<p>What exercise provides is quality of life. Stamina to do things without getting tired. Strength to take care of everyday tasks and to avoid injury.</p>
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<p>1-1.5 hours a day, 2-3 days a week of moderate weight lifting this summer I’ve lost almost 10 pounds. Meanwhile, I eat fast-food probably 1-2 times per week and lots of other junk food on a daily basis.</p>
<p>BCEagle, I haven’t tried the P90X, but I have seen people do it. They moan and groan the entire time they do the workouts, but they love it!</p>
<p>“Yeah, and a pound of fat contains about 3500 calories, so you have to run about 35 miles, 9 miles farther than a marathon, just to lose ONE pound. So if you are looking to drop say 20 pounds, doing it with exercise alone is going to take a lot of runnng or biking or what have you. That’s why I look to a combination of both calorie control and exercise as the most successful approach.”</p>
<p>You do have to create a calorie deficit of 3500 calories to lose one pound of fat. </p>
<p>However, you can’t just calculate calories burned during exercise and leave it at that. When you do vigorous exercise, particularly interval training or strength training, you continue to burn calories at a higher rate than normal for hours afterwards. This is one of the benefits of exercise that people seem to forget.</p>
<p>I agree that the BEST way to lose body fat, minimize loss of muscle and bone, increase one’s strength and endurance, and head off disease is to combine proper diet with exercise. 30 minutes of moderate exercise 3 times a week isn’t going to cut it for weight loss for most people, particularly for middle aged people and older. 5-6 days a week of vigorous interval training and strength training 3 times a week will definitely result in weight loss if combined with proper diet.</p>
<p>It is the <em>title</em> of the article that is all wet, not the content. It should be titled “Why restricting all of your exercise to 4 hours per week at the gym and then eating like a pig afterwards won’t make you thin”.</p>
<p>That seems sort of obvious to me. The author goes on to discuss how many who study the subject think daily moderate aerobic exercise is a better way to lose weight, and I agree with that. </p>
<p>I also agree with those who think fast walking/jogging/running are a great way to maintain weight but it is probably not enough to lose a lot of weight all by itself.</p>
<p>And I DEFINITELY agree with the couple of posters above who disagree that exercise leads to a desire to gorge on sweet or fatty food. A three to four mile run destroys my appetite, and I am no hungrier later in the day than on those days when I am not able to get the running in. I have found exercise to be a good way to control appetite.</p>
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<p>I certainly agree with this.</p>
<p>To do this requires that you avoid injuries and that access to good food and exercise is
easy. We have cardio equipment at work and at my gym, weights at home, gym and office and I play tennis one to two days a week at public and or private courts. I was
knocked off my program this summer with an incident that resulted in multiple injuries
so I just had to exercise as best as I could while the injured areas went to recovery
mode. My wrist is not 100% yet but it’s good enough to have started weightlifting again.</p>
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<p>Even this statement doesn’t hold up. You can’t calculate how many calories are burned during a given activity without considering the person’s size. A 300 lb. person will burn far more calories while running a mile than a 100 pound person. Also consider how vigorously the activity is performed. Someone who runs very fast for that mile will burn more calories than someone who is barely managing a slow jog.</p>
<p>The article might have some truth in that vigorous exercise may make you more sedentary. I was a prime example during high school when I was spending 6-7 hours a day at practice during summers. All I wanted to do was go home and eat everything I could find. And play video games. But obviously that kind of training kept me in ridiculously good shape.</p>
<p>Wonder what Michael Phelps and his 10,000 calories a day would say about this? ha ha But I don’t think most people are exercising/swimming as a full-time job.</p>
<p>It’s a combination. Eat less, exercise more. </p>
<p>I’ve tried the opposite - and it works. In the opposite way. I eat more, exercise less, and wonder why I’m gaining 3 pounds per year for the past 10 years…</p>
<p>First, it’s well known that exercise does not cause people to lose pounds. Because they eat more. If you lost weight, it’s because you didn’t eat more while you increased the calories burnt. </p>
<p>Studies have clearly shown that people overestimate the amount of calories they burn exercising. A mile = 100 to 125 calories, whether run or walked, with women tending (sorry) to the 100 end. Weight lifting, unless you’re really working out - which I rarely see - barely burns more calories than the alternate activity. You see, when you walk that mile or lift those weights, that hour would otherwise be spent doing something and that would burn calories. You need to subtract those to get a net. Most people who go to the gym actually burn a net of somewhere between 1 and 2 slices of bread - 100-200 calories - an amount more than offset by a latte or muffin (or 2 slices of bread). </p>
<p>As for metabolic gains, there are lots of inaccurate facts passed around about muscle mass. You may see claims that muscle burns 100 or more calories per pound, which is nonsensical (think about what your skeleton and organs weigh). The difference is more like 6 calories, so you gain 10 pounds of muscle and you can eat most of a piece of bread extra. And remember, that if you lose fat, you lose the metabolism associated with that fat. It’s only about 2 calories per pound. Muscle may burn 8, so maybe you’re better off keeping the fat and adding muscle!</p>
<p>Exercise is best for maintaining weight loss, partly it seems because it helps maintain habits and willpower. </p>
<p>I suggest any of the calculators one can find on the net for estimating basal and resting metabolic rate. (These show how metabolic rate decreases with age, so you actually do have to eat less.) Then on good calculators you estimate or even list your activity levels and that gives you a very rough sense of the average calorie burn for a person that may, may be like you. (Your metabolism may be slower or faster.) When they say an adult female only needs 1800 calories, they derive that from the basal or resting rate plus activity - not for sedentary people, who need even less. Most people wildly overestimate not only how much they expend but they underestimate how much they eat. A difference of 100 calories a day = 10 pounds in a year.</p>
<p>I also recommend mindlesseating.org - and the book of the name - as a way to understand how you consume food.</p>
<p>BCEagle91: My former boss did the P90X DVDs. He said they are very good, very serious, and very worthwhile. Of course, you need to be very motivated, but the program is definitely a good one.</p>
<p>And I love their infomercials.</p>
<p>Nrdsb4- Roughly 100 calories a mile is correct. If you are slower, you are exercising longer. Yes, there are variations, but it is a good estimate.</p>
<p>Our body as any system will lose energy if it consumes less than it uses. It uses energy for heart beating, digesting food, breathing and other body functions. You do not need to exercise to loose weight. Just consume less than your body uses with or without exercise and you will lose. However, the use of scale is needed, since the food that we consume has messed up our sense of being full, we cannot rely on it. Scale is needed as a feedback to tell us if we use correct amount of food. No wonder that Harvard study of various diets concluded that the best diet is “eat less” diet. </p>
<p>Another point is that other health considerations outside of weight issue require us to eat certain food and move around certain minimum amount of time with certain minimum effort just to stay healthy, which is not guaranteed anyway.</p>
<p>I just put a hold on mindlesseating and will pick up at library tonight. Thanks for reco.</p>
<p>So I thought it was just me. I normally walk a few miles a day (thanks to my dog), but every time I started a more strenuous workout program I seemed to be hungry all the time.</p>
<p>At least that’s my story and I’m sticking with it.</p>
<p>An interesting quote…</p>
<p>“I frequently equate our weight control difficulties with the plight of polar bears in the Sahara Desert: We are naturally designed for a high level of physical activity and having barely enough to eat. We live in a world where it’s easy to be inactive and to overeat. Until or unless you learn how to resist the challenges of this “toxic” nutritional environment we live in, you will inevitably struggle with your weight just like a polar bear in the Sahara would struggle with the heat.”—David Katz, M.D.</p>
<p>“Nrdsb4- Roughly 100 calories a mile is correct. If you are slower, you are exercising longer. Yes, there are variations, but it is a good estimate.”</p>
<p>3 people run 5 miles an hour for 12 minutes (=1mile)</p>
<p>The 300 lb. person burns 230 calories. The 200 lb. person burns 153 calories. The 100 pound person burns 76 calories (according to a web site which calculates calorie burn of various activities according to body weight).</p>
<p>What if they are running outside where there are hills? More calories burned. On a treadmill with no incline? Less calories burned. The 100 calorie figure may be a good estimate, but there are other variables one can tweak to get more bang for the buck, and weight is an important factor.</p>
<p>Now that it’s obvious that I’ll be less active out of sheer necessity (broken ankle will take quite a few more months to mend), I’ve decided to try severe calorie restriction in an effort to lose weight. My strategy will be to eat extremely small amounts throughout the day, thereby keeping my metabolism stoked. I have a cousin who use to literally take hours to eat a single sandwich. She’d graze on that thing throughout the day—take a bite, cover it with plastic wrap, and go putzing around the house, come back in a hour, take another bite or two, etc, etc. She may be a bit of an extreme example, but the idea of continuous small amounts throughout the day has merit. The secret, I’m told is in choosing your foods carefully. Choose low carb, high fiber foods that are slower to metabolize, and keep you feeling full longer. Adding “good fats” is important, too, such as Omega 3s and EVOO. I’ve lost approx. 4-5 lbs since my accident on July 12, and have, for the most part, remained depressingly sendentary.</p>
<p>From the book *Where Did All the Fat Go? *by Dr. Robert Huizenga, MD. (former team physician of the Oakland Raiders as well as the doctor from the show The Biggest Loser):</p>
<p>As to the notion that it’s “common knowledge” that exercise does not contribute to weight loss in any significant way, Dr. Huizenga responds that the typical “dumbed- down” exercise routine of three 30 minute sessions per week is responsible for that philosophy. He even goes into the math of how walking or moderate intensity weight lifting really doesn’t contribute to significant weight loss. However, **vigorous exercise<a href=“he%20recommends%202%20one%20hour%20exercise%20sessions%20per%20day%20until%20goal%20is%20met,%20then%201%20hour%20a%20day%20thereafter”>/B</a> has been proven to contribute to significant fat loss in his patients and in the “at home” contestants who didn’t make the final cut of the show but who followed a modified exercise plan at home. He states categorically that the 4-6 hours per day of exercise done by the TV contestants is not necessary in order to achieve significant loss of body fat and that his at home contestants achieved almost identical results with moderate caloric reduction and 2 hours a day of vigorous exercise.</p>
<p>When Dr. H was team doctor for the Oakland Raiders, it was his job to keep his 300 lb. nose tackles from losing weight. However, when they were doing their two a days, with their heads practically in a trough all day trying to compensate for the exercise, the weight continued to drop off anyway. It was this experience that lead to some of the strategies used on the TV show.</p>
<p>In response to the “standard nutritionist’s lecture line” that while an aggressive six month diet can drop 5 to 10 percent of your weight, exercise adds little or, at most, a few extra percentage points:</p>
<p>“Two-a-day exercise together with** moderate** caloric restriction in motivated dieters yields three to tenfold more fat loss than other documented diets.”</p>
<p>“If you lose 15 pounds on a diet, you naturally assume you lost all fat. Sorry, not true. You really haven’t the foggiest idea how much of that 15 pounds was water, muscle, bone, or fat. Suffice it to say that with a standard fad or low carb diet, lean tissue loss may be comparable to fat loss. Low amounts of exercise don’t increase the absolute number of pounds lost, but it may bump up the proportion of weight loss that is fat. Higher levels of exercise-together with moderate caloric restriction, not only melt away fat more quickly than diets alone, they ensure that muscle is gained or at least maintained.”</p>
<p>Dr. Huizenga isn’t the final authority on weight loss, but he has years of experience working with athletes and 7 seasons working with morbidly obese contestants on the show. I found his book to contain compelling evidence that intense exercise is certainly instrumental in achieving weight loss. </p>
<p>Even if I reject Dr. H’s. book (and it’s tempting to reject anything associated with TV these days), I’m becoming more convinced that diet alone is not the way to go. I’ve been reading every thing I can get my hands on regarding safe and healthy weight loss for the past year or two. The more I read about the subject, the more convinced I become that to achieve healthy and lasting loss of BODY FAT, no single tactic will work. Diet, exercise, and strength training must be combined for the best results.</p>
<p>That said, I’m doing close to 2 hours a day on my strength training days and only 45 minutes to an hour on my cardio only days, and I have had tremendous results. I do not starve myself. I eat 5-6 times per day, have eliminated fast and processed foods and include tons of fruits and veggies, and try to get my protein from only lean meats and eggs. I think exercise is crucial to making sure I’m not just losing “weight,” by maximizing body fat loss while preserving muscle tissue. God only knows what’s going to happen to my body when menopause hits, so I want to be lean and fit when the time comes so that I can better weather the storm. I’d hate to go into menopause already fat and flabby.</p>
<p>Wow – good luck, poetsheart. My condolences. I’d probably go nuts I couldn’t be active.</p>
<p>“God only knows what’s going to happen to my body when menopause hits”
oh man…it’s not pretty. All weight gained goes to the mid section. And the change in hormones make you hungrier…it’s a really hard time to MAINTAIN your weight (forget about losing). So…you have to eat less (not more like you want to) and work harder.
Struggling with this right now and avoiding the camera! Came out of nowhere…</p>