"Take in fewer calories than you burn, put yourself in negative energy balance, lose weight,” says Braun, who has been studying exercise and weight loss for years."<p>Weight loss is not this simple - this kind of article enrages me. Everyone wants it to be an easy equation. Low carbohydrate/high fat diets are wildly successful despite not having to monitor calories. All calories are not created equal and simply eating less does not lead to long term weight loss, it leads to hunger.<p>I know many have talked about this idea on HN before, but in case you missed it, an excellent, eye-opening read is Gary Taubes' book, Good Calories Bad Calories - <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Controversial-Science/dp/1400033462" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Controversial-Scienc...</a>
The article explains a basic tenet of metabolism: balancing caloric intake with exercise is the key to weight loss. However, it does not mention much about the health benefits of exercise nor the importance of eating healthy foods, which is unfortunate because one's health is more important than simply losing weight.
"“In general, exercise by itself is pretty useless for weight loss,” says Eric Ravussin, a professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., and an expert on weight loss. It’s especially useless because people often end up consuming more calories when they exercise."<p>Study, have shown that if your energy expenditure and take-in is the same as dieting, exercise can produce the same results.<p>I have this hypothesis that it is psychologically easier to exercise off weight than to restrict your diet below maintenance.<p>Reason why:
1. Less willpower for exercise. Once you are on the treadmill it's easy to continue, while for dieting you will need to control yourself for at least 8hrs. So, comparing 15mins of control for getting started to exercise to 8hrs of control to diet, exercise significantly better.<p>2.Exercise release endorphins, ie you will be happier after exercising. Dieting leaves you irritable and tired.<p>3. Exercise builds metabolism, so you will burn at rest[not as much as they would have you believe in some books]. Dieting slow metabolism.<p>4. At moderately high intensity exercise can reduce appetite.<p>Drawbacks to exercise:
1) Takes alot of time. Walking at 4mph for 60mins only burns 340 calories for a 150pound man[or something like that]. So, in essence 3hrs of exercise by walk a day will burn 2 pounds a week[provided that you follow a maintenance diet]
Is there good, accessible <i>science</i> (not the opinion of an "expert") about<p>- What kind of exercise is good for what (e.g. short intense or long light)?<p>- How quickly does performance increase? What causes better performance?<p>- Why and how quickly does muscle tissue form?<p>- Does lung volume increase?<p>- What happens to your heart?<p>- What happens to your veins?<p>- How much exercise?<p>- How does eating affect exercise? E.g. if you are losing weight, will your body still make roughly as much new muscle tissue?<p>- Why is it that I get sore more quickly and run more slowly when I haven't eaten enough, even in the first few minutes of running when all the energy is still coming from stuff stored in muscles?<p>I think the answers to these questions would be very valuable to individuals as well as society as a whole.
It seems like the article is making exercise more mysterious than it is. From what I've read, scientists seem to be more knowledgeable than the state of confusion this article is giving out.<p>The benefit of exercise in terms of weight loss is that it increases your resting metabolic rate (RMR). So the greatest caloric expenditure is often not during the exercise activity itself. I used to think that it's impossible to burn off the calories eaten from a burger. Now I know better.<p>Of course, exercise is only effective if your diet complements it. It's not either or, it's both. Both contribute to a net caloric deficit or surplus, creating weight change.<p>They also don't go into enough detail about the types of exercises. HIIT and weightlifting are particularly effective towards increasing RMR.
I think after reading all the comments, I still have one more bit to add. The submitted article refers to GENERAL effects of exercise that are observable in current population studies. It does seem to be well established that human beings are adapted to balance their eating with their activity, thus human beings who don't live in conditions of food scarcity may not be likely to lose weight if they increase their level of physical activity.<p>That said about the general tendency, my observation of the effect of exercise is that it makes me more cheerful, and allows me to substitute the pleasure of fresh air and sunshine and movement for the pleasure of eating. So at least on my part, I have been able to reduce weight (I didn't have a lot to lose at my heaviest) by being more consistent about exercise. These days, there are times when I feel a vague discomfort that I might formerly have treated by eating a snack that I now treat by talking a walk outside. More exercise AND less eating is sure to result in weight loss over time.
"Take in fewer calories than you burn, put yourself in negative energy balance, lose weight"<p>Join a fitness/nutrition website to provide accountability (and to educate you that the presumably healthy food you're eating is actually highly caloric).
Analyzing my own eating habits, I think that the light, constant exercise factor is representative of regulated behavior that causes people to maintain weight. That is, exercising regularly is a reflection of a person's lifestyle (not a stressed out entrepreneur) that coincides with maintaining a healthy weight, as well as helping a person regulate their behavior (the good feelings and satiation make it easier to not have events where you eat crap).
I find it interesting how quickly the body appears to decondition when you stop exercising. I suspect the consensus is that this is intended to lower basal metabolism, which would make one better adapted to a food scarce environment. However, if you consume high quantities of food, the body still deconditions. It ignores this data.<p>So what is the true reason why the body prefers a state of lower conditioning? Even if I lazed around for months in my cave, I'd still want to be at maximum ready for when a neighboring tribe appeared or if I suddenly needed to increase exertion for food.<p>I find it plausible that exercise has costs that are being overlooked. I'm always impressed by the longevity of academic-types I find in wikipedia, who I presume don't run marathons often. NFL players have extremely low lifespans. Marathon runners tend to have higher rates of heart damage.
As one of the article says "both sides of the argument can bring lots of data to thet table in support of their contentions."<p>I think scientist should be leading the charge on this. Everybody seem to have their own book or point of view to peddle.
see also <a href="http://www.sethroberts.net/about/whatmakesfoodfattening.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.sethroberts.net/about/whatmakesfoodfattening.pdf</a>