Well, crap. Turns out the thousands of hours I’ve spent in the gym may have been useless — at least for dropping a few pounds. According to the New York Times, a study published online in September in The British Journal of Sports Medicine found that exercising doesn’t necessarily result in losing weight. In the study, 58 obese people completed 12 weeks of supervised aerobic training without changing their diets. The group lost an average of a little more than seven pounds, and many lost barely half that. And it’s not just this one study — Time published similar findings in August.
“Walking, even at a very easy pace, you’ll probably burn three or four calories a minute,” beyond what you would use quietly sitting in a chair, said Dan Carey, Ph.D., an assistant professor of exercise physiology at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, who studies exercise and metabolism. But few people, an overwhelming body of research shows, achieve significant weight loss with exercise alone, not without changing their eating habits too. Okay, that’s not a huge shock. We all know that eating a box of donuts won’t get canceled out by a little treadmill time. But if you keep your diet exactly the same and add physical activity, it might not help? That’s a serious bummer.
Additionally, the idea that exercising might boost your metabolism and make you burn more calories throughout the day is a myth. “Many people believe that you rev up” your metabolism after an exercise session “so that you burn additional body fat throughout the day,” said Edward Melanson, Ph.D., an associate professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. But none of the members of his study experienced “afterburn.”
Of course, exercise is still good for reducing blood pressure and resting heart rate, and for endorphins…but let’s be honest. We want to SEE the results on our bodies. So I guess I’d better not see any more cookies in my kitchen…
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Comments
Kelly Turner
November 9th, 2009 - 2:40:58 PM
erg- these "findings" drive me nuts. Of course if you work out, but still eat in a manner that got you obese in the first place, you arent going to lose weight. Losing weight is about calories in and calories out- if you consume more calories than you burn, you are going to gain weight. They always gloss over the fact that exercise isn't meant to make you thin, its to increase your muscle mass, increase your cardiovascular performance, bone density, strengthen your heart and lungs, lower your risk of cancer, heart disease, stroke, build muscle, sustain mobility, prevent injury, reduce stress etc etc etc. But, no. No one cares about health, they just care about skinny. Drives me nuts. Healthy choices all around are the key to weight loss- there is not short cut. Good nutrition and exercises go hand in hand. They aren't opposites that counter act the other.
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missy
November 10th, 2009 - 2:28:11 PM
Kelly Turner knows what she's talking about. You can run all you like, but if you're eating donuts, big macs, and soda with every meal, you're not going to lose any weight. Or very little.
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kim
November 11th, 2009 - 5:53:27 AM
right on kelly!! you have to have a two prong attack to weight loss - diet and exercise!
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Matt
November 11th, 2009 - 9:46:59 AM
I have been teaching people for years about what I call the exercise and weight loss myth (also about the diet and weight loss myth) and that there is not an exercise on the planet that tells the body to be leaner.
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