Exercise for Weight Loss: Tips and Truths
The NY Times has a great feature about the reality of exercise for weight loss. The information comes from Ralph La Forge (Duke University Medical Center) who "compiled a detailed analysis of the various factors that influence the effect of exercise on weight loss".
Here is a summary of the main points concerning exercise and weight loss:
- Calories burned charts do not take into account the calories you would have burned just by sitting. In other words, if you walked for half an hour and burned 200 calories, but by sitting you would have burned 50 - then the net result is actually only an extra 150 calories burned.
- If you walk or run on a treadmill, the aid of the machine diminishes the number of calories your body uses by about 10 to 15 percent of what the machine says you are burning.
- When you diet without exercising, you lose both muscle and fat, which is counterproductive because muscle loss significantly lowers your basic metabolic rate, the number of calories your body uses at rest.
- The more muscle groups involved in your activities, the more calories you are likely to burn. That is why working out against gravity uses more calories than non-weight-bearing activities.
- If you engage in resistance exercises — working out with weights or on machines that strengthen various muscle groups — you may gain several pounds of muscle that partly offset the loss of body fat.
- With greater muscle mass, your basic metabolic rate will rise and you will burn more calories all day and night.
- Those less skilled make unnecessary movements or have to work harder at the activity, using more calories an hour than those who perform it efficiently.
- Both aerobic and resistance exercises raise energy expenditure over the next 12 to 24 hours, but the range is great — from 10 to 150 calories, depending on the type of activity and how long and vigorously it was done.
- People who are overweight or obese burn more calories proportionately doing the same activity, for the same duration and at the same intensity, than those of normal weight.
- Some people compensate for the calories burned by eating more or doing less.
- People are born with metabolic differences. Some have a higher resting metabolic rate or produce more fat-burning enzymes than others. People with a low percentage of slow-twitch muscle fibers seem less able to burn fat in skeletal muscles and thus may have a harder time losing weight through exercise.
- Women tend to burn more fat under the skin but have a harder time getting rid of abdominal fat than men do.
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'3' is a bit controversial - certain types of exercises – cardio comes to mind - could accelerate muscle loss. '2' is important – for whatever reason - many people seem to believe otherwise. '4' is a hint to use compounds, multi-joint movements.
Overall, this is a great summary. I hope people will use it.
ReplyiFitandHealthy: Whether or not '3' is strictly true, it is still true that your metabolism goes down. Whether this is due to muscle loss or adaptation is a different story. However, I wouldn't doubt that dieting alone will cause muscle loss. When people lose muscle from cardio, it tends to be poor eating habits at fault. If you're eating protein every 3 hours and not creating too great a calorie deficit, it's very unlikely that you will lose muscle, as long as you're weight training.
ReplyThank you so much I love posts like this.
ReplyAs for item number 1, our calories burned charts only report the calories burned in excess of resting metabolism:
CalorieLab Calories Burned
You can see the full calories burned by going to the details page for each activity (by clicking on the question-mark-in-a-box icon), but that number is not really useful for dieters.
Standard references report exercise energy expenditure in METs (metabolic equivalents). A MET represents the amount of energy expended when you are awake, but inactive. We subtract 1 MET from each activity's MET value before computing the calories. Activities like watching TV are thus reported as burning zero calories.
Sleeping uses 0.9 METs -- but you shouldn't try to avoid sleep just to lose more weight!
Reply“…it is still true that your metabolism goes down”
It could happen, but it does not always happen. It depends on a number of factors. If you cut “bad” foods and add the good stuff to your diet, it is likely that you will lose weight. In this scenario, your metabolism could actually increase.
“I wouldn't doubt that dieting alone will cause muscle loss.”
I would – because I have seen the evidence to the contrary – at least with some individuals I had been working with. See above.
“If you're eating protein every 3 hours and not creating too great a calorie deficit, it's very unlikely that you will lose muscle, as long as you're weight training”
Eating protein very 3 hours is not a magic bullet. Duration and the type of cardio is the key. When it comes to gaining muscle mass, cardio is inferior to weight training. It is also infamous for its muscle wasting tendencies. That is why individuals who are trying to gain muscle limit its use to short sessions.
In addition, if someone needs to lose a lot of weight, doing cardio is not recommended. It puts too much stress on the joints. Walking, bicycling, or swimming is fine, but not running. Either way, you do not want prolonged cardio sessions.
ReplyiFitandHealthy: Indeed metabolism does not go down in all cases, but it's certainly a risk. As far as muscle loss from dieting alone, it depends on the degree of calorie deficit and meal frequency. I made some assumptions about cardio. I'm assuming moderate intensity for 30-45 minutes. Cardio should do nearly nothing for increasing muscle mass. I don't think I implied that anywhere. Some also limit cardio while gaining muscle to avoid having to eat more. Some struggle eating enough to gain muscle without cardio. I don't do any cardio that places more than slight stress on the joints.
Reply"Some struggle eating enough to gain muscle…"
I am paraphrasing, but the "Oak" said it best – 'The greatest battle is not at a gym, but with a fork in your kitchen'. Easy for him to say, given his genetics, but I cannot agree more…
ReplyWell all I have to say is excellent post. I believe #3 strongly as too much cardio might break down muscle fibers, but resistance training with cardio is vital.
ReplyRalph,
ReplyYou have not specified which calories are being burned, when we are burning them.
Why not?
During aerobic exercise we may burn 600 calories but only 20% of these are fat calories = 120 = 13.3 grams per hour.
It gets worse.
Half of these are sourced from the muscle fat store, so we lose some 6.6 grams of body fat.
Recovery work burns some 70% fat calories and every last one of these is from body fat sources (muscle fats are reserved for exercise).
So Ralph recovery biology is much, much more efficient for burning body fat.
Overnight some 560 fat calories = 6 grams of body fat and therefore 10 times more efficient than aerobic exercise.
You need to explain this to your readers, simply referring to calories lost is meaningless, without explaining where these calories come from.
In every gym in the world people are constantly told you are burning X calories with y type of exercise, utterly meaningless and deeply cynical.
With a minimum 70 body fat calorie per hour consumption overnight as opposed to 60 body fat consumption per hour during exercise the overnight body fat loss is almost 10 times that of aerobic exercise, provided the liver is refuelled prior to bed and the pituitary activated.
Most of your points are great Ralph but you must surely warn the public of these misconceptions and destroy the myth about exercise and fat loss.
Yes it is true, but only 10% true, with respect to body fat.
Mike
Mike McInnes: We know you have some ideas about this (maybe good ones), and you have your book to sell. However, and this is mostly for other readers who haven't seen this on the other board, research done at Kansas State University and published in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise shows that 67% of the calories from cardio come from fat in the case of morning fasted cardio and 50% in regular cardio.
You should note that the law of calorie balance is well-established. If you are doing both weight training and cardio and eating reasonably well, you can create a calorie deficit while maintaining or gaining muscle and glycogen. This leads to a loss of fat weight. Anyone who's followed the BFFM program can tell you this. A lot of other research shows that cardio and weight training are more effective than either of them alone.
Personally, I believe weight training to be more effective and should take priority, but you can and should do cardio on your recovery days. I wouldn't exceed 6 total workouts a week though; I always take either Saturday or Sunday off.
ReplyI believe you have to limit calories and exercise(both aerobic and weight bearing) to lose and keep weight off.
ReplyI don't think doing cardio will decrease your muscle mass as long as you eat enough. I eat plenty and I have a lot of muscle and I run a lot...the key is to keep up the strength training and not skimp on eating healthy things. One point that is a really good one is that as you lose weight, you burn fewer calories. That's part of why heavier people lose weight quickly at first and then the rate slows as they get thinner. It's also why walking may be sufficient exercise for an obese person, but if they want to see progress, they have to adjust their workout as they lose weight.
ReplyI think, this summary of the main points concerning exercise and weight loss sounds good.
ReplyCompliment all your cardio training with L-Carnitine because it has a major effect on converting fat to energy. Use Grape seed oil with your food - it increases metabolism. Eat 6 eggs for breakfast - but only one yolk - you'll get lots of protein from it. Add strawberries to your salads - great source of carbs.
Reply"Eat 6 eggs for breakfast - but only one yolk - you'll get lots of protein from it."
Perhaps this is a good way to go about eating eggs, but there are some concerns. Some believe that you won't be able to digest the protein in eggs without the fat in the yolks. In general, you cannot digest protein without fat. Whether this is true or not I don't think has been completely established, but the fact that every significant source of protein in nature is accompanied by a significant amount of fat is indeed something to think about.
Eggs are a great whole food though. One thing you may not know is that there is a protein in the whites called avidin which will create a biotin deficiency. However, the yolk contains lots of biotin. Certain things about the egg indicate that they should be eaten whole.
Also, the best thing you can do with eggs is to not overcook them. The proteins in the whites and the fats in the yolk are sensitive to heat and become mutated when you cook them. An overcooked yolk is heart-damaging; a raw yolk is heart-healthy. I eat my eggs raw. In conventionally raised eggs, 1 in 30,000 eggs has salmonella, in organic eggs, salmonella isn't a concern.
ReplyI believe in two things about weight loss. For successful weight loss, calories intake must be less than calories consumption and permanent weight loss needs permanent changes in our eating style.
ReplyDefinately don't want to be thinking you're losing fat, but only losing weight. I think the BEST weight loss solution is to combine hoodia extract (check out the link), with exersize, and incorporating some superfoods into your diet. I particularly recommend chia seeds and raw cacao nibs to ensure you are nourished (although with less appetite due to the hoodia) and to boost metabolism (cacao is excellent for this.) 'LoveLeaf Garden' sells great organic peruvian cacao.
ReplyIf an exercise is non-weight-bearing, why is the number of calories burned different depending on a person's weight?
I've recently begun indoor rowing and the erg has the option of showing the amount of exercise in watts. If I work 150 watts or my lighter-weight wife works 150 watts, I don't understand how the calories we have burned would be different.
Yet all the exercise calorie-counter sites that I have found show a different number of calories burned depending on weight.
Congratuations to calorielab.com for showing net calories instead of gross calories. I believe they are the only ones correctly reporting this.
ReplyBasic physics would say that the energy required to move an object from point A to point B is directly related to mass.
So, calories burned should always be related to body weight.
ReplyThanks for your reply, Jim. I wish I had taken physics in high school or college, or had minored in exercise physiology. Your example (pull-up) helps, but I'm specifically interested in non-weight-bearing. I can readily see that different weight people doing a pull-up or running a mile would burn a different amount of calories. But if a 90-pounder and a 200-pounder are each sitting on a stationary bike and just pedaling for 30 minutes, is there still a difference in calorie burn that is proportional to their difference in weight?
ReplyRemember too, in this whole argument, fitter bodies are more efficient - so burn less calories.
ReplySpectra, your automotive analogy makes perfect sense to me, and I now understand why I can perform the same non-weight-bearing exercise as my wife and burn more calories. I suspect that the increase in net calorie burn is not proportional to the increased weight (most internet calorie sites show double the calories for double the body weight), but I much better understand the concept.
Thanks.
ReplyRon,
The issue of metabolism is important. Depending on your conditioning, you will burn different amounts of calories, and preferentially burn fat over glucose, depending on your exertion level. You can get a handle on this for you by going in for a VO2max test at your local gym.
ReplyI find it is extremely important to intake at least 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight and to eat 6 small meals per day.
The points about metabolism are great.
You DEFINITELY lose a little muscle when you perform cardio. You can even lose quite a bit if you perform it too intensely.
I perform cardio at 60-70% of my max heart rate for no more than 45 minutes per session.
I agree that cardio and weight/resistance training together is the way to go.
Reply"People who are overweight or obese burn more calories proportionately doing the same activity, for the same duration and at the same intensity, than those of normal weight."
I wonder if it would be a good idea to add weights to your body as the pounds come off?
Reply