> And, yes, you need to exercise to stay healthy, but you shouldn’t expect to see big changes on the bathroom scale with that.<p>Anecdotally and n=1, but I highly doubt this assertion. I lost significant weight without a diet change going from little exercise to swimming 2km 5 times per week.<p>I think what give people the impression of exercise not affecting the scale is that a little exercise won’t show. If you do yoga once per week, you might have the mindset of “I’m active, I do yoga, why aren’t I losing weight?” But it’s just not that much when you calculate the calories. Even at 10km of swimming a week, it’s not like I was shredding the weight instantly. I was maybe losing a bit more than 500g per week, which isn’t even significant enough to show if you aren’t consistent about weighing at the same hydration level, but over a couple of months and staying at that level it definitely shows. Now in comparison most others I know who casually swim would do maybe 400m once a week at a comfortable pace. That’s enough that you answer in a question are that “yes, I’m active, I swim each week” but not enough that you’ll significantly change your weight from it.<p>I think the saying shouldn’t be “you can’t outrun a bad diet” should really just be “you have to run a hell of a lot more than you think to outrun a bad diet”
This has been pretty understood for years, but in addition to 'good for you', I feel exercise does help one to lose weight. Anecdotally, I'm much, much less likely to eat irresponsibly if I've put in a lot of physical effort, vs say just lounging watching TV all day. Maybe it's like a sunk cost fallacy thing, but it sure helps motivate me.
> His findings took him by surprise. Although the Hadza people are far more active than the average Westerner, walking miles every day, they burned no more calories than we do – around 3,000 per day.<p>That’s pretty vague. Walking 2 miles in flat terrain would meet that description, and I would hardly categorize that as ‘exercise’. I presume that is significantly less than what’s implied here, but I wish they would have elaborated a little more than that
Anecdotally, people adapt to do whatever they are doing efficiently. At some point I started exercising (distance running) a lot and I lost weight despite eating constantly. That phase lasted a few months, at which point my hypothesis is I got efficient at running and no longer burned huge calories doing it. I started gaining weight and had to adjust my diet.<p>Seems to me the example of the hunter gatherers is the same. Their bodies have adapted to do their everyday tasks efficiently. This is a logical evolutionary adaptation. It also leaves room for exercise to play a role in weight loss, by doing things you're not well adapted for. Diet of course is also important, however both have a role.
I dont really think that the article title matches the content of the article.<p>Writer re-affirms that the phrase "you cant outrun a bad diet", and re-iterates that supersize by itself wont make you thinner since its obscenely difficult to burn calories faster than you can consume it.<p>Article title seems to be bait for people who refuse to take agency in their own body weight
It depends how much you run I guess. When you run a 100km per week you will eat a lot more to stay in homeostasis. When I go on a 5h run I can eat 200kcal of sugar an hour and I don’t gain any weight of it since I burn more calories than I take in.