NPR gets half the story right

(Joey) #1

… but stops short of delving into what is a good diet to reverse obesity.

"You can’t outrun a bad diet…"
https://text.npr.org/nx-s1-5477662

#2

Many people still don’t move enough… And it’s not 100% diet, it’s very obvious for many who experience it. My SO rapidly starts to gain when he stops being active (he eats the same as his hunger and appetite stays the same) and as far as I know, some people do lose fat by moving more, it’s probably quite rare but seems legit (especially that exercise may reduce energy intake due to various reasons, I had that in my life).
I suppose it’s possible some people keep their energy need in a smaller range (however strange it sounds) but it’s hardly a general truth (as we see proof it’s not). Many (people and especially calculators) overestimate the energy need of exercise but it’s usually significant if one is active for quite a few hours a day. My body needs my base energy need to function, if it would be reduced, I wouldn’t function as well, would I? For the little exercise most people have, it may be fine but for really serious activity, no way. My energy need is around 2000 kcal I suppose (it’s not like I can test it. I can’t even track my food intake as I don’t know its macros. okay I can guess it somewhat). If I did some exercise that takes 2000 kcal every day (far from impossible. for someone else. I am lazy for it), it would be super hard to optimize that so much that the rest could be substracted from my current, near minimal needs for good functioning.
I would like to see some numbers. Take someone with 1200 kcal energy need (my condolences but it exists as far as I know) and make them run a marathon a day if they are able (there are people who do it before breakfast, very nearly each and every day of the year. okay, I only heard about one in my country). I am curious. I don’t even know how much energy a marathon requires (individual, obviously), how much if it happens every day (less than when it’s occasional)… Or what about people with extreme hard physical work. Or a hobby but like mountain riding, allegedly that’s truly 1000 kcal per hour. Extreme for me but not for everyone.
This is an interesting topic.

I would say yes, I would be curious what they think about good diet but most ideas just disappoint me. It’s not the same for everyone anyway. I need to focus on lean protein myself (not super lean, just lean), the necessary fat comes anyway, no matter what I do. I just need to avoid the unnecessary amount.

Exercise mitigates some of the problems of not perfect eating too, only to some extent, of course but if one already eats pretty well, it may mean a difference. One can afford eating more food, more carbs around exercise, I think about that.

(Cathy) #3

As has been said, ‘exercise does not cause weight loss but weight loss can cause exercise’.

It’s all explained in an easy to read book by Gary Taubes called ‘Why We Get Fat’. Published many years ago. Good to see some of it is starting to sink in.

(Selena Thomas) #4

Taubes makes some good points, but I think it really depends on the person. Some lose weight by moving more, while others need to change their diet to see any difference. It’s not the same for everyone, and both food and exercise matter in different ways.

(Central Florida Bob ) #5

That’s about as fair and accurate way of putting it that there is. One the whole, “eat less, move more” is probably the most useless advice there is but eat differently, move differently might be the best way to put it. Finding out what that means for you personally is often hard to do and not particularly simple What’s best for both of those is hard to find out and seems to change over the years. We are adaptive, learning systems.

Gary has short excerpt from “Why We Get Fat” called “The Elusive Benefits of Undereating and Exercise”

I keep telling myself to drop the whole buck for it, and then end up saying, “I’ll just re-read the whole book and save the dollar.” Then never do.

(Bob M) #6

I started rereading part of Good Calories, Bad Calories, and he makes a persuasive argument that it’s hormonal (primarily insulin).

I think some exercise might work, like if you walk after eating, which has been shown to reduce blood sugar and insulin from food. I also think that exercise, in particular lifting, makes the muscles an energy/carb sink, so they can “suck up” more blood sugar.

Overall, I don’t think exercise does much from a weight perspective.

But I’ve reached the conclusion that I have no idea how people gain or lose weight. One day I’ll start a thread about this.

(Joey) #7

Yes, and yes. :+1:

(Bob M) #8

The problem is that one almost never exercises without changing their eating, which is what Gary Taubes says.

For instance, I was on a treadmill and the guy next to me (who was walking) said that he lost a lot of weight by walking on a treadmill. At some point he said, “Oh yeah, I also stopped eating sugar and processed food” or something similar to that. Was it the walking or his change in eating (or both)? My guess: eating.

And you don’t burn many calories exercising. You can read this book, where he did a lot of experiments using doubly-labeled water, which provides an estimate of your exercise. They compared people who worked at desk jobs with hunter-gatherers, and both ate and burnt the same amount of calories. Yes, the same.

https://a.co/d/7M0PiRm

And they have a nice figure where they took women who didn’t exercise and trained them to run a half marathon. They initially burnt more calories, but then it stopped, even though they were exercising more. They did a similar experiment with mice, and the mice went crazy after a while on a wheel, but with no additional calories burnt.

image

So, if you exercise, you get minimal more calories burnt, no matter how much you exercise. They also did a study on RAM (race across America) and they started burning 7,000 calories a day, but by the time they made it across America, they were much lower (more like 5,000 calories a day). These people were running a marathon or more per day.

On the other hand, on the days I exercise, I’m hungrier than on the days I don’t. I can’t quite square these concepts, other than maybe a day is different from weeks or months of exercising.

(Cathy) #9

I have lost 75-80 lbs. and never included exercise in my weight loss plan. Most people who have a lot of lbs. to lose cannot exercise … physically impossible.

The notion that a person must exercise to lose weight is just wrong. The notion that exercise alone will cause weight loss is just wrong.

Losing weight is hormonal. Just look at the success of GLP-1 drugs. Those are impacting hormones.

I think exercise is important for other reasons but not for weight loss in general or only in a small way. As the original article says, you can’t outrun a bad diet.