who regularly exercise are at significantly lower risk for all manner of diseases â€” those of the heart in particular. They less often develop cancer, diabetes and many other illnesses. But the past few years of obesity research show that the role of exercise in weight loss has been wildly overstated.
Sometime in the last couple of years I read that if lots of exercise is good, then Olympic level athletes, for example, should be very healthy and live longer lives than those of us who don't exercise at that level. But they often aren't.

That is because they are over doing it. There is always a point where enough becomes too much. As westerners I think we get stuck in the â€œmore must be betterâ€ mind set too often. That level of training and exercise is beyond healthy; it's excessive and inevitably causes the body to break down. Professional powerlifters are a great example of this; they have much worse rates of spinal degeneration due to the huge stresses they place on it over time. Are they stronger than everyone else? Sure they are, but it comes at a price.

This type of intense training results in better athletes but that is not the same as being as healthy and fit as possible for longevity and health sake. The long lived hotspots (bluezones) all exercise frequently, but it's long and mild exercise such as walking up and down the mountains all day and tending their fields, not extremely strenuous stuff like intervals and plyometrics and the like.

Nichole · Post by **Nichole** » Mon Aug 10, 2009 2:20 am

So, I read this and it basically said to me... People are not using their noggins.. eating a donut because they exercised? A 300 calorie donut, while all they did on the treadmill was burn 100-200 calories.

Of course you're going to gain weight if you are eating more calories than you are burning in the day. Their conclusion was right:

In short, it's what you eat, not how hard you try to work it off, that matters more in losing weight.

But I don't think people should be encouraged to not exercise - though I don't think this article is necessarily doing that.

Bushranger · Post by **Bushranger** » Mon Aug 10, 2009 2:53 am

Spot on Nichole.

It is true; simple mathematics proves that people won't make up for their poor diet with exercise alone. The caloric intake vs expenditure is just too great to make up easily with a bit more time on the treadmill. But a bit of common sense obviously dictates that exercise is useful for not only weight control but general fitness and health. Hopefully the few people who are foolish enough to use that as an excuse to ditch exercise are few and far between.

Some time ago I realised something. It finally clicked in my head. For all the research and tests and different view points on literally EVERYTHING in the fields of dieting and exercise one thing seems to continually be proven true. And that is simply that a balanced and moderate approach to all things is best.

Who cares if you do xyz or abc training or diet? Why do we continue to want to over complicate everything in our lives? It is this over thinking that leads most people to do nothing or just despair with trying to work out what is "right". Just eat a bit of everything in modest portions and move your body regularly like it was made to.

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Mon Aug 10, 2009 3:21 am

Nichole wrote:
But I don't think people should be encouraged to not exercise - though I don't think this article is necessarily doing that.

I think it's encouraging us to get exercise in the course of daily life more than relying on the gym.

Nichole · Post by **Nichole** » Mon Aug 10, 2009 12:11 pm

wosnes wrote:
Nichole wrote:
But I don't think people should be encouraged to not exercise - though I don't think this article is necessarily doing that.
I think it's encouraging us to get exercise in the course of daily life more than relying on the gym.

Yeah, but I don't think people should be encouraged not to go to the gym or to go out of their way to exercise... Especially women, who should build a little muscle. For me personally, if I were to take a walk during the work day, I'd have to sign out and sign back in. There is no way I would stay at work an extra half hour to an hour.. I'd rather go home and exercise there. I like the supposed findings of the study that says that we don't have to work out as intensely to yield results, though.

bonnieUK · Post by **bonnieUK** » Mon Aug 10, 2009 1:45 pm

Bushranger wrote: As westerners I think we get stuck in the â€œmore must be betterâ€ mind set too often. That level of training and exercise is beyond healthy; it's excessive and inevitably causes the body to break down.

I've got stuck in that mindset in the past too with exercise, and usually ended up tired, excessively hungry & sometimes even injured

I'm learning to be moderate and just do 15-30 minutes of light exercise per day (e.g. yoga or T-Tapp) but not all at once (usually in 2 installments). Urban rangering is something I do on top of that without really thinking about it. I think the odd day of energetic house cleaning or gardening does good too, plus you have a nice tidy house/garden to show for it

I'm having much better results with this moderate approach in terms of keeping trim than I did before. I started being more moderate with exercise when I read about Reinhard's success with SG & Urban Rangering.

guadopt1997 · Post by **guadopt1997** » Mon Aug 10, 2009 3:15 pm

And also there's the fact that we No-Sers don't have donuts during the week!

kccc · Post by **kccc** » Mon Aug 10, 2009 4:54 pm

I actually found this a little depressing. I have a very sedentary job plus 2 hours of driving... if I didn't do "gym-rat-style" exercising, I'd get NO exercise at all.

Mind you, it's moderate stuff overall, and very consistent, which probably matters a good bit. I don't do either the Weekend Warrior or Olympic-wannabe.

vmelo · Post by **vmelo** » Mon Aug 10, 2009 5:10 pm

I read this article a few days ago, and it actually discusses a concept that my husband has been telling me for 20 years: To lose weight, you must eat less. He has always said, "Exercise has nothing to do with weight loss" (He acknowledges that it's good for toning and health, though). So, when I read this article, the first thing I did was hide it from him

(no need for him to have gloating privileges).

KCCC, don't be discouraged. If you're not eating more because you're exercising, you should lose weight. The article says that the only reason exercise doesn't generally help with weight loss is that people compensate for the calories they burn by eating more. In a perfect scenario, exercise actually can help weight loss if you keep your food intake the same or lower it.

I, too, am a gym rat, and frankly, I offer no apologies for it. Some folks are more outdoor exercise types and other folks like walking, but I've been there, done that, and I'm finally realizing it's not for me. I dislike aimlessly walking (if I have a destination, that's a different story) and I'm not one to kayak or rollerblade or anything like that. So, the gym it is---and I've been LOVING the group fitness classes this summer. We have to do what works for us.

And, by the way, there are three reasons the article did not discourage me: 1) It still acknowledges that exercise is good for health, and as I get older, I'm not just exercising for vanity reasons anymore (although the split is still 70% vanity / 30% health). 2) Exercise still makes me LOOK better. If I get toned by resistance training and even other types of exercise, my body looks better than if I were to just lose weight with no exercise. I haven't lost a pound this summer, but I saw a friend that I haven't seen in a while about a month ago, and without me even mentioning my exercise routine, she said she thought I lost weight (and she's not one for false praise). I can also tell that my arms and legs are firmer. 3) This article makes me wake up and face reality. I've been using the fact that I'm exercising as a "catch-all." In other words, even when I eat ice-cream or cake or something, I say to myself, "Well---at least I'm exercising." Although I know that is bogus, sometimes it takes reading studies like the one cited in the article for a common-sense fact to sink into my thick skull.

TingTing · Post by **TingTing** » Mon Aug 10, 2009 5:32 pm

Thank you so much for the link to this incredibly interesting article! I've heard all my life that exercising is suppose to help you lose alot of weight. This article kinda blew my mind. And wow, the only way to lose weight is to eat less food! Wow! It's just like what Reinhard says!

I often felt guilty for not being a gym rat. I walked around alot though and that is my only exercise for the longest time. For the past few years I started gaining more weight and I blamed it on age, a slowing metabolism and that I didn't go to the gym to exercise. I realized, after going through this message board and the No S book, is that I simply ate too much!

I'm trying to eat smaller portions and move around alot more now. It's a constant struggle and I hope to win over this struggle one day.

Thanks again for this great article!

jules · Post by **jules** » Mon Aug 10, 2009 6:40 pm

Yes it looks to me like the sense of entitlement one can receive from vigorous exercise might be more of the culprit than exercise itself. It does give support for everyday activities as a viable means of activity towards the "become more active" portion of current weightloss conventional wisdom.

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Mon Aug 10, 2009 11:41 pm

vmelo wrote:I read this article a few days ago, and it actually discusses a concept that my husband has been telling me for 20 years: To lose weight, you must eat less. He has always said, "Exercise has nothing to do with weight loss" (He acknowledges that it's good for toning and health, though). So, when I read this article, the first thing I did was hide it from him (no need for him to have gloating privileges).

My ex-husband used to say there was only one exercise a person needed to do to lose weight: place your hands firmly on the table and push back. Hehe -- guess that might tone your arms, too!

maslowjenkins · Post by **maslowjenkins** » Tue Aug 11, 2009 12:57 am

a real conversation with my physician a few years ago:

him: well, you are healthy--for now. you weigh too much and you won't be healthy for long at that weight.

me: I know! but I walk 3 miles most days!

Him: (Gesturing out the window toward the downtown skyline some 13 miles away) You could walk downtown and back every day! It still won't change the fact that you eat too much.

noni · Post by **noni** » Tue Aug 11, 2009 1:07 pm

For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.

1Timothy 4:8

Whose gonna argue with that?!

Blithe Morning · Post by **Blithe Morning** » Tue Aug 11, 2009 1:39 pm

I didn't read this as a "don't go to the gym" missive, but rather "going to the gym isn't going to cause you to lose weight".

What stood out to me is that one reason that going to the gym won't help you lose weight is because you've already shot your self control wad on exercising rather than what you eat. The beauty of No S is that once this eating pattern becomes established, it takes very little self control to maintain it. I am mostly to the point where I can expend my self control on other areas.

I don't eat more on exercise days, I don't exercise to burn off what I ate the day previously. Really, my exercise and my eating have become independent of each other, each done for different but complementary reasons.

I found this heartening as I age and can no longer do the kinds of workouts I did 10 years ago.

Post by **reinhard** » Tue Aug 11, 2009 1:56 pm

Moderation in all things -- including exercise!

Yes!

And I'm all for preferring useful "exertion" over "exercise," but sometimes the way our society is structured can make it difficult to get enough.

Which is why I supplement my actually useful urban rangering with a moderate dose of pretend-useful shovelglove.

What stood out to me is that one reason that going to the gym won't help you lose weight is because you've already shot your self control wad on exercising rather than what you eat. The beauty of No S is that once this eating pattern becomes established, it takes very little self control to maintain it. I am mostly to the point where I can expend my self control on other areas.

Absolutely! And I think you can set up exercise routines in a similarly habit-friendly way that leverages limited willpower to build automatic habits. That's certainly the main intent of urban ranger, shovelglove/"14 minutes of ANYTHING."

You could walk downtown and back every day! It still won't change the fact that you eat too much.

Very funny -- and true. People tend to see the problem as one of being overweight, something that maybe the right exercise or the right diet could solve. But it's really two problems, behavioral problems, problems of doing: overeating and under-moving, or what we used to more charmingly (and accurately, I think) call gluttony and sloth. Both of those problems need solving no matter what you weigh. If you neglect one or the other, not only will your physical health suffer, but your "soul" will suffer as well. Moderation is an amazing joy once you wake up to it.

Reinhard

bluebunny27 · Post by **bluebunny27** » Tue Aug 11, 2009 10:14 pm

Hum, I was thinking most of the stuff in the article was a bunch of "B.S excuses" personally ... I really doubt the person who wrote the article works out that hard, except maybe on the day with the trainer and then it's probably binge eating after that ... if the work outs were always as hard as they are with the trainer the effects would clearly be felt after a while.

You lose weight when you exercise HARD and you follow your diet closely, that's the ticket. You can lose weight just doing one of those 2 things but it'll be much slower. If you do both things at once, you'll lose weight faster of course. You do the work and you get the benefits later, that's how it happens.

I find it silly when people work out and then as a reward they want to eat french fries or energy bars full of sugar ... you're just ruining the exercise session 5 minutes after you have finished ! It's the opposite with me ... when I work out really hard I don't want to have a Snickers' bar .... it would ruin my work out, I was just sweating bullets, I'm not really tempted to have sweets minutes later.

A lot of the people out there don't really work out hard enough to have a whole lot of benefits anyway and then they complain they are not losing weight ? Various reasons : Age, sex, physical condition and especially MOTIVATION. The author must not work out very hard or there's something wrong with the diet, too much food or food that is not really high in quality, junk ...

To lose weight, you have to create a calorie deficit ... either with the diet, the exercise ... or even better ... both ! I know if someone is not losing weight it must be because they either don't work out enough (or maybe when they do they are not pushing too much !) or there's something going on with the diet that cancels the progress made in the gym, no other explanations, especially long term ... I'm not talking about gaining a couple of pounds one week and you don't really know why ... but months and years ... like the author said.

I'd be curious to see footage of the author half-ass'ing it in the gym for 30 minutes and calling it a 'Cardio work out'

... or snacking on Cheetos in the evenings - - for example !

Cheers !

Marc

Disclaimer : I am following a more extreme version of the 'No-S' diet.
I made my own personal modifications to the original plan (Diet & Exercise)
What I am doing should not be misinterpreted as being a typical 'No-S' diet experience.
11/01/2008 : 280.0 pounds
08/09/2009 : 199.6 pounds
( 9 months 9 days / -80.4 pounds )
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Goal : 11/01/2009 : 190.0 pounds ( 1 year / -90.0 pounds )

Blithe Morning · Post by **Blithe Morning** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 1:12 am

The article wasn't about the author's anemic workouts, it was about research coming out of LSU which showed that hard exercise doesn't contribute as much to weight loss as previously thought. As with all research, you can't say this is applicable to everybody, everywhere but rather an overall pattern amongst the general population.

This research actually has significant implications for the strategies and policies to fight obesity. There is only so much money available and is it better spent on getting people to exercise or getting people to change their eating? This research says for weight purposes, it would be better to work on the latter.

I admire people like General McChrystal who can eat one meal a day and run 10 miles every morning. I'm not one of them, however, nor is most of North America. A fitness routine should be like a diet: something you can see yourself doing for the rest of your life.

Bushranger · Post by **Bushranger** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 1:21 am

I'm kind of amazed so many people didn't know this already. I've known weight loss/control was 80% diet / 20% exercise for years now. (Percentages are rough but pretty accurate).

I know your exercising is helping Marc and itâ€™s awesome, but the control of your diet is a larger portion of your weight loss than the exercise, no matter how hard it is. This becomes particularly evident when you start to clock up years of particular eating and exercising habits.

harmony · Post by **harmony** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 4:45 am

I remember watching an episode of Nova where they took a group of people and trained them for a marathon. They did all sorts of tests to measure their progress. Out of all the people who made it to the end, ran the marathon, and did not change their diet, none of them lost a significant amount of weight, if any. It seems that they compensated for the extra energy burned by eating more.

I would think that the combination of No-S and exercise would be very effective because you have rules to limit how much you will be eating. I think it would be very hard to lose weight with exercise alone. I know I tend to want to treat myself after a day of hard work or exercise, so I guess this article would apply to me.

bluebunny27 · Post by **bluebunny27** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 6:53 am

Hum, I thought the article was more about trying to find excuses not to work out properly. I can't do it cos' it's too haaaaaaaaaaard ... (whiny voice) ... you know the type ! It's hard ?? Good !! It means you'll get more benefits tomorrow, you should be happy !

It sounded like whining and trying to find excuses why you can't reach your goals no matter how 'hard' you try, pretty demotivating. I'm sure a nutritionist and a personal trainer would work with that person for a couple of months straight and they would lose 15 pounds with some hard work of course (or they can do the research by themselves online and still get a lot of good information and things they should do in the near future. It might take an extra month to lose the whole 15 pounds but that's really not impossible to achieve ... the key is the motivation, all the way.

Yeah, I think I read somewhere it was 70% nutrition, 30% exercise, BushRanger ... I don't remember where but the diet is very important of course. You can't sabotage yourself all day long in the kitchen and expect to lose a lot of weight even if you work out for hours ...
At the moment, I usually work out between 27 and 42 intense minutes 7 days per week, not hours at a time ...
I take a day off once or twice a month, lol !

Reminds me of this guy, a blog I used to check out. The guy was running marathons but he was always struggling with his weight anyway, the reason was that he was eating a lot of really bad food in between training sessions, so he was struggling to maintain his weight even if he was running 20 miles a week basically, maybe more than that, I forget now ... I think he was even training to run double marathons sometimes (2 marathons back-to-back, that would take 8-10 hours ??) Anyway he would eat numerous donuts and candy bars after training like crazy. He would be happy to have the same weight coming home after running a double marathon ?? There must have been some serious binge eating once the race was over !

It was hard to understand, especially since he was all depressed about struggling to maintain. Geesh, the solution seems pretty simple. I had to stop reading his blog because it was too depressing to read in fact. He had lost a lot of weight but it was mostly with the exercise, not with the diet part. I was thinking he should train half as hard and eat better instead, it would have helped a bit !

Cheers !

Marc

Disclaimer : I am following a more extreme version of the 'No-S' diet.
I made my own personal modifications to the original plan (Diet & Exercise)
What I am doing should not be misinterpreted as being a typical 'No-S' diet experience.
11/01/2008 : 280.0 pounds
08/09/2009 : 199.6 pounds
( 9 months 9 days / -80.4 pounds )
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Goal : 11/01/2009 : 190.0 pounds ( 1 year / -90.0 pounds )

Bushranger · Post by **Bushranger** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 9:52 am

I am like you Marc in that I dislike people using excuses (and often non-existent ones) for failings. It's not made any better by our society frequently endorsing this type of behaviour. That kind of attitude never brings success.

Your comments about that marathon runner are a perfect example of why exercise alone isn't going to do it. That guy sounds like a glutton for punishment.

Thalia · Post by **Thalia** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 3:59 pm

I don't think it's an excuse -- he's saying that exercise, alone, is not going to lead to weightloss. Not that there are no other benefits to exercise, or that people who want to become athletes or run marathons shouldn't do it. They just shouldn't expect it to be the magic key to weightloss, which is true.

harmony · Post by **harmony** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 5:24 pm

I read the article again and the one line that stood out to me was on the very last page. "The problem ultimately is about not exercise but the way we've come to define it."

Earlier in the article, the author mentions being too tired after a workout to walk home from the gym so you take a cab, and being too tired to shop for groceries, so you decide to eat out.

There is also mention of canceling out a lot of the calories you just worked off by guzzling Gatorade or eating an energy bar.

I think all of these points are a good thing to think about if you are trying to use exercise to lose weight (even while watching your diet). It's not just french fries and chips, but those products marketed towards people who are exercising - sports drinks and energy bars.

Plus, I really do believe that it is important that exercise fits into your daily life. That is why walking and functional exercise is stressed. It is still exercise, but it is so normal that we don't feel we need Gatorade or that other stuff to help us get through the rest of the day.

Exercise is beneficial. I know quite a few people that REALLY enjoy pushing their bodies and seeing how far they get. My husband is one of those. He is also very competitive and naturally athletic. Me, well, I am not very competitive or athletic. Even going on a walk for me involves a lot of organizing because I have young children and my husband isn't home to watch them. I did find an exercise I like and that is Tai Chi. It looks deceptively easy, but it can be quite intense depending on how you do it. I don't need equipment just enough space to practice. It is something that I can do at home without leaving the house (which for now works really well for me). I am not exhausted when I am done, I am energized. I do have to attend classes once or twice a week until I feel I have it down enough. It has really toned my legs. I think I am actually starting to like the looks of them for the first time in my life. But, I gained 5 pounds after I started taking the class. Part of it was muscle and the other part was I was over compensating with food. With No-S, I have limits when it comes to food and I am finally losing weight. But, I will keep practicing Tai Chi because I have benefited so much in other areas.

Bushranger · Post by **Bushranger** » Thu Aug 13, 2009 1:07 am

So in other words, balanced moderate food and exercise? Wow how insightful. /sarcasm off

ThomsonsPier · Post by **ThomsonsPier** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 11:47 am

Thalia wrote:I don't think it's an excuse -- he's saying that exercise, alone, is not going to lead to weightloss.

Therein lies an error (I'm not arguing with you specifically, this just happens to be the quote that most succinctly makes that point here); he states that exercise taken in isolation doesn't lead to weight loss based on personal experience in which he hasn't taken exercise in isolation. If you want to study one variable, all others must remain constant.

A while ago, I took up running for fitness and promptly dropped about four or five pounds in a month. My diet stayed the same, by which I mean that I was eating the same quantities of the same foods and not adjusting for the extra exercise. True, the plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data', but my experience directly contradicts this chap on the same argument. I've since stopped running (since one of the things I learned about running is that I don't like running) but the weight loss resultant from it has remained.

I do agree that the way most people view exercise is hampering their efforts. The ideal way to be a prime physical example of the human animal is to behave as the animal would, eating little and frequently with a great deal of movement to acquire food. The human body is quite an efficient machine and doesn't actually need a lot to survive, and most people vastly overestimate the actual physical work they do.

Professional athletes are a law unto themselves, and it must be kept in mind when comparing to them that physical excellence is what they do (and is often all they do). On season, they often sacrifice a huge part of what we would consider normal life to shave an extra half a second off their sprint time or speed up their volley by point-oh-four of a second, burning massive quantities of food in six meals a day as little more than fuel to do so. If anyone paid for a nine-to-five desk job can find the wherewithal to put that kind of training into their life, then good luck to them. It's not something I'd ever find sustainable; indeed, even the professionals don't keep up the same level of training outside the seasons defined by their sport.

flightisleavin · Post by **flightisleavin** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 1:52 pm

My fear with this article is that people tend to take things to the extreme and so exercise will become nonexistant especially among those overweight or obese. Wouldn't exercise benefit them in other ways than just direct weight loss?

I am getting flack from friends for working out (I do a combination of dancing and weight work) as a useless waste of my time especially since the article came out. Plus G. Taubes also writes that exercise makes you hungry and probably should best be avoided if you are trying to lose weight. He is the latest in diet experts and lots of people are loving his stuff because he says overweight is not because of gluttony but insulin response. He has almost perfect review on Amazon from his readers. They rave about him, no guilt about being overweight. Read: You are not responsible for your weight because of the food system and your insulin response, not how much you eat. Therefore you do not need to exercise and you can eat all you want as long as you avoid carbs and go on an Atkins plan that he advises.

I don't feel that exercise makes absolutely no difference and I find helps me. For one thing when you are reducing your intake (if you believe in reduction of total overall food intake) it helps with a sense of well being in my opinion. I know, I know, no scientific proof like the esteemed scientific authors, but I really feel that way.

I know that my diet is more responsible than anything but at the same time I am not going just ditch the exercise and sit on the sofa to keep losing.

I don't eat a whole more after I have exercised but maybe I am weird that way.

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 5:23 pm

Michael Pollan has said that the way we eat has changed more in the last 50 years than in the previous 10,000. So has the way we move. Compared to just about any time prior to the last 50 years, we've pretty much stopped moving. Just about everything in our daily lives has reduced the amount of moving we do.

Humans are designed to move -- all day long. We're designed for low-intensity, long duration movement. There's a reason criminals are sentenced to "hard labor" -- it's punishment for the body.

I think we underestimate calories burned by constant low-intensity movement (walking, climbing stairs, gardening, doing housework, etc) and overestimate calories burned by working out in the gym. In addition, while our level of activity has decreased, our calorie consumption has probably increased. It's not only that we eat more, more often, it's that food is packed with "hidden" calories.

Nichole · Post by **Nichole** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 6:00 pm

They should have named this article "Why Exercise ALONE Won't Make You Thin."

Bushranger · Post by **Bushranger** » Tue Aug 18, 2009 3:02 am

flightisleavin wrote:I am getting flack from friends for working out (I do a combination of dancing and weight work) as a useless waste of my time especially since the article came out. Plus G. Taubes also writes that exercise makes you hungry and probably should best be avoided if you are trying to lose weight. He is the latest in diet experts and lots of people are loving his stuff because he says overweight is not because of gluttony but insulin response. He has almost perfect review on Amazon from his readers. They rave about him, no guilt about being overweight. Read: You are not responsible for your weight because of the food system and your insulin response, not how much you eat. Therefore you do not need to exercise and you can eat all you want as long as you avoid carbs and go on an Atkins plan that he advises.

People love him because he supports their laziness and spoon feeds them excuses; simple as that. As for your friends ragging on you about "wasting your time" exercising; itâ€™s unlikely they will continue to do so when they have a heart attack running to catch a cab. A sample response you could give them might be â€œSure itâ€™s a waste of time, not wheezing when you run up a flight of stairs is over rated.â€ Make sure you say it really sarcastically for full impact.

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Tue Aug 18, 2009 3:34 am

I think there's some truth to what Taubes says, but I think it has a lot more to do with all the overly refined and processed carbs that have snuck into our diets over the years and those being the basis of SAD and few whole foods being consumed.

This is interesting:
http://www.fitnessspotlight.com/2009/08 ... awa-diets/

flightisleavin · Post by **flightisleavin** » Tue Aug 18, 2009 5:36 pm

wosnes wrote:I think there's some truth to what Taubes says, but I think it has a lot more to do with all the overly refined and processed carbs that have snuck into our diets over the years and those being the basis of SAD and few whole foods being consumed.

This is interesting:
http://www.fitnessspotlight.com/2009/08 ... awa-diets/

Thanks Bushranger. I agree with you. It is a way to blame weight gain on mysterious insulin repsonse and not how you eat. Their feeling was that people gain weight through no fault of their own and are being accused of being gluttons when they are not. I actually did not let the comments bother me because I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of counter arguments to the Time Article. I have already read a few one in particular that indicated people who exercise along with their deiting lose more body fat than people who don't even if they don't see a loss on the scale. Isn't that just common sense????

Wosnes I do think G. Taubes is correct that too many carbs are not good but what I don't like is that he lumps them all in together and ignores the fact that people have been eating bread and rice for centuries without struggling with obesity.

When G. Taubes was doing his press tour others tried to challenge him that it was the heavily processed carbohydrates that were bad news but he continued to insist it was all carbs and starches that made people fat and promote Atkins style eating to prevent obesity. He does not make the distinction between a sweet patoto and a Twinkie, French fries at McDonalds vs a baked potato with skin made at home. All the carbs and starches are evil according to him. And he devoted an entire chapter to not exercising as it increased your appetite to the point that you could not lose if you exercised. His followers worship him because he has taken on the conventional wisdom of calories in and calories and set about proving it is the kind of food you eat that causes weight gain, not the amounts.

flightisleavin · Post by **flightisleavin** » Tue Aug 18, 2009 6:22 pm

I am sure that some people do have insulin response problems but I don't think you can snack all day on sugar free and/or low fat processed snacks with idea that the snacks don't matter and then blame insulin response.
.

StrawberryRoan · Post by **StrawberryRoan** » Tue Aug 18, 2009 7:06 pm

I simply cannot envision my day wihout exercise.

Just spent an hour on the bike listening to talk radio, will do another hour on the Gazelle later watching Discovery Health. It is as much a part of my daily routine as brushing my teeth, taking my nightly bubble bath, making the bed, etc.

I need the emotional release probaly more than I need the caloric reduction benefit.

I never overdo it as I don't want to be injured (and thus unable to exercise.)

Berry

Post by **reinhard** » Mon Aug 24, 2009 1:30 pm

I was finally able to read through the whole article (maybe I should do that next time before posting anything!

).

What struck me is how well no-s and the other "everyday systems" address the problems the author identifies.

1) compensation: you get three meals. There's a limit as to how much you can compensate. All you folks who are wondering whether to add an additional mini meal to "support" your workout? Unless you're a serious athlete, probably not a good idea.

2) marathon exercise routines counterproductive: a "schedualistically insignificant" 14 minutes of shovelglove/whatever is just enough to give you some real benefit without making you feel entitled to compensate with food or feel resentfully overburdened.

3) benefits of low impact "exertion" vs. risks of "high impact" exercise: well, that's "urban ranger" in a nutshell, right?

Reinhard

Thalia · Post by **Thalia** » Mon Aug 24, 2009 4:51 pm

Reinhard, that reminds me -- I saw this in the Los Angeles Times, and of course I thought of Everyday Systems!

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/ne ... 7379.story

these people are using the "urban ranger" name (I wonder if you can sue

) and treating the urban landscape of Los Angeles like a national park to be explored -- they're in the news because they lead "expeditions" on to areas of beach in Malibu that are technically public but where nearby homeowners try to run off "outsiders" from visiting.

Post by **reinhard** » Wed Aug 26, 2009 3:12 pm

Thanks for the link, Thalia!

these people are using the "urban ranger" name (I wonder if you can sue )

I'm not really the suing type

Plus I'm thrilled to have more fellow rangers on board -- whether by independent discovery or not. And I'm sure it'll result in at least a few more people stumbling across my site -- and perhaps joining us here on the bulletin board.

Reinhard

Great article in TIME--Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin

Great article in TIME--Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin

Re: Great article in TIME--Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin