Why exercise won't make you thin

[Guest guest]

To Vitalist, for reasons I know not, somehow I got myself onto this other list.

A thread has been generated, which I felt some of our members may want to take a

peek at. My response to the latest posting ( an article from a British paper)

is also included.

scott

Many thanks to Ralph, for forwarding this article to us, from Emma , at the

Observer.

Though she makes courageous attempts at being scientific and logical, ultimatley

she fails. She relies on buzzwords, and current pseudomedical thinking, which

upon critical thinking, finds itself in failure. The article is long, as is my

response. I will only address the points I personally feel require much more

depth in critic thinking.

I have proof read as I went. I think I have done well. If I missed some,

please take in stride.

The first giant error in the whole mess below has to do with what is 'exercise'.

This self-same error has been going on in the literature for 20-25 years.

Writers of every ilk consistently play fast & loose with this term, whereupon,

with understanding, we find very powerful differences.

Likely everyone on this list, can see where I am going with this. Anaerobic

and aerobic are fundamentally physiologically different. The difference betwixt

white meat, and dark, as it were.

While longer eloboration is easily possible, I will try to keep this short &

sweet.

Aerobic exercise uses primarily lower extremity, slow twitch muscles (the above

mentiend dark meat, high hemoglobin ). Long duration, non-stop activity, burning

fats, in the presence of oxygen, for fuel. Hunger is depressed for a mninimum

of 3-4 hours post exercise as a result of fats (well, triglycerides) in the

bloodstream, and the natural subsequent hypothalamic-pituitary response. Energy

is raised, one feels good afterwards, & you will proudly wear the rosy flush of

a job well done. Blood sugars levels are not 'significantly' impacted. For fat

loss, exercise on empty 'tummy'.

Now the big point. Provided all systems are normo functional, and that is an

enormous 'if', as most everyone is messed up on multiple levels, aerobics will

generate fat loss. Not necc'ly weight loss, but fat loss.

On a society-wide level, most, not all, are clueless as to what intensity

level, defines aerobics.

By way of example, & on a personal note, when I am at the gym, I usually see

people (read, females - sorry, but that's what I see) on the treadmill, the

stairmaster, or the ellipitical, with practically no resistance. Yes, I

intentionally look, to see what they are doing. This is nearly worthless, and

clearly the 'gym' trainers....well, do your own math. Others will go at it

like demons, thinking they are burning even so much more fat. Again, they have

no idea of how wrong they are. The combined weight of the igorance 'out there'

can sink a ship.

(( Just like I look at people in the weight room, and see such incredibly

poor form, I'm just waiting for someone to tear a muscle right in front of me-

but I digress.))

Resistance being too low, or too high, and one is not in the Zone they are all

seeking. While the same rule goes for men, generally, due to machoness or

understanding, they have resistances set higher, or are using the 'treadmill' at

higher speeds (that shows misunderatsning also, see above).

Remember, I said that there are exceptions to the above generalizations, so I

would like no one getting all indignant on me. I must generalize to make the

points.

Anaerobics, otoh, are pretty much the opposite of all written above. One is

using sugar for short term energy production. Exercise is best with some food

in the system, and the resultant sugar depletion will generate hunger when you

are done. This is stop-and -go activity. Primarily fast twitch , white meat

(sweeter, sugar rich) upper body muscles. This is for toning and muscle

building. However, with the proper understanding of circuit training, a nice

aerobic componenet can be built into this regimen.

When exercise is mentioned in the news, and I've been around for a while, I

have NOT, in the last two decades or more, seen any reporter, in an media venue,

anywhere or anytime, make any kind of differentiation between the two. They

speak of exercsie in vague generalities. It's reprehensible, and only serves to

flaunt their own ignorance - not to mention making all their so called points,

scientifically invalid.

Ms. , from the Observer, just painted herself into the same tired out and

very well populated corner. She certainly won't want for company ! I hope

someone on this list knows her, and can get this repsonse to her. Her public

repsonse in the Observer, would be a real treat.

She is correct when she mentions the lack of weight loss with exercise.

This is perhaps the main focus of her article, and here she is actually right

on. But the Devil is in the Details, and they have been glossed over. They

scream out in their absence, for those who can read between the lines.

Yes, she mentions diet. But to be true, it's more impt to address the

ignorance or lunacy, caveat emptor - of the other 'professionals' she uses like

so much commercial filler for her article - since she clearly knows so little

herself, thus having no sound basis for an artcle on her own merits. Shame on

the Observer. Shame on the science editor, shame on the general Editor. Now

that Ive generated bad will & a potential case for slander, I will back myself

up.

The next professional, one Dr Tim Church, brings up the issue of 'weight

gain'. If any of you out there are body builders, you will be able to see

where I am going here. Per the ' actuarial tables' of life and health

insurance, companies, body builders, even when NOT on the 'roids, are/were

stuck in very high risk categories, as their weight is/was so high, depsite

having very low body fat, and! even if they are intelligent dieters / supplement

users, having excellent blood chemistries. The actuaries are not allowed to see

the whole forest, that's not what they get paid for by their insurance comnpany

employers. They are trained to not see the trees.

In all fairness, I may be out of date on this, and the parameters of these

companies may have changed over the years, but that is certainly, w/o any

doubt, how things used to be. height and weight, height and weight.

Not to go too far astray, Dr. Church makes no mention at all of what kind of

weight was 'gained' by the girls who exercised. This is a point of massive

importance, yet it is completely bypassed. Is Dr. Church ignorant (

specifically, lacking in knowledge ) , or just .. oh, whatever. Then, out

nowhere, he mentions this whole protective clothing thing. I have read and

reread that section, and I have no idea what he is talking about, or the

relevance.

Oh wait, now re-reading yet again!, to make sure I had all my facts

straight, as I am being rather 'in your face' in this response & the burden of

accuracy is on me, I now see that it was a 'cutesy' side comment by Ms. ,

in that the women may have attacked him, after the bad news. Ok, got it.

Perhaps, if he understood what he was doing, established rigorous scientific

parameters for the experiment

at U of Louisiana, he would have been able to explain to the woman what the

results actually meant, and not be in fear of the well being of his person, or

his clothing!

The next professional to be used, is one Dr. Terry Wilkin.

Let me establish a positive tone right up front. He is correct and courageous

when he brings to our (the British public) attention, that the 'gummint'

continues to allow, {nay, even encourage (sic)} the continued feeding of

crapohydrates, while only focusing on exercise. Traditionally and

historically, exercise and diet have always gone hand in hand. It's the natural

order of things when natural (traditional) foods are available, & the corporate

run media is not.

I am absolutely not going to go into that whole arena, as that is material

for an entire book, many of which have already been written. The laws of

nature will always win out, when the laws of nature are allowed to express

themselves. Good luck with that, in any 1st world nation.

So 'good on you, mate' , to Dr. Wilkin, for that.

Next, in the paragraph where he generates results based on the children

receiving 1.7 hours v. 9 hours of activity, then making statements of their

relative home activity levels- well, this is so frought with holes of logic, one

can see the London Eye through them.

Dr. Wilkin enjoys the use of the term 'high calorie'. My interpretation

of his thoughts, is that he is actually going after excessive 'empty calorie'

foods, what I generically term crapohydrates. (nod to Dr. Dobbins). High

calorie foods are fats. There is actually no food category which is healthier

for the human animal, then natutally occurring fats. Now, if he is talking

about artificial fats, man-made trans isomers, then this is another story, and

he needs to be accurate and state this very clearly. As he states it in the

presentation offered up to us by Ms. , he is completely inaccurate.

Additionally, he makes no attempt, or rather, Ms. doesn't tell us,

(in case he actually did in his original research, I don't know, do you?) to

make any any differentiation in the nature of the many hours of exercise these

children engaged in. As written above already, this difference is huge. Then of

course, the whole socioeconomic demographics of the children would need to be

carefully looked at, to see what kind of breakfast they are eating, if at all in

many cases, before school, and what perhaps their lifestyle 'obligations' were

at home, and other social factors and pressures. There are variables upon

variables, and all carry weight which exert pressures upon the conclusions.

Great care must be taken if the Scientific Method is going to be utilized. And

if is not, then this must be clearly stated, and why.

In the last paragraph in which Dr. Wilkin is quoted, he once again rails on

high density foods. To repeat myself, nothing a human could eat is more

satiating & satisfying, than naturally occurring high density foods.

Physiologically, they fill faster, and suppress hunger ( hey, just like 'true'

aerobic exercise! ) longer. Methinks that Dr. Wilkins needs to read some real

books. He is so close, just a little push in the right direction, and I believe

he has the real potential to get where he thinks he alerady is.

In the last paragraph, Ms. tells us the story of an experiment

generated by one Barry Braun, a professor of kinesiology. The subject: women,

exercise and fat loss.

This experiment was doomed from the word go.

Without a vast database of functional , and I very strongly emphasize the

adjective Functional, endocrine and liver labs, ( and we're not even mentioning

psychological issues, which can carry the same weight) it would be completely

impossible to make any even remotely accurate conclusion regarding why one woman

would would hold onto fat under certain conditions, while another will let it

go. As said before, this one topic alone is enough for its own book, or a long

houred weekend seminar.

Dr. Einhorn

Applied Kinesiologist

Miami, FL

Staamford, CT

_____

From: Supertraining [mailto:Supertraining ] On

Behalf Of Ralph Giarnella

Sent: Sunday, October 10, 2010 10:27 AM

Supertraining

Subject: Re: Why exercise won't make you thin

Any comments on the following article:

*************************

Why exercise won't make you thin

Emma The Observer Sept 19 2010

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/sep/19/exercise-dieting-public-healt\

h

Got a few pounds to lose? Cancel the gym membership. An increasing body of

research reveals that exercise does next to nothing for you when it comes to

losing weight. A result for couch potatoes, yes, but also one that could have

serious implications for the government's long-term health strategy

My mum used to complain that she couldn't lose weight. A size 18 and a couple of

stone heavier than ideal, she tried in vain for years to shed the extra. Every

week she headed to the gym, where she pounded the treadmill like a paratrooper,

often three times a week. Most days she took the dog for a brisk, hour-long

walk. She didn't eat unhealthily – the rest of the family ate exactly the same

meals, and did a fraction of the exercise she did. She ought to have been the

slimmest of the bunch: that she remained overweight was a frustration to her,

and a mystery to all of us.

From StairMasters to kettlebells, Rosemary Conley to Cassidy, we

understand and expect that getting in shape is going to require serious effort

on our part – and the reverse is true, too, that we expect exercise to pay

back

the hours of boring, sweaty graft with a leaner, lighter body. Since the days of

the Green Goddess, we've known that the healthiest way to lose weight is through

exercise. It's science, isn't it?

Well, science has some bad news for you. More and more research in both the UK

and the US is emerging to show that exercise has a negligible impact on weight

loss. That tri-weekly commitment to aerobics class? Almost worthless, as far as

fitting into your bikini is concerned. The Mayo Clinic, a not-for-profit medical

research establishment in the US, reports that, in general, studies " have

demonstrated no or modest weight loss with exercise alone " and that " an exercise

regimen… is unlikely to result in short-term weight loss beyond what is

achieved

with dietary change. "

It sounds faintly heretical, if not downright facetious. And it's a scientific

discovery that most health professionals are, naturally, keen to downplay. After

all, exercise is still good for us. It's just that, in defiance of decades of

New Year resolutions, it's unlikely to make us slim.

Most of us have a grasp of the rudiments of weight gain and loss: you put energy

(calories) into your body through food, you expend them through movement, and

any that don't get burned off are stored in your body as fat. Unfortunately, the

maths isn't in our favour. " In theory, of course, it's possible that you can

burn more calories than you eat, " says Dr Jebb, head of nutrition and

health research at the Medical Research Council, and one of the government's

go-to academics for advice on nutrition. " But you have to do an awful lot more

exercise than most people realise. To burn off an extra 500 calories is

typically an extra two hours of cycling. And that's about two doughnuts. "

From a practical perspective, then, exercise is never going to be an effective

way of slimming, unless you have the training schedule – and the willpower –

of

an Olympic athlete. " It's simple maths, " says Professor Gately, of the

Carnegie Weight Management institution in Leeds. " If you want to lose a pound of

body fat, then that requires you to run from Leeds to Nottingham, but if you

want to do it through diet, you just have to skip a meal for seven days. " Both

Jebb and Gately are keen to stress that there is plenty of evidence that

exercise can add value to a diet: " It certainly does maximise the amount you

lose as fat rather than tissue, " Jebb points out. But Gately sums it up: " Most

people, offered the choice, are going to go for the diet, because it's easier to

achieve. "

There's another, more insidious, problem with pinning all your hopes for a

holiday bod on exercise. In what has become a defining experiment at the

University of Louisiana, led by Dr Church, hundreds of overweight women

were put on exercise regimes for a six-month period. Some worked out for 72

minutes each week, some for 136 minutes, and some for 194. A fourth group kept

to their normal daily routine with no additional exercise.

Against all the laws of natural justice, at the end of the study, there was no

significant difference in weight loss between those who had exercised – some

of

them for several days a week – and those who hadn't. (Church doesn't record

whether he told the women who he'd had training for three and half hours a week,

or whether he was wearing protective clothing when he did.) Some of the women

even gained weight.

Church identified the problem and called it " compensation " : those who exercised

cancelled out the calories they had burned by eating more, generally as a form

of self-reward. The post-workout pastry to celebrate a job well done – or even

a

few pieces of fruit to satisfy their stimulated appetites – undid their good

work. In some cases, they were less physically active in their daily life as

well.

His findings are backed up by a paper on childhood obesity published in 2008 by

Boston academics Gortmaker and Kendrin Sonneville. In an 18-month study

investigating what they call " the energy gap " – the daily imbalance between

energy intake and expenditure — the pair showed that when the children in

their

experiment exercised, they ended up eating more than the calories they had just

burned, sometimes 10 or 20 times as many. " Although physical activity is thought

of as an energy-deficit activity, " they wrote, " our estimates do not support

this hypothesis. "

In the 1950s, the celebrated French-American nutritionist Mayer was the

first to introduce a link between exercise and weight reduction. Until then, the

notion that physical activity might help you lose weight was actually rather

unfashionable in the scientific community – in the 1930s, a leading specialist

had persuasively argued that it was more effective to keep patients on bed rest.

Over the course of his career, Mayer's pioneering studies – on rats, babies

and

schoolgirls – demonstrated that the less active someone was, the more likely

they were to be fat. Mayer himself, the son of two eminent physiologists, and a

Second World War hero to boot, became one of the world's leading figures in

nutrition and most influential voices in the sphere of public health. As an

advisor to the White House and to the World Health Organisation, he drew

correlations between exercise and fitness that triggered a revolution in

thinking on the subject in the 60s and 70s. " Getting fit " became synonymous not

just with healthier living, but with a leaner, meaner body, and the ground was

laid for a burgeoning gym industry.

Each successive postwar generation was enjoying an increasingly sedentary

lifestyle, and those lifestyles have been accompanied by an apparently

inexorable increase in obesity. Three in five UK adults are now officially

overweight. And type II diabetes, which used to be a disease that affected you

at the end of your life, is now the fastest-rising chronic disorder in

paediatric clinics.

But have we confused cause and effect? Terry Wilkin, professor of endocrinology

and metabolism at the Peninsula Medical School in Plymouth, argues that we have.

The title of his latest research is: " Fatness leads to inactivity, but

inactivity does not lead to fatness " . Wilkin is nearing the end of an 11-year

study on obesity in children, which has been monitoring the health, weight and

activity levels of 300 subjects since the age of five. When his team compared

the more naturally active children with the less active ones, they were

surprised to discover absolutely no difference in their body fat or body mass.

That's not to say that exercise is not making the children healthy in other

ways, says Wilkin, just that it's having no palpable effect on their overall

size and shape. " And that's a fundamental issue, " he adds, " because governments,

including ours, use body mass as an outcome measure. " In other words, obesity

figures are not going to improve through government-sponsored programmes that

focus primarily on exercise while ignoring the behemoth of a food industry that

is free to push high-calorie junk to kids (and, for that matter, adults).

For one thing, Wilkin believes he has discovered another form of " compensation " ,

similar to Church's discovery that we reward ourselves with food when we

exercise. Looking at the question of whether it was possible to change a child's

physical activity, Wilkin's team put accelerometers on children at schools with

very different PE schedules: one which offered 1.7 hours a week, and another

that offered nine hours.

" The children did 64% more PE at the second school. But when they got home they

did the reverse. Those who had had the activity during the day flopped and those

who hadn't perked up, and if you added the in-school and out-of-school together

you got the same. From which we concluded that physical activity is controlled

by the brain, not by the environment – if you're given a big opportunity to

exercise at one time of day you'll compensate at another. "

Wilkin argues that the environmental factors we tend to obsess about in the

fight against obesity – playing fields, PE time in school, extracurricular

activities, parental encouragement – are actually less of a factor in

determining what exercise we do than our own bodies. " An evolutionary biologist

would say physical activity is the only voluntary means you have of varying or

regulating your energy expenditure. In other words, what physical activity you

do is not going to be left to the city council to decide. It's going to be

controlled, fundamentally, from within. "

His thesis has caused controversy among his peers – there have been cavils

that

his study sample is inconclusively small – and not all obesity experts

appreciate the message. " We haven't had the sensitivity in the studies to really

determine the longitudinal determinants of obesity in children yet, " says Dr Ken

Fox, professor of exercise and health science at Bristol University and advisor

to the government's obesity strategy. " It's far too early to start discounting

things as important as physical activity. Those who are saying it has no impact

are neglecting a huge amount of the literature. I am suspicious of anyone who

polarises obesity as one thing over another when there is strong agreement that

it has multiple causes. "

" Terry's point is right, " says Gately, " but it's not right in the context

of public health promotion. In people who have lost weight and kept weight off,

physical activity is almost always involved. And those people who just do diet

are more likely to fail, as are those who just do exercise. You need a

combination of the two, because we're talking about human beings, not machines.

We know that dietary behaviour is quite a negative behaviour – we're having to

deny ourselves something. There aren't any diets out there that people enjoy.

But people do enjoy being physically active. "

" What we want to avoid is people thinking they can control their weight simply

by dieting, " adds Jebb, who points out that this is the very scenario that

encourages anorexia in teenage girls. " Just restricting your diet is not going

to be the healthiest way to live. " Traditional dieting clubs like Weightwatchers

and Slimming World promote exercise as a key part of a weight-loss strategy:

scientific studies show that exercise is an important factor in maintaining

weight loss and, Jebb adds, some studies suggest it can help in preventing

weight gain.

But it is still much harder to exercise when you're already overweight, and

" high energy density " foods are quick to get us there – overeating by just 100

calories a day can lead to a weight increase of 10lb over a year. " Education

must come first, " says Wilkin. " Eating habits have to change to a much lower

calorie intake, much lower body weight, and we would be fitter as a result

because we would be able to do more physical activity. " He would like to see

higher levels of tax on calorie-dense food, similar to those levied on tobacco,

which have proved effective in the campaign against smoking.

Does the coalition government – which will launch a White Paper on the subject

this autumn – agree? Anne Milton, minister for public health, is not keen to

commit to any particular strategy before its publication. " There's not a magic

bullet here, " she says. " Despite the best efforts of government actually the

public's health hasn't improved hugely.Change4Life [the government's current

healthy-living initiative] is doing a good job. But we think there's still lots

more we can do with it. "

Any drastic measures to curb the excesses of junk food marketing seem unlikely

–

both Milton and Secretary of State for Health Lansley stress the

importance of working " with " industry – and much of her language is concerned

with " individual choice " . When it comes to losing weight, it seems there's only

one real choice – stop eating so much food.

Running on empty: fat is a feminine issue

The good news The latest scientific findings from the US suggest that an intense

workout in the gym is actually less effective than gentle exercise in terms of

weight loss. Barry Braun, associate professor of kinesiology at the University

of Massachusetts, says that the evidence emerging from his research team shows

that moderate exercise such as " low-intensity ambulation " (ie walking) may help

to burn calories " without triggering a caloric compensation effect " – ie

without

making you reach for a snack the moment you're done. In one experiment, Braun

showed that simply standing up instead of sitting used up hundreds more calories

a day without increasing appetite hormones in your blood.

The bad news Perhaps offering one reason for a multi-billion-pound weight-loss

industry aimed almost exclusively at women, research has confirmed that it is

more difficult for women to shed the pounds than men, because women's bodies are

simply more efficient at storing fat. In one of Braun's experiments, in which

overweight men and women were monitored while walking on treadmills, the women's

blood levels of insulin decreased while appetite hormones increased; the men's,

meanwhile, displayed no such change. " Across the evidence base, it seems that

it's tougher for women to lose weight than men, " affirms Ken Fox, professor of

exercise and health sciences at Bristol University.

**********

Ralph Giarnella MD

Southington Ct. USA