Is exercise making you fat?

SkyKitty · Post by **SkyKitty** » Wed Jun 29, 2011 6:46 pm

Was the title of an interesting article I read today, sadly not online so I can't link to it but it really hit home so I'll try to repeat as much as possible.

Basically it was about a study which found that women (it only mentioned women but I imagine it would apply to men too) have a tendancy to compensate for exercise by eating more.

I believe it was usually either as a reward
'Oooh that was a gruelling work-out, I deserve a slice of cake with my coffee'
or
'I've definately done enough exercise to have that very large, chocolate brownie with ice-cream and chocolate sauce)

or to fuel themselves up
'going to the gym later, better have an extra big bowl of pasta now'.

The study found that often, the extra calories consumed because the women believed they had earned them, deserved them or needed them often exceeded the calories burnt off in exercise.

They conducted an experiment where one group of women did an extra hour of exercise, and one women watched an extra hour of TV daily, and found that the TV watching women had a smaller calorie deficit, their calories in versus calories out was better because they weren't using the extra exercise as an excuse to eat more. They also found that people tend to over estimate how much food they are burning off in exercise.

This article was in Top Sante magazine (which specialises in health/well-being related features), if it is still hanging round the office on Friday I will steal it if anyone is interested in any more info.

I know it won't change the amount of exercise I (try) to do as I believe it is valuable for general health, keeping heart and lungs healthy etc, but it might change my thinking about food in relation to exercise.

SpiritSong · Post by **SpiritSong** » Wed Jun 29, 2011 7:47 pm

Once I found out how few calories exercise burns off, I have had no problem separately how much I eat from how much I exercise.

Calories are the opposite of money (money is hard to accumulate and easy to burn).

Nicest of the Damned · Post by **Nicest of the Damned** » Wed Jun 29, 2011 7:53 pm

This happens with food, too. It's called the health halo effect. People think of certain foods as "healthy", and think they can reward themselves for eating those foods.

"Since I only had a salad for lunch, I can get a cookie."

That's enough of a problem right there, but it gets worse when the salad doesn't actually have fewer calories than the less-healthy-sounding thing you would normally have had. CPK has a good example of this. A full Field Greens salad, with no meat or cheese, has more calories than two slices of pizza with pepperoni and sausage. But salad has a health halo and pizza does not, so you might be tempted to reward yourself for ordering the salad instead of the pizza.

It gets worse. Some restaurants or types of restaurants have a health halo, even though not all of their food is healthy. If you're around my age (mid 30s), you might remember how fast food and fast food restaurants were demonized as bad for you in the 80's. You might think that getting a burger at a casual chain restaurant like Applebee's is better or healthier than getting a burger at McDonald's. However, the Applebee's Steakhouse Burger has 1190 calories, while a plain hamburger at McDonald's has 250 calories. Subway has a health halo these days, even though not everything Subway serves is healthy or healthier than everything McDonald's serves.

Thalia · Post by **Thalia** » Wed Jun 29, 2011 9:05 pm

That's one reason that I think that equating "weightloss" with "health" is so damaging. Exercise doesn't make you skinny? Must be no reason to do it, then! It can't possibly improve your health or well-being in any way if it doesn't lead to drastic weightloss!

Grammy G · Post by **Grammy G** » Wed Jun 29, 2011 10:34 pm

What great reminders for all of us and I love the term "health halo"! I have been guilty of the exact kinds of thoughts posted here.

something for me to think about, for sure! Thanks for bringing this up.

Who Me? · Post by **Who Me?** » Thu Jun 30, 2011 6:04 am

When I worked as a bartender I'd see a lot of guys guzzling beer right after working out. Now, I strongly believe that a long bike ride properly ends with a beer. But I don't think that every workout should end with six Coors Lights.

Pinkcupcakes · Post by **Pinkcupcakes** » Thu Jun 30, 2011 8:36 am

I agree with the article - you think it would be OK to indulge after a gym visit but it would take an hour and a half of solid running to burn off a wedge of choclate cake with butter icing! It doesnt help that the machines show very inaccurate figures for calories burned.

I really recommend this link to work out how much you are really burning!
http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc

I do actually enjoy the gym (crazy i know) but im finding my weightloss is happening faster than ever by simply doing loads of walking. I walk 20 mins in and out of work, 40 min walk at lunch and try and do a 40 walk after dinner. As its a lighter exercise spread out over the whole day I dont get that feeling that I can eat more.

I really really recommend that you listen to Urban Ranger podcast (free) to be extremely motivated to start walking!

Graham · Post by **Graham** » Thu Jun 30, 2011 12:09 pm

In the short term, extra exercise could provoke weight gain, but regular exercise didn't cause me to gain any fat, rather the reverse.

If you do more exercise, you'd expect to alter your body composition, gaining some muscle and losing some fat, even if the scales stayed the same or went up a bit.

I guess this regular stream of conflicting messages about diet and exercise keeps readers buying the magazines, and that's what it's really all about. If we all got clear about the issues, a whole industry would expire.

If sugar and empty calorie "foods" were taxed instead of subsidised, and oil prices continue to rise, might we find the obesity problem cured?

Nicest of the Damned · Post by **Nicest of the Damned** » Thu Jun 30, 2011 12:14 pm

Grammy G wrote:What great reminders for all of us and I love the term "health halo"! I have been guilty of the exact kinds of thoughts posted here. something for me to think about, for sure! Thanks for bringing this up.

Brian Wansink talks about health halos in Mindless Eating.

sheepish · Post by **sheepish** » Thu Jun 30, 2011 12:20 pm

I think No S really helps with the problem of exercise and appetite increase. I quite often walk to work - it's about 4 and a half miles so it takes over an hour. Whenever I walk to work, I am hungry when I get into work and I remain hungry basically until I eat lunch. But, because I want to stick to No S, I make myself wait until lunch. I take lunch in with me so I've predetermined its size (i.e. I can't buy myself a bigger lunch if I feel like it) and, by the afternoon, I feel fine. Before I did No S, I might well have bought myself a breakfast pastry and, based on calorie calculators online, I'd literally be eating the number of calories that I'd just burned off.

Post by **reinhard** » Thu Jun 30, 2011 12:27 pm

Whenever I walk to work, I am hungry when I get into work and I remain hungry basically until I eat lunch. But, because I want to stick to No S, I make myself wait until lunch.

I've definitely experienced this as well. When I run on a weekend, there's no question I eat more to compensate. So I've been increasingly squeezing my runs in on weekdays when the No-s rules provide that usually totally sufficient "speed bump" of having to wait to the next meal and keeping it to a single plate. This is another good reason why it's good to sync your regular exercise (shovelglove, in my case) days in general with your no-s N-days.

It's really kind of surprising how many odd little (but not insignificant) avenues for excess no-s blocks. Makes me feel like I really "discovered" something rather than invented it, because I certainly didn't have this case in mind when No-s first came to me.

Reinhard

DaveMc · Post by **DaveMc** » Thu Jun 30, 2011 2:06 pm

My first thought was "No, no it's not" -- but I realize that that's because I'm following NoS, so how much I eat has nothing to do with what else happens during the day.

Blithe Morning · Post by **Blithe Morning** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 2:06 pm

Of course exercise doesn't make you fat. It's using the exercise to rationalize poor eating that makes you fat. But try telling that to someone who doesn't like exercise and is looking for an excuse to not do it. How easy it would be to say that you aren't exercising because you want to eat better?

My experience with exercise is that it doesn't really help me lose weight. Any weight loss/gain I've experienced has been as a result of changes in eating. Rather, I think exercise is important for other health reasons. I know I'm stronger, have more endurance and am less stressed because I exercise. That has to be good for my health. I have a co-worker with diabetes and she says that walking on her treadmill for 45 minutes 2x a day is the way she "keeps her numbers down". When she doesn't do it, her blood sugar is harder to manage.

Over43 · Post by **Over43** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 8:27 pm

My theory on exercise, particularly running, is that some people still carry a strong link through our genetics as hunter gatherers. When they run, they lose weight, not as a calorie burning deficit medium, but our genes saying: you are running/exercising, your body needs to adapt by losing weight, and becoming a runners body. (Crude wording I know.) So we don't thin down due to burning calories, but our body responding to a need to run and adapting by losing weight. (See Why We Run by Bernd Heinrich which I got the idea from.) I may be full of poo. But if I were in my 20's I'd go back to graduate school and write a thesis on this.

Strawberry Roan · Post by **Strawberry Roan** » Sat Jul 02, 2011 11:11 pm

I love to exercise for the health benefits but I do think that the difference in losing weight and looking "skinny" and losing weight and looking "fit" is exercise.

Joyofsix · Post by **Joyofsix** » Sun Jul 03, 2011 1:14 am

All I could think of is my halo is tarnished.

clarinetgal · Post by **clarinetgal** » Sun Jul 03, 2011 7:40 am

Back when I was doing high impact, high intensity exercising, I did gain weight, becasue I'd be extra hungry after the workouts, and I"d end up eating a lot more (and yes, some of it was because I felt my hard workout justified having something like a piece of cake). After a lot of trial and error with my exercising, I have figured out that low impact cardio, pilates, and moderate weight/moderate repetition weight lifting work best for me. This kind of training doesn't make me super hungry afterwards, so it's much easier to eat moderately. Like one of the other posters said, I've also noticed over the past few years that it doesn't matter how many calories I burn with exercising; the amount of food I eat is much more important. However, exercising definitely helps me to look more fit and toned, so I will never give it up.

Linguisticsgirl · Post by **Linguisticsgirl** » Sun Jul 03, 2011 8:26 am

The only time that I have successfully lost a significant amount of weight was when training for a half marathon. However I combined this with a low calorie diet so although it was effective it was HARD. I was unemployed and very unhappy at the time so was able to channel my time and energy into this and it provided much needed structure and control. However it is a totally unrealistic way to live in the real world and I think that without some sort of structure for eating in place I would have used the running as an excuse for indulgence.

I shall get to test this theory in about 3 months as I am currently unable to run due to injury. To be honest I love running enough that I would do it even if it meant staying the same size. However I am hoping that by the time I start pavement pounding again the no s habit will be ingrained and will prevent this from happening.

I remember reading somewhere that the body strives for equilibrium, so that if we burn more calories our bodies, via our minds, will try to persuade us to eat the deficit we create and that resisting this without some form of structure in place often leads to binge behavior.

Graham · Post by **Graham** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 1:32 am

Suddenly remembered Geoffrey Cannon's "Dieting Makes You Fat" from the 1980's - remember his book? He went from diet to diet, losing and regaining with a little extra - till he gave up dieting and took up jogging for fitness - and discovered he lost weight that way without the rebound/regain effect.

He discovered exercise was crucial to sustainable weight-loss - it didn't just keep him healthy, it did more, it helped him achieve permanent weight-loss. The book has been updated and re-issued recently, once again with the science that explains how it all works.

I wonder about the study that said exercise made you fat - how long did it go on for? From what I've read on runners, basically, the higher the weekly mileage, the lower the BMI. I suppose if you were deluded about what exercise would do for you, and emphasised the reward instead of performing the exercise, you could nullify it, but weight-gain isn't what most regular exercisers experience. Some people are confused by the short-term adaptation to a new level of exercise - temporarily increased appetite and short term weight-gain - mostly glycogen and water, not a health risk, followed over time by fat loss and some muscle gain - all good news.

When a balanced presentation of the research about exercise isn't given, it is so easy to get confused and discouraged. It is disappointing that creating a stir and selling magazines wins over giving the readership responsible, sound advice.

SkyKitty · Post by **SkyKitty** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 6:28 am

I think it was exactly the effect of being deluded about what exercise will do for you and nullifying the calories burned with 'reward' foods that the article was trying to highlight and it wasn't aimed at athletes and serious runners, more at women who might go to the gym twice a week and then treat themselves to a big slice of chocolate cake afterwards, and I definately used to be one of those women and am still in the process of shaking off that mentality, still not quite there yet.

With regards the presentation of the research, I did say that I was repeating from memory only.

Graham · Post by **Graham** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 9:14 am

@SkyKitty - the details of the "research" this article is based on - particularly the "women on sofa for an hour being better off than the women who exercised" bit - would be very interesting. If you do get the chance to see that article again, and to post the references to the studies it is based on, I for one would be very pleased.

As I said earlier, I do suspect magazines like this have no interest in finding real answers - they are part of an industry that depends on people dieting and failing and dieting again, our confusion feeds their bottom line. (and ours too, sadly..)

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 9:24 am

This is the first thing I thought of when I read that:

Michael Pollan wrote:Compared with the French, we're much more likely to choose foods for reasons of health, and yet the French, more apt to choose on the basis of pleasure, are the healthier (and thinner) people. How can this possibly be? Rozin suggests that our problem begins with thinking of the situation as paradoxical. The French experience with food is only a paradox if you assume, as Americans do, that certain kinds of foods are poisons. ''Look at fat,'' Rozin points out. ''Americans treat the stuff as if it was mercury.'' That doesn't, of course, stop us from guiltily gorging on the stuff. 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.

Graham · Post by **Graham** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 9:44 am

I forgot to mention - the studies I saw on running said that the higher the weekly mileage, the more the runners ate - but the less body fat they carried. It appears that, once exercise is increased beyond a certain point, the body becomes better able to match calories in with calories out.

I'm thinking exercise at that level would have to be something you liked, and could stick with, to give long-term benefit. I don't know if there is something like that for everyone. Curse you ice cream, my guilty love.

kariev34 · Post by **kariev34** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 11:30 am

clarinetgal wrote:Back when I was doing high impact, high intensity exercising, I did gain weight, becasue I'd be extra hungry after the workouts, and I"d end up eating a lot more (and yes, some of it was because I felt my hard workout justified having something like a piece of cake). After a lot of trial and error with my exercising, I have figured out that low impact cardio, pilates, and moderate weight/moderate repetition weight lifting work best for me. This kind of training doesn't make me super hungry afterwards, so it's much easier to eat moderately. Like one of the other posters said, I've also noticed over the past few years that it doesn't matter how many calories I burn with exercising; the amount of food I eat is much more important. However, exercising definitely helps me to look more fit and toned, so I will never give it up.

This is me to a "t". I love high intensity so haven't gave it up yet and sometimes I do way more then I should (not very good at moderation) but I'm sure this is why these 5lbs won't go away. I eat more out of increased appetite after an intense workout for sure.

Over43 · Post by **Over43** » Mon Jul 04, 2011 2:46 pm

Graham wrote:Suddenly remembered Geoffrey Cannon's "Dieting Makes You Fat" from the 1980's - remember his book? He went from diet to diet, losing and regaining with a little extra - till he gave up dieting and took up jogging for fitness - and discovered he lost weight that way without the rebound/regain effect.

He discovered exercise was crucial to sustainable weight-loss - it didn't just keep him healthy, it did more, it helped him achieve permanent weight-loss. The book has been updated and re-issued recently, once again with the science that explains how it all works.

I wonder about the study that said exercise made you fat - how long did it go on for? From what I've read on runners, basically, the higher the weekly mileage, the lower the BMI. I suppose if you were deluded about what exercise would do for you, and emphasised the reward instead of performing the exercise, you could nullify it, but weight-gain isn't what most regular exercisers experience. Some people are confused by the short-term adaptation to a new level of exercise - temporarily increased appetite and short term weight-gain - mostly glycogen and water, not a health risk, followed over time by fat loss and some muscle gain - all good news.

When a balanced presentation of the research about exercise isn't given, it is so easy to get confused and discouraged. It is disappointing that creating a stir and selling magazines wins over giving the readership responsible, sound advice.

Most books on jogging I have read from the 70's and 80's indicated empirical evidence showing that people who stuck with a jogging program would lose weight and gain fitness and ancillary health benefits. The JAMA, 5 years ago published a study which showed aerobic type exercise lowered incidents of death in all age and "habit" (smoking/drinking) categories, while sedentary subjects had a higher mortality rate. (Actually we all have the same mortality rate...)

About the same time the JAMA article was published I started jogging 4-5 days a week for 4-5 months. I worked my way up to an occasssional 8 mile jog. I lost 12-15 pounds during that time. My wife commented that I was getting a "runner's body", then I stopped. I have started again though.

clarinetgal · Post by **clarinetgal** » Tue Jul 05, 2011 6:19 am

I'm pregnant right now, so my situation is different, but in normal circumstances, even though my exercising didn't help me to lose weight, exercise, combined with moderate eating helped me to maintain a lower weight than I might have otherwise (plus, I looked a lot more toned

).

milliem · Post by **milliem** » Tue Jul 05, 2011 6:33 am

Graham wrote:I forgot to mention - the studies I saw on running said that the higher the weekly mileage, the more the runners ate - but the less body fat they carried. It appears that, once exercise is increased beyond a certain point, the body becomes better able to match calories in with calories out.

I'm thinking exercise at that level would have to be something you liked, and could stick with, to give long-term benefit. I don't know if there is something like that for everyone. Curse you ice cream, my guilty love.

I've read things about how building muscle helps you to burn calories, which should in turn help you to maintain a lower weight. I guess while it'd be great to be slim, it'd be better to be slim with muscle tone than slim and flabby!!

I do wish there was an exercise/sport/something that I liked enough to stick with long term... I'm horribly fickle when it comes to exercise!

DaveMc · Post by **DaveMc** » Tue Jul 05, 2011 5:04 pm

I've often heard the thing about muscle burning more than fat, but one should be a bit cautious about getting too excited about that as a source of calorie burning. Estimates vary widely -- spend some time following the search term "how much fat does muscle burn" down various rabbit holes around the Net, and you'll see how much! The range seems to be from 50 calories per pound of muscle (from some personal trainers and big weightlifting advocates), down to 6 calories per pound (from a 2010 paper in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition).

This site matches some of the skepticism I've seen in many places, and provides the abstract of the Am. J. Clin. Nut. paper:

http://www.mindandmuscle.net/content/ho ... ually-burn

What the paper says, basically, is that even fat "costs" about 2 calories per pound to operate, so really you're only gaining 4 calories per pound of skeletal muscle. That means that if you convert ten pounds of fat into ten pounds of solid muscle, you'll burn an extra *forty* calories a day! You can safely eat nearly half an extra apple.

This is, of course, very different from the extra *five hundred* calories a day that would result if you accept the 50 calories per pound of muscle end of the spectrum. That'd be nice, but I just can't believe it.

My usual caveat: there are all kinds of reasons (some of them even health-related) to exercise, including muscle-building exercise, but the claims about how it'll make you Lose Weight Fast need to be treated with considerable caution, I think.

Blithe Morning · Post by **Blithe Morning** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 2:52 pm

This kind of title drives me crazy because the answer is No, exercise does not make you fat. It's wildly overestimating how much impact exercise has on weight loss that makes you fat. However, people being what they are will use this to rationalize not exercising because they don't want to get too hungry.

My experience has been that exercise is important for overall good health but like Dave I have my doubts about whether or not it helps you lose weight at some sort of super speed. I have a co-worker with diabetes and she swears up and down that walking on her treadmill 45 minutes twice a day (not very fast, either) is what helps as she puts it "keep the numbers down." She is insulin dependent, not overweight and somewhat careful about her diet. If nothing else, I feel more relaxed when I exercise and the muscle definition helps me believe I'm fighting gravity.

clarinetgal · Post by **clarinetgal** » Thu Jul 07, 2011 6:17 am

Blithe, I agree with you. I mainly exercise for the health benefits, plus I have two immediate family members with cancer, and I'm hoping that regular exercise will help prevent me from getting cancer. The toning benefits from exercise are nice, too.

kccc · Post by **kccc** » Thu Jul 07, 2011 3:04 pm

Blithe Morning wrote:Of course exercise doesn't make you fat. It's using the exercise to rationalize poor eating that makes you fat. But try telling that to someone who doesn't like exercise and is looking for an excuse to not do it.

(Bold added by me to make the "cut to the chase" part stand out.)

I so agree with this. The exercise is not making you fat. It may not burn a lot of calories, but it certainly isn't adding them... UNLESS you are rationalizing poor eating choices "because I'm exercising!"

<rant alert> Sloppy-logic-headlines like this annoy me. People usually are not very logical to begin with (that includes me, btw), but drawing false analogies/conclusions and presenting them as factual does not help. I know accurate and thoughtful headlines are not catchy and don't sell, but still...

A truer headline would be something like "Is over-estimating your calorie burn and using a minimal amount of exercise as an excuse for eating the maximum amount of extra food making you fat?" It wouldn't sell, but it would identify what the real problem is.

/rant

Even if exercise had NO effect on the calorie balance, it's worth doing for a myriad of other health-related reasons. The evidence is overwhelming! We were made to be active, and "work better" when we are.

DaveMc · Post by **DaveMc** » Thu Jul 07, 2011 5:11 pm

KCCC wrote:A truer headline would be something like "Is over-estimating your calorie burn and using a minimal amount of exercise as an excuse for eating the maximum amount of extra food making you fat?" It wouldn't sell, but it would identify what the real problem is.

Maybe we can make it catchier ... How about "Are Exer-Binges Making You Fat?" Then in the article, you define an "exer-binge" as eating a bunch of extra food because you've been "good" by exercising.

kccc · Post by **kccc** » Sat Jul 09, 2011 8:43 pm

Dave! You are a genius! Of course that's the way to go!

Coin a new word that readers won't understand without reading the article... if it gets picked up and becomes trendy, there's your 15 minutes of fame...

We should be a writing team. I'll call it like it is, then you can make it sound catchy.

DaveMc · Post by **DaveMc** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 2:59 pm

KCCC wrote:We should be a writing team. I'll call it like it is, then you can make it sound catchy.

I'm happy to supply headlines, whenever needed!

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