It’s been a whirlwind of activity in my life lately.
(Brier meeting her little brother Ro Wilder Pilon)
My wife delivered our second child (baby boy) on Saturday…so life has been busy (but busy is good).
And this leads me to the point of this post.
We’re all busy, and when life gets busy, there is nothing worse than wasted time.
And when it comes to weight loss success, exercise may actually be a WASTE of your time.
Crazy right?
And I know it’s super popular right now to pick on ‘long slow boring cardio’ but that’s not the point of this email - I’m talking about most forms of exercise!
A recent research trial examined the relationship between exercise and our populations weight gain, and came to the startling conclusion that:
“There is no evidence that a marked reduction in physical activity has been a contributor to this epidemic in the United States,”
“over the last couple of decades virtually all of our weight gain can be explained by an increase in energy intake.”
I know this sounds really counter intuitive, but consider the following:
Once you get passed a certain point, it may be that the effects of exercise have been largely exaggerated.
Example:
A friend of mine just competed a marathon.
Now, she wasn’t running for weight loss (she’s a full blown competitive runner), but if she were, she would probably find the following information down-right depressing:
She weighs 120 pounds. She ran 42.5 Kilometers (it took 3.5 hours).
Using these numbers we know that she burned roughly 2300 Calories.
Since a pound of fat contains roughly 3,500 available calories in the form of fat, and assuming she was burning 100% fat (which is virtually impossible) Then that marathon run for 3.5 hours burned less than 2/3 of a pound of body fat!
Running for 3.5 hours straight, covering 42.5 kilometers (over 26 miles) and not even a pound of fat lost.
This is not including the gels and sports drinks she probably consumed during the race!
With the right amount of in-race calories, you could actually finish an entire marathon without putting a dent in your body fat at all!
And this doesn’t just apply to marathons. If you spread those 26 miles over a week, and ran almost 4 miles EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK, you still would not have burned off even one pound of body fat.
Bottom line – for the vast majority of us, it’s not that we are exercising to little, it’s that we are simply eating more than we need to.
Now, please do me a favor and read that last line again.
I am certainly NOT saying that exercise doesn’t work, or that it doesn’t burn calories.
I am simply saying that for most of us, diet is the answer.
If you’re life is already busy, then for all intents and purposes, it is easier to eat less than it is to add in two and a half MORE hours of walking EVERYDAY. If you are already weight training 4 days a week, it may not make sense to add in 2 more days of training.
It doesn’t matter if you are doing high intensity training, intervals, hill sprints..fancy shmancy bodyweight circuits you name it, it’s a waste of your time (for weight loss) if you are eating more than you need to!
(Of course if you are already eating in a calorie deficit these things will help, just not as much as we’ve been told – or more correctly, sold).
Eat for weight loss. Exercise to build or maintain muscle mass. Stay active by doing activities you enjoy doing. If you have a sport, then train to be better at the sport but don’t expect them to create stunning transformations in the way your body looks – not without the proper diet.
There are a lot of benefits that come from exercise, (especially when that exercise builds muscle and is extremely time efficient) however the key to weight loss success will always be your diet.
If you are looking for weight loss success then as always I recommend Eat Stop Eat as an easy and effective way to lose weight, but any diet will do as long as it is easy, creates a caloric deficit and fits your lifestyle.
I hope this helps free up some of your time!
BP
Tags: eating for weight loss, exercise for weight loss, get rid of fat, weight loss success
Brad, congratulations on your baby! Enjoy the sleepness nights, a second time round!
One more point to add to your post on exercise to lose fat. That is that I have observed by overdoing exercise it makes me hungrier and more inclined to overeat.
An update on my results: For the past 90 days I have been weight-training three times a week for 30-40 minutes a session, no cardio, fasting on average 2 times a week and eating in moderation on non-fasting days. I have lost 8.1kg and 4 inches off my waist.
Omar
Well, I certainly agree that our society over eats. As clearly shown by Omar’s example, all it takes is sensible eating and regular physical activity. I am against over exercise, and over dieting. Great post.
Congratulations on your baby boy!
Good post.
Reminds me of the saying, “You can’t out-exercise a poor diet.”
Congratulations on the birth of your second child. Good post.
congatulations on your new baby and great post
Congratulations on the second one! While you know what to expect the second time around they are never predictable. They are all so different – enjoy.
Grat post, i think Omar also hit the point. 1. exercise makes us hungrier 2. we tend to think we can eat more because of the exercise. not a recipe for success.
Congratulations Brad! You are blessed. Great post.
Aside from over eating, we must admit that the change of lifestyle, specifically, the need to move years ago has been eliminated today. We have transportation for almost everywhere, there’s no need to climb any steps, and almost anything we want can be got by a press of the button. It may not be serious exercise, but it’s also an aspect of being active/inactive for today.
Congrats you two!
Always good to see someone crunch the numbers regarding caloric expenditure. Personally, I have not been taking any exercise beyond the 20 minute walk to work, leisurely at best. And yet since January I’ve lost over 8.5kg and 4 inches off my waist (snap, Omar!).
The one note I would want to add to this post is that if you restrict your caloric intake, your body naturally restricts your caloric expenditure to match, so you need to be alerted to the need to maintain expenditure levels in order to see results, and for many people this is achieved through routine exercise.
Plus, the claim that we are simply eating more than we need to naively ignored the science behind fat accumulation – to keep fat in the fat cells, we need to produce the molecule alpha glycerol phosphate, which is a product of insulin secretion, and as we know insulin secretion is triggered by high blood glucose levels, and blood glucose is increased by the consumption of carbohydrates. Therefore, you need consume carbohydrates to drive fat accumulation. And if your body is turning your available energy into fat and storing it in the fat cells, the rest of your body is deprived of the energy it needs, and it responds by demanding more food. People don’t simply over-eat – they eat carbs and then eat more food because the energy from the previous food has not been delivered to the rest of the body. However, if you don’t eat carbs and don’t trigger the insulin-driven process I’ve outlined, your body is fueled by your intake of calories much more effectively, and that energy is kept available for your body to use rather than being locked up in your fat cells. If you don’t need that energy, then eventually your body will store that energy as fat, but even the sedentary (i.e. me right now) has trouble over-eating non- or low-carb foods such as meat, eggs, leafy greens, etc, purely because these bulky, low-GL foods prompt a sensation of satiety for far longer than high-carb foods.
A calorie-restrictive diet including high-carb foods leads to fat accumulation occuring while the rest of the body may go without adequate fuel, resulting in the body cannibalising muscle and organs to fuel the other cells (aka starvation mode). A calorie-restrictive diet not including high-carb foods may also lead to said cannibalism but on a much smaller scale, because the fat in the fat cells can be metabolised to make up for the caloric intake deficit, as the fat is not held hostage in the fat cells by insulin.
The science behind all of this is sound, and is backed by 150 years of research, both observational and clinical. I wanted to link to some of it but I’m not sure if your site allows html comments. Feel free to email me if you want more info, although Googling will probably help you too. And feel free to argue if you have scientific information that challenges this.
(By the by, I’m not pretending to be an expert here, I’m condensing 6 months of my own research, and am also hoping that you WILL be able to point me to studies that conflict with these findings and understandings of human biology, because I am on a constant quest for knowledge. I have been experimenting with fasting for weight loss, and have been reading your blog for quite a while, but your work tends to focus on the behavioural and doesn’t delve into the scientific, despite your qualifications. So I’d love to read what your understandings are regarding fat regulation and accumulation, and the research upon which you base your understandings.)
Brad, Congratulations to your new born !! !
Hi Brad,
I have been following you and craig on twitter reading ur blogs. I try to keep 2 fasts a week. Only one problem. I get gas because of this. Any ideas how I can eat the day prior to fasting so that this does not happen.
Brad, i’m really looking forward to your response to Jess. I too have been sucked into the atkins/starvation logic – but much of what you say seems to contradict this.
Jasmeet, i’ve noticed this issue too. Generally any great change to the digestive process will cause gas, i’d expect it to settle down shortly. At least i hope mine does.
http://fattobeanpole.blogspot.com/
@Omar
Great results Omar! I’m with you on the over-exercise, but for me it takes a fair amount to do this.
2 hours in the gym I would be OK with, 4-5 hours of playing outside (road hockey anyone?) and I’m eating for the rest of the night
B
@Omar
PS – Thanks on the congrats
B
@Alyson L
Thanks Alyson!
B
@Matt
Hi Matt,
Yeah that’s basically the idea, I was more leaning towards the “please don’t try to out exercise a bad diet” with this one…most of us are actually doing OK in the exercise department..the point is we can’t just keep adding exercise, we’ll eventually run out of time!
B
@Andrew Lowry
Thanks Andrew!
B
@Branimir
Thanks Branimir!
B
@Chris
The whole concept of what makes us hungry is definitely a missing link in weight loss, the more I learn the more I beleive that this is not an issue of physiology (our bodies already know how to burn fat) but rather psychology (our mental roadblocks are what prevent us from weight loss success)
B
@noemi
Hi Noemi,
I agree, I think there are health benefits to moving for, and I am definitely a pro-movement kind of guy, but I do think that exercise if over-rated for weight loss in terms of results per time spent.
B
Brad,
I thought your example of your friend the marathoner was great. I’d never really considered fully the idea that you can’t “out-exercise” bad diet, but this really hammered it home. 26.2 miles and not even a pound of fat lost… I have a close friend who exercises like crazy – 6 mile runs every weekday morning – but never loses any weight/inches. I think I’ll pass this along!
Thanks for a great post highlighting the importance of good nutrition.
@Jess
Jess…..just checked out your website….whats the recipe for your muffins????? =)
@Jess
Hi Jess,
Congrats on your weight loss!
I think you may have both overly simplified and overly complicated weight loss. There are plenty of historically documented cases of extreme weight loss in situations when almost ONLY carbs were eaten.
Insulin secretion does play a huge role in fat accumulation, but keep in mind that protein has a very insulagenic effect on the body as well- at times this can be almost to the same level as carbohydrates.
You are right in saying that people don’t only overeat but usually overeat carbs.
Almost everyone who over-eats does so with mixed meals (It is very rare to find someone who is overeating, but also completely avoiding carbohydrate intake), so overeating will almost always include some form of carbohydrate intake, and will certainly include increased insulin secretion.
In the end, I don’t delve into the scientific becuase the answer to weight loss does not sit in physiology. Our bodies have known how to burn fat and lose weight since the day we were born. It is our own mental blocks that prevent weight loss.
Finding the easiest, simplest and most comfortable way to create a caloric deficit will always be the best way to lose weight.
Overly complicated scientific answers to weight loss are usually nothing more that great marketing.
BP
@Jess
Hi Jess,
You’d probably really like the Biology of Human Starvation by Ancel Keys. Not the reviews or book reports, but the actual full original papers.
I consider this to be one of the seminal works in nutritional science.
BP
@Aaron Mentzer
Hi Aaron,
Glad you liked it.
B
Brad,
First, congratulations my friend on the new addition to your family. You must be so excited!
Second, 2 days ago I posted about the new book The End Of Overeating which demonstrates we have some attuned thinking this week! http://tinyurl.com/pguw98
Unless we all want to train like Dara Torres or Michael Phelps, quantity is going to be the deal maker or breaker, bottom line.
Lani
Hi Brad
I have just discovered your blog and book via Zen Habits. I am really interested in finding out more and trying the intermittent fasting. Looking forward to learning a whole lot more from you. Thank you.
Thank you so much for articulating so clearing what I have been trying to explain to people who are intrigued with my personal weight loss of around 135 pounds. I have been trying to explain that I just ate less and while I believe exercise is really good for us that is not what “caused” my weight loss. Eating less did that. Any exercise I do is more an by-product because I enjoy moving and pushing and stretching my body now and am curious to see what it can do without the “extra person” hanging on
Congrats on your new baby Brad! I am new to your program and currently reading through all the advanced info books and finding it all so liberating! A safe easy way to boost growth hormone at last! Even if I wasn’t trying to loss fat ( I am…about 25 pounds please) I would be intrigued to try the ESE just to boost all the favorable anti-aging effects. As it is my first four fasts have gone beautifully! I feel very clear and energized during them and my spiritual practice (Sudarshan Kriya and meditation) has been deepened too. Thank you for doing all the research analysis and hard work-Can’t wait to add more kettlebell exercise to help keep/build muscle too. Best to everyone, Maureen