Despite America's efforts as a whole to lose weight, a third of our citizens are obese. This article states how exercising can actually cause people to gain weight because after a rigorous workout, individuals are more likely to be hungry and eat large amounts of food than if they had gotten no exercise and ate a normal amount of food.
Studies show that even though advertisements glamorize the idea that exercising will help weight loss, exercise researcher Eric Ravussin says that "In general, for weight loss, exercising is pretty useless".
So what does this all mean? People may exercise to burn off fat, but working out may make it more difficult to lose weight if a person exercises only to eat more food after due to fatigue.
-Molly Cheng
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
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14 comments:
I don't necessarily think that it's eating more after the work out,but eating food that in normal amounts is bad for your weight. I think if people buckled down and fought off the hunger or ate something weight healthy that we would indeed lose weight.
Exercise doesn't actually burn that much fat. It's what happens after the workout that really matters. Exercise is effective at burning fat when it boosts your metabolism. You lose most of your weight when your not exercising. A rigorous resistance workout will actually boost your metabolism for about 32 hours. And even if you haven't had a recent workout, more muscle mass will cause your metabolism to speed up as well, as it takes more energy to maintain. Fighting off the hunger as Mr. Dyer suggests is actually counter-productive as it causes your body to try to conserve energy and slows down your metabolism.
The problem is that people are probably doing only cardio exercise like running and using that as a justification to overeat. A rigorous, one-hour resistance training workout actually burns the same amount of calories as running at a six-minute mile pace for the same period of time.
People don't realize that to lose weight you need to EAT LESS AND BETTER, in addition to exercise. Protein and unsaturated fats take much longer to metabolize and keep you full longer, rather than sugary snacks and simple starches that give you quick energy and a crash leaving you craving more.
I think the problem is WHAT we eat. No matter how much you exercise, after the workout you still consume food that is probably not healthy. I know parents who don't feed their kids healthy things and it leads to pretty bad consequences. My cousin does not eat vegetables at all, mostly starch like pizza. He has crohn's disease and the fact that my aunt does not make him eat more healthy food really affects his health. My cousin has to go to multiple hospital visits to get vaccinations for the low food intake he has. Overall, I think today's generation should be more strict about what kids eat.
-Emily Niemann
i read the entire article and found the arguments to be very interesting and persuasive, but i think articles like these are trying to compensate for past articles that said that rigorous exercise is the magic bullet. the reason one third of americans are obese is because they dont realize that there needs to be a balance of energy expenditure and intake...to MAINTAIN one's weight. losing weight conceptually is very simple: one must use 3500 more calories than they consume. it's the creating of that calorie deficit that's the hard part.
I know I sound like a broken record, but I really think that the most important thing is doing everything in moderation. Exercising is important, and so is eating healthy, but neither will help if you do them to much and become obsessed or if you don't to them enough. Eating junk food is not a crime, but it's also not ok to eat it all the time. Eating a balanced diet is just as important as eating healthy foods too, just like doing a balanced workout is important. Going to the gym, obsessing over doing exactly 500 sit ups, and then going home and eating a diet of only sweet potatoes is just as unhealthy as not exercising/eating right in my opinion. However, in my opinion, leading a balanced lifestyle that includes a wide variety of foods, some organized exercise, and simple things like walking, is healthy.
This does sound all too-familiar. But it IS quite hard to lose weight after exercising when there's fast food restaurants everywhere.
Another thing with weight loss is the dangers of undertaking any of the weigh loss pills/medications/drugs that people see on TV. Many consumers only see the short-term payout of becoming thinner, but at the expense of potentially having altered your body's physiology/metabolism and how it intakes certain nutrients. Not to mention that any type of drug to induce a desired effect is bad in itself in the long-run.
Some people turn to athletes and how they manage their diet when they want to lose weight. Many are able to tell themselves that "it can't be hard to eat healthy like athletes" but few rarely, if ever, are able to commit to it for a long term effect.
Self-studying for EMT, and having been in emergency response for nearly 3 years now, eating in small amounts throughout the day of healthy foods not only is healthy.. but it also keeps stress levels down (just a thought).
Like Joe previously said, having a sudden massive workout for a short period of time isn't going to have a massive effect on your weight. Sure, you might lose a few pounds, but once you get tired of that massive routine workout for that short period of time, your body then goes back to the same cycle that it was used to from before.
Exercise definitely does help, especially more than no exercise. But if you just exercise a lot you won't be able to get anywhere. You need to eat better as well.
The problem is that many people just are too lazy to maintain exercising and a health diet. Especially since the process is so slow, people give up on it because they don't see much results, or never even attempting to do it.
i think its irresponsible to say exercising doesnt help people lose weight. its simple---burn more calories than you eat and you will lose weight... and how do you burn calories?? exercising...
Georgia your if and then statement makes complete sense and I totally agree with you so I am not going to type up what you said again. However, I would like to point that by exercising can help boost up metabolism ( I won't go into the depths of it because I will just bore all readers with AP bio details). Personally, when I did cross-country, I ran around 4 miles everyday and i would come home and eat a ton of junk food and other sugary stuff. I lost 10 pounds. Why? MY metabolism sped up.
However, if a daily routine of exercise is ignored, then yes, you are guaranteed to gain weight because, your diet hasn't changed. You eat like you do if you were running 4 miles but this time, you are eating and not excercsing so metabolism slows down and then it's downhill from there.
EXERCISE=GOOD!
Amreet Aujla
I don't necessarily think that exercise doesn't help obese as a whole, regardless of people wanting to indulge their hunger after working out, or just sitting in their big couch in front of a television set.
If they really wanted to loose weight, they would have to take it seriously. A lot of people say they walk, and call it a day for exercise, but if they really try to break a sweat, and plan a healthy eating regiment, they could really achieve their goals in loosing weight.
Well, one point I don't think was brought up was "stress eating". I know lots of people, myself included who eat when they are stressed. HOWEVER!! Exercise is like magical de-stress medicine!!
Anyways the point is, that exercise isn't just something that speeds up your metabolism, then makes you more hungrey to counteract its benefits. There are several ways exercise helps someone's weight/eating habits.
I do not really agree with this article. Like Georgia stated earlier, if you burn more calories than you eat then you will lose weight. Exercising should be paired with smart and healthy eating in order to lose the weight some desire. One must put in the effort. All of the weight is not going to come off with just a few workouts. People have to work out it to get results.
-Jane Hayashi-
I know this sounds really bad, but when my relatives come to California over the summer we usually go to amusement parks or the beach. They tell me that they can't even count to 3 before they spot someone who is overweight. We must face it, obesity is a major problem in America. Although many people don't think it is, it actually has an affect on topics such as Healthcare which can affect everyone because of taxes.
It also doesn't help that there are fast food restaurants literally everywhere. If you've ever watched Supersize Me, you would know that there is a McDonald's restaurant within a mile of almost every school in America. What makes matters worse is that McDonalds is trying to make their food look fancy! Have you seen their commercials? Total propaganda. Angus Mushroom Burgers!! At McDonalds??! Really!? Anyways, this type of advertising definitely adds to obesity problem in America whether or not people choose to eat there and know it's unhealthy for them or not.
In accordance to the blog, I think exercising definitely helps people lose and maintain their weight. I honestly have never watched my weight before. I exercise, that's my excuse. But for those who want to lose weight exercising is probably one of the best ways. However, running or riding a bike isn't going to cut it. A rigorous, consistent workout routine is what matters. Working out once a week isn't going to do anything, starting off with a small, light workout and adding to it makes the workout more effective.
Yeah, after a long, hard workout people are going to be tired, but if they gorge themselves right after, whats the point? I agree with Jane that working out paired with healthy eating is the key to losing weight.
Also, has anyone seen a difference in weight since the school took out all the "junk" foods and replaced it with "health" foods? I haven't.
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