Moderate exercise does not help in weight loss

[Darth Wong]

We all knew it anyway, but the media is finally catching on:

The Myth of Moderate Exercise
Monday, Jul. 28, 2008 By LAURA BLUE

Obesity experts agree that daily exercise is essential for good health, but whether it can successfully lead to long-term weight loss is a question of much debate. What has become increasingly clear, however, is that the conventionally accepted advice — 30 minutes of moderate-intensity activity most days of the week — is probably insufficient to spur any real change in a person's body weight. A study published July 28 in the Archives of Internal Medicine adds to the burgeoning scientific consensus: when it comes to exercise for weight loss, more is better. It suggests that obese people would have to exercise at least an hour at a time to see any significant difference in their weight.

The study, led by John Jakicic at the Physical Activity and Weight Management Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh, followed nearly 200 overweight or obese women ages 21 to 45 through a two-year weight-loss program. The women were given free treadmills to use at home, regular group meetings and telephone pep talks to help keep them on track. Participants were also asked to restrict their food intake to between 1,200 and 1,500 calories per day, and were randomized to one of four physical activity intervention groups based on energy expenditure (either 1,000 calories or 2,000 calories burned per week) and exercise intensity (high vs. moderate). By the end of the 24-month intervention, the women who managed to lose at least 10% of their starting body weight (which was, on average, about 193 lbs.) — and keep it off — were exercising twice as long as health authorities typically recommend and expending more than twice as many calories through exercise as women who had no change in body weight. The biggest weight losers were active a full 68 minutes a day, five days a week (about 55 minutes a day more than they had been before the trial began), burning an extra 1,848 calories a week.

Jakicic and his colleagues originally designed their study to measure whether weight loss could really be achieved and maintained through moderate-intensity exercise, akin to "walking when you're late for a meeting," he says, or whether it was preferable to engage in shorter bursts of more vigorous-intensity activity, "like, when you're late for the bus, chasing it down." The problem was that not enough of the women stuck with their assigned exercise categories for the researchers to gather enough meaningful data. Within a few months, most of the participants had resorted to exercising as much as they chose to. That left researchers with a slightly different data set than they had planned for, but they were still able to associate women's reported physical activity with their weight loss. Indeed, exercise was more strongly associated with weight loss than any other factor, including diet. Overall, the more the women exercised, the more weight they lost.

More than half of the study participants managed to lose at least 10% of their body weight within the first six months. At the half-year mark, however, most of those women relapsed and started gaining the weight back — a discouragingly common phenomenon. "The major outcome of this paper is the maintenance issue," Jakicic says. Once a patient hits her target weight, he says, it's imperative that she stick with her exercise and diet regimen to maintain her new weight.

Still, the underlying question remains: are diet and exercise a reliable cure for obesity? Modern-day obesity researchers are skeptical — achieving thinness, they say, is not simply a matter of willpower. Research suggests that weight may largely be regulated by biology, which helps determine the body's "set point," a weight range of about 10 lbs. to 20 lbs. that the body tries hard to defend. The further you push you weight beyond your set point — either up or down the scale — some researchers say, the more your body struggles to return to it. That might help to explain why none of the women in Jakicic's study managed to lose much more than 10% of their body weight. After two years on a calorie-restricted diet, keeping up more than an hour of physical activity five days a week on average, most were still clinically overweight (though much less so than before). But what Jakicic and other obesity researchers stress is that a 10% reduction in body weight represents a tremendous boon for overall well-being, lowering blood pressure, improving heart health and reducing the risk of Type 2 diabetes. For the obese, the end goal should not be thinness, but health and self-acceptance, which are more realistic and beneficial objectives. "The women's health was absolutely improved," Jakicic says.

Jakicic, in fact, seems heartened by his findings. "I think the beauty of this study is that we now have a target" — a better idea of how much exercise is needed for weight maintenance. There is, of course, some variation in how people respond. Some of the study participants fared well with less exercise than the additional 275 minutes per week (about 55 minutes per day, five days a week) that the study's author now recommends for weight maintenance. Others needed more. But the keys to success, according to Jakicic, were embracing the weight-loss program fully, and finding a way around the daily obstacles to exercising — that's something he says many of his participants were able to achieve, regardless of their socioeconomic group. So, if you're aiming to lose weight and keep it off, his message is clear: don't slack off.

Looks like that "half hour of exercise per day" thing doesn't work after all. And who seriously has the time for a full hour of exercise every single day? Single people maybe, but people raising kids and paying bills?

[Havok]

Most people already had a hard time finding the time for the half hour.
But, yeah, this isn't really news. I didn't even know that the half hour standard was still being pushed.

I remember telling people that I was training, that at the bare minimum, they should be doing 45mins, but the more they did over an hour the better the results were going to be.

And yup, there it is. The six month honeymoon period. I don't know what it is, but there is some magical thing with six months that people just start tapering off on there programs.

The biggest weight losers were active a full 68 minutes a day, five days a week (about 55 minutes a day more than they had been before the trial began), burning an extra 1,848 calories a week.

Am I reading that correctly? These people were active for only 13 minutes a fucking day? Man, no wonder our country is getting so fat.

[weemadando]

I might have missed it, but does this assume no change in the amount of calories going in?

I'm working on weightloss at the moment and between walking home from (and as often as weather/me waking up in time permits, walking to) work, which is about 40 minutes each way, so about 10 mins per km, which is not slow, but not exactly a cracking pace. Without a corresponding change in diet, I couldn't see this having an real effect other than to increase my general health (which has occurred - anecdotally at least, in that I've been feeling better, less illnesses etc). It's only the hard work (serious cardio/strength/cross-training sessions) which I feel really doing anything.

So the report isn't exactly surprising to me, but no doubt it will shock a lot of housewives.

[Havok]

I might have missed it, but does this assume no change in the amount of calories going in?

They were asked to restrict their caloric intake to between 1,200-1,500 a day.

Keep track of your calories for a few days. You (most people) would be surprised.

[weemadando]

I might have missed it, but does this assume no change in the amount of calories going in?

They were asked to restrict their caloric intake to between 1,200-1,500 a day.

Keep track of your calories for a few days. You (most people) would be surprised.

Yeah. The answer is to not eat shit and not eat much. We're a spoilt group in the West with our ideas of entitlement to 3 meals a day, snacks and all the rest.

[Pezzoni]

The biggest weight losers were active a full 68 minutes a day, five days a week (about 55 minutes a day more than they had been before the trial began), burning an extra 1,848 calories a week.

What this doesn't take into account is intensity of exercise: It's entirely possible to kill that number of calories in 5x25min sessions provided that the work is done at a sufficiently high intensity. I guess the problem comes from needing to be fit enough to reach and maintain that intensity.

[Stuart Mackey]

I might have missed it, but does this assume no change in the amount of calories going in?

They were asked to restrict their caloric intake to between 1,200-1,500 a day.

Keep track of your calories for a few days. You (most people) would be surprised.

Yeah. The answer is to not eat shit and not eat much. We're a spoilt group in the West with our ideas of entitlement to 3 meals a day, snacks and all the rest.

Of course the nature of our entire lives is different to what it was. The boomer generation here in NZ had significantly more exercise across their entire working day that what my generation does, and it was even more pronounced for the wartime generation. Exercise has become a leisure activity rather than something that happened as a result of living and working a normal day, its no wonder people find it hard to maintain a good fitness regime, its too much like work.

[Havok]

The biggest weight losers were active a full 68 minutes a day, five days a week (about 55 minutes a day more than they had been before the trial began), burning an extra 1,848 calories a week.

What this doesn't take into account is intensity of exercise: It's entirely possible to kill that number of calories in 5x25min sessions provided that the work is done at a sufficiently high intensity. I guess the problem comes from needing to be fit enough to reach and maintain that intensity.

That's the catch with most fat asses such as myself. I'd love to go running, but I can't do it long enough because I have gotten TOO out of shape, so I have to start small again, which is damned tedious and I dread doing it. So, I can't do enough at the beginning to see immediate results to help keep motivated, but I can't stand the slow pace everything happens at when I have to restart.

Someone like myself, knows EXACTLY what it takes for my body to respond and start shedding the pounds, so I'm not sure if it is more frustrating for someone like me, or someone that doesn't really know what they are doing.

[Covenant]

Yeah. The answer is to not eat shit and not eat much. We're a spoilt group in the West with our ideas of entitlement to 3 meals a day, snacks and all the rest.

To be fair, if that was your conclusion then you didn't read the article well enough. Even at that restricted calorie level, with regular exercise averaging an hour a day five days a week, they were still unable to get too much further under about 180 after two years.

If we assume that there was at least some variety of control so that the study isn't entirely tainted by subjects who were snacking and not reporting (as people commonly do when asked to keep food diaries in real life situations), then it's hard just to say "eat better and eat less."

A 1,200 calorie diet isn't much food. I know some people easily get by just nibbling all day, but it's not unreasonable to find 1,200 calories to be fairly restrictive already, it's hard to cut out much else. Here's a sample I grabbed of a 1,200 daily menu:

Breakfast
1 whole wheat English muffin
1 tablespoon peanut butter
½ banana

Mid-morning Snack
20 almonds
1 apple

Lunch
2 slices whole wheat bread
2 oz. low-sodium turkey breast
1 oz. cheese
1 tablespoon mustard
Lettuce
Tomato
1 orange

Mid-afternoon Snack
8 oz. low-fat yogurt

Dinner
3 oz. grilled skinless chicken breast (3 oz is roughly the volume of a deck of cards)
1 cup cooked broccoli (or vegetable of choice)
2/3 c. brown rice (that is, 2/3rds of a cup of cooked brown rice)

Evening Snack
1 cup 1% milk
2 low-fat fig newtons

I mean, it looks like a lot, but honestly... look at breakfast for example. Half a bananna and one english muffin with some peanut butter--no milk! Or dinner, which has a reasonable amount of meat, but 1 cup of cooked broccoli and 2/3rds of a cup of brown rice? That's around four forks of brown rice. It's not suprising a lot of people have a hard time sticking to that.

This is not to defend people who are sedentary and simply trying to lose weight by eating less, since that won't work and everyone knows it, it's just saying that it is a fairly complex problem on an individual basis. The overall solution is clear still--more exercise, better eating habits--but for a single person on their own to make these kinds of changes can be daunting. I've had some very remarkable success with getting weight off, and it was just by adjusting intake and increasing exercise, but I definately understand the situation. You can certainly eat a fine day's worth of food on a mere 1,500 or so (for a guy, that's as low as you should go), but it's really stretching it.

One thing about intensity though, it's not always appropriate. Running for a half hour requires a level of cardiovascular fitness that you're not going to have at a fat weight. The idea of doing brisk walking and some jogging for an entire hour instead of quick, intensive exercises is one grounded in sound judgements.

Plus, walking is still pretty good. Let's say you're an average sized dude who weighs too much, and you want to get down from 200 to 160. If you can keep up about a three mile per hour speed for an hour (which shouldn't be too hard) then you're going to be burning about 105 calories per mile for about 300 calories and change for an hour.

300 calories across 5 days of exercise is 1,500 extra calories burned, just about half a pound of flab just from some easy exercise. Combine that with reducing your daily intake by 200-300 calories and now you're averaging one less pound of you per week. By comparison, the same guy running at 6 miles per hour would be burning about 450 calories per thirty minute chunk, but then you're not getting close to the hour threshold for activity... and blah blah blah. In any case, if you can run for a whole goddamn hour, you're probably not suffering from a weight problem. More activity is better, but yeah, these people may not be up to it yet.

[weemadando]

Yeah. The answer is to not eat shit and not eat much. We're a spoilt group in the West with our ideas of entitlement to 3 meals a day, snacks and all the rest.

To be fair, if that was your conclusion then you didn't read the article well enough. Even at that restricted calorie level, with regular exercise averaging an hour a day five days a week, they were still unable to get too much further under about 180 after two years.

Perhaps you missed my other points in this thread.

I'm saying that all the exercise in the world won't do you any good if calories burned are =/< calories in.

So, my point was that you have to combine diet with exercise to change anything - the problem that most of us have (me included) is that you do exercise and your body demands fuel, but you have to not give it any more than you normally would so it burns fat/other stored fuels. Not so that you just keep on with the status quo.

[Hillary]

One day, everyone will work out a simple truth.

The only way to get into shape and stay in shape is to change to a healthier lifestyle PERMANENTLY.

Try all the diets you want, unless you are prepared to change your whole approach to food and exercise, you will never retain a decent level of health and fitness.

Of course, the likelihood of this happening is pretty remote. People are lazy and susceptable to quick fixes, the dieting industry makes money out of selling them and the media fills columns and programmes by promoting them.

[ExarKun]

I was never fat, but to get in shape for soccer, I went from 205 to 168 simply by running a 6-8 minute mile on a thread mil once a day.

[Mayabird]

On weight loss: Whenever I start seriously exercising, I usually gain weight. Whatever fat I end up losing gets more than replaced by the muscle I add. I'm certainly healthier afterwards, but I'm also heavier. Of course, I'm kinda thin instead of being a hambeast.

[Solauren]

Yeah, moderate exercise by itself is not a way to lose weight.

You need to control your calorie intake. Moderate exercise will simply increase your calorie burn.

Example: Counting calories, over the course of 4 months, with moderate exercise, I lost 40 pounds or so.

Unfortunately, my eating habits degenerated again, so I need to restart that battle.

[ArmorPierce]

You could do it in half an hour. Of course that half hour will have to be high intensity.

[Broomstick]

Well, I got a job that involves physical effort. Truthfully, I haven't lost much weight but I've pulled my belt in two notches, my thighs no longer strain the seams of my jeans, and I've gotten physically stronger.

I'd rather be healthy than "fashionably thin".

No, you're not going to lose weight without real changes in diet and real work. That said, moderate exercise is better than no exercise. Problem is, moderate exercise is still more strenuous than most coach potatoes realize.

[Spin Echo]

Well, I got a job that involves physical effort. Truthfully, I haven't lost much weight but I've pulled my belt in two notches, my thighs no longer strain the seams of my jeans, and I've gotten physically stronger.

I've gone from a job that pretty much involved me sitting in front of a computer terminal all day to one that involves moderate effort (standing long periods, occasionally hauling around heavy things) and I've gone down a size.

There was a study out by the university here just a couple of weeks ago recommending what they are calling the "4 x 4 interval". You exercise as hard as you can for 4 minutes and then four minutes of easier training. This is done four times. They compared the results from people exercising in this pattern to people doing moderate intensity exercise. Even though the people were doing moderate exercise for an hour, they didn't produce the significant changes in weight and fitness that the people doing interval training did.

[SirNitram]

The mere fact my weight did not drop into the negative numbers in the late 90s was proof of this.

(For those wondering, I would studiously partake of long walks and jogs, as well as Cross Country for my school. I was noticably underweight the whole time, and technically still am, except for excess fluid buildup.)

[Adrian Laguna]

I think the best advice any one person can be given is to avoid getting fat in the first place. If you see yourself starting to gain flab, then take action immediately. Reversing fat gain is much harder than preventing it.

On weight loss: Whenever I start seriously exercising, I usually gain weight. Whatever fat I end up losing gets more than replaced by the muscle I add. I'm certainly healthier afterwards, but I'm also heavier. Of course, I'm kinda thin instead of being a hambeast.

I find that weight is at best a useful guideline, not the end all be all. Lighter isn't always better, in health or in looks. Sometimes which percentage of body mass is fat can be a more useful indicator of health than the overall mass. My personal policy is that if one looks good, the one's specific weight is something only the doctor needs to bother with.

[PainRack]

We all knew it anyway, but the media is finally catching on:
Looks like that "half hour of exercise per day" thing doesn't work after all. And who seriously has the time for a full hour of exercise every single day? Single people maybe, but people raising kids and paying bills?

Does it mention how "intense" that 1 hour of exercise must be?

[Plekhanov]

That's the catch with most fat asses such as myself. I'd love to go running, but I can't do it long enough because I have gotten TOO out of shape, so I have to start small again, which is damned tedious and I dread doing it. So, I can't do enough at the beginning to see immediate results to help keep motivated, but I can't stand the slow pace everything happens at when I have to restart.

Try something like cycling then, unlike running you can go as hard or as easy as you like and gradually build up fitness and as your body weight is largely taken by the bike it's much easier on the joints for seriously overweight people.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

On weight loss: Whenever I start seriously exercising, I usually gain weight. Whatever fat I end up losing gets more than replaced by the muscle I add. I'm certainly healthier afterwards, but I'm also heavier. Of course, I'm kinda thin instead of being a hambeast.

Yeah, it can be goddamned variable, alright. I can lose weight with no physical activity whatsoever on a 2,200 calorie a day intake; some people are simply not remotely so lucky. When I do exercise a slight uptick is quite noticeable as the body demands more muscle--it also makes me eat more. Slide back down into inactivity and I'll actually lose weight, but that's because I'm such a light eater on only two meals a day.

Calories increase shockingly fast--hambeasts probably guzzle down 6,000 calories a day + --when you start getting into extremely sugary, fatty foods. The people who eat meat for every meal and get dessert really have no idea idea how many calories that packs on, I think. So you see some hambeast who rips apart a massive burger and helping of fries after a bowl of soup and then gets a slice of cheesecake ala mode at some sit-down gourmet burger place, and of course washes it down with two or three refills of a coke, and they've probably just consumed 4,000 -- 4,500 calories in that single meal.

[SCRawl]

On weight loss: Whenever I start seriously exercising, I usually gain weight. Whatever fat I end up losing gets more than replaced by the muscle I add. I'm certainly healthier afterwards, but I'm also heavier. Of course, I'm kinda thin instead of being a hambeast.

Yeah, it can be goddamned variable, alright. I can lose weight with no physical activity whatsoever on a 2,200 calorie a day intake; some people are simply not remotely so lucky. When I do exercise a slight uptick is quite noticeable as the body demands more muscle--it also makes me eat more. Slide back down into inactivity and I'll actually lose weight, but that's because I'm such a light eater on only two meals a day.

Yeah, that describes me pretty well, too. Or at least it did when I was younger. I suspect that at 36 I'm around ten years older than you are, and with my usual teenager-like diet and fairly low exercise schedule I'm starting to become, erm, slightly more buoyant. When the blast furnace-like metabolism starts to slow down, action has to be taken.

[Havok]

...a massive burger and helping of fries after a bowl of soup and then gets a slice of cheesecake ala mode at some sit-down gourmet burger place, and of course washes it down with two or three refills of a coke, and they've probably just consumed 4,000 -- 4,500 calories in that single meal.

Damn, that sounds good.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

...a massive burger and helping of fries after a bowl of soup and then gets a slice of cheesecake ala mode at some sit-down gourmet burger place, and of course washes it down with two or three refills of a coke, and they've probably just consumed 4,000 -- 4,500 calories in that single meal.

Damn, that sounds good. :D

Do you like the thought of being a hambeast or something? You edited that part out for a reason.