Does exercise make it harder for you to lose weight?

[phil h]

Thought provoking article thursday, august 6th on Yahoo.Can search for it if interested.Are we doing this all wrong? Exercise is important but is it counterproductive to hit it hard for wt loss? Has got me rethinking my exercise routines.

[Slapshot]

Without seeing the article, it's hard to respond/comment. I didn't see it on yahoo.com and couldn't find it with a search. Can you post a link?

[JohnSantos]

Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin - Yahoo! News

The basic problem is that while it's true that exercise burns calories and that you must burn calories to lose weight, exercise has another effect: it can stimulate hunger. That causes us to eat more, which in turn can negate the weight-loss benefits we just accrued. Exercise, in other words, isn't necessarily helping us lose weight. It may even be making it harder.

In other words, it doesn't apply to Atkins. I'm hungry? More turkey and chicken - zero carbs, done. Usual media trying to get some shocking headline on the boards so people will read it.

[Slapshot]

Interesting read. It confirms what I think many of us already know - success on this WOE is 80% diet, 20% everything else. If you are not following a good eating regimen, and "reward" yourself with a blueberry bar after each workout, you will not lose weight and might gain it:

In short, it's what you eat, not how hard you try to work it off, that matters more in losing weight. You should exercise to improve your health, but be warned: fiery spurts of vigorous exercise could lead to weight gain. I love how exercise makes me feel, but tomorrow I might skip the VersaClimber - and skip the blueberry bar that is my usual postexercise reward.

I also think that many people overestimate the calories burned (thanks to terribly inaccurate machines) and therefore eat more when intense exercise induces hunger. My elliptical says I burn 810 calories an hour, but I also know that my elliptical overstates the burn rate by 50% or more. If I wasn't this informed, I would think that I had 810 calories to play with, diet-wise. So, it all comes back to diet.

For me, the mental benefits of exercise are what I focus on. If it helps me lose weight, great. I feel like a million bucks after 45 minutes of sweat.

[JohnSantos]

Agreed, after some heavy lifting I feel like I could climb a small mountain.

[hopejoy]

That is disheartening... but explains a lot... bottow line: we must exercise our will power and say no to donuts and gatorade after exercise and not use it as an excuse to eat.

Thanks,
liz

[SunnySmile501]

You might think half a muffin over an entire day wouldn't matter much, particularly if you exercise regularly. After all, doesn't exercise turn fat to muscle, and doesn't muscle process excess calories more efficiently than fat does?


Yes, although the muscle-fat relationship is often misunderstood. According to calculations published in the journal Obesity Research by a Columbia University team in 2001, a pound of muscle burns approximately six calories a day in a resting body, compared with the two calories that a pound of fat burns. Which means that after you work out hard enough to convert, say, 10 lb. of fat to muscle - a major achievement - you would be able to eat only an extra 40 calories per day, about the amount in a teaspoon of butter, before beginning to gain weight. Good luck with that.

I have serious credibility problems with any author/article that states that fat can be converted to muscle with exercise. That ain't gonna happen. Not only would converting 10 pounds of fat to muscle be "a major achievement" it would be a scientific miracle and would be written up in every scientific journal in the world. This author misunderstands the losing fat, building muscle relationship to weight loss.

Nothing in this article has anything to do with doing Atkins properly and exercising. If we are actually doing Atkins, we won't be indulging in high carb refeeds after exercise.

[ShannonM]

That whole "reward" motivation is huge - I've been guilty of it many times myself. I think the article wrongly assumes that people* nosh post-exercise because they're actually hungry, when I suspect that reward motivator is tricking them into thinking they're hungry (in many cases, if not all).

The sad thing is people will read the article, figure "What the #$@! - exercise doesn't work so I might as well camp out on the couch and eat whatever I want" and never realize that they have the ability to get healthy if they choose to.

I'm starting to wonder why rewards = fattening, unhealthy food in people's minds. Has no one ever considered the all-surpassing greatness of, say, a well-timed deviled egg? Or even a piece of fruit as a reward, if the current stage of your diet permits it?

*By "people" I mean the public in general, not well-informed Atkins folk such as yourselves.

[jimmyolsenblues]

If I work out too hard with weights then I am much hungrier than when I just walk 5 miles.
Yesterday I tried a free class with LA boxing...20 minutes of pushups sit ups squats jumping jacks before 30 mins of hitting the bag...i was more hungry than awhile and i was much more inclined to cheat because i gave myself the silly excuse that i worked out harder than months.
just walking at least 30 mins a day is still my favorite exercise than never gets me hungry..

[Georgiana]

Exercise can really boost the CCLL, so you would also be able to eat more carbs and still lose weight, not only chicken, beef or whatever zero carb foods.