To diet or exercise for weight loss? Of course the easy answer is "yes". But after 30 years of exercising regularly and watching my weight I have learned a few things about what exercise does and does not do for me. I am 100 percent confident that exercise has a positive impact on my mental health. When you are focused on breathing, you can't worry about other things. It's a good break. I am 80 percent confident exercise helps me sleep better. I am 50 percent confident it helps me to improve muscle definition, however if muscles are covered by fat it is hard to see the definition. I am also 100% confident that exercise, at least the way I exercise now, does not help me to lose weight. Even when I was running longer distances I was a little surprised to find that I still could not eat what I wanted to eat and maintain the weight I wanted. There *was* a time, when I was traveling for business much of the year, and when I was out of town my time was my own. During that period I ran in the morning and took aerobics classes at night. I lost weight then, but the truthfully, I was still eating pretty carefully.
I have also learned that there will always be times
in my life when it will be hard to exercise either due to injury or
time constraints. My friend, for example, was frustrated
because as a nurse working 12 hours shifts, she found herself
struggling to train for a triathlon, which is something she has
always enjoyed. But, to compete in the triathlon, she will have to
find enough time to train. It is one thing to exercise on your day
off, but it is another to spend three quarters of the days you have
off training. I have come to accept that I do not exercise for
the month of December. One can argue that this is exactly the
month that I should exercise, with Christmas treats so prevalent. But
a few years ago I found that I wanted to get my Christmas cards done
way more than I wanted to run in the morning, so I did.
Conscious of the fact that I wasn't exercising, I watched what I ate
a little more carefully. I was surprised to find that even
without morning runs I did not gain weight. After a second year with
a similar December, I decided to face the fact that I would
largely abandon my exercise routine in December. That was the
beginning of my realization that I had way better luck controlling my
weight with what and how much I eat than how much I exercise.
Gary Taubes, a science journalist, came onto the diet
scene in 2002, with an article in the New York Times, titled, "What
if it's All Been a Big Fat Lie? It coincided with some
success I had had using the South Beach diet to battle post pregnancy
belly fat. He followed that article with a dense,
research-filled book published in 2007 called Good
Calories, Bad Calories loaded with data to support his somewhat
controversial assertions. His follow-up and easier to digest
book, Why
We Get Fat, and What To Do About It, retained the
controversial assertions. The assertions relevant to this post are:
1. The calories
in/calories out model for weight loss has been very damaging to
understanding what makes us fat. You won't get rid of fat
strictly by counting calories and trying to use more than you
consume.
2. We don't get fat
because we overeat. We overeat because we are getting fat.
3. Bacon and lard are not
the enemies of good health that we've been hearing about constantly
(since the sixties); carbs are
4. There is not
sufficient evidence to make the claim that exercise is linked to
weight loss.
Taubes certainly has nay-saysers. He has had
fairly well publicized disagreements with Dr.
Oz and Jillian Michaels (The Biggest Loser). John Horgan in
an editorial in Scientific American, says he is not convinced.
This 2010
article in the NYT summarizes the controversy well.
To be clear, Taubes does not suffer from lack of data or science.
He writes well and convincingly or he wouldn't be in the spotlight.
His biggest problem is that he is going against what has been seen as
common wisdom since the 1960s, and lots of people's minds are set,
including most in the medical profession. From Taubes
in an interview:
The fat/cholesterol dogma is so well established that it's hard to imagine it ever going away. One thing dogmas do very well is perpetuate themselves, not through any explicit conspiracies, but because so many people are so invested in one point of view that they will always, when given the chance, act in a way that supports that view.
His other biggest problem is the "gross"
factor. People have been trained to see fat, as in bacon
fat and lard, as something that equals the rolls on our belly.
Gross. Never mind that there is not data to show that it causes
us to be fat. Finally he is fighting the sense of moral
superiority we have been taught to believe we are entitled to when we
exercise and watch what we eat. In today's world of anorexic
super models, and movie stars (each with their own personal trainers)
on the cover of every magazine, there is little doubt in our minds
that thin is the goal, and if you are not actively demonstrating that
you are trying to become thin, you are lazy. It's really become
a moral issue rather than the physical issue is actually is.
Likewise, Taubes assertion that exercise will not
reduce unwanted fat goes against years of "common wisdom".
Most health professionals advise their patients to include exercise
as a part of their weight loss plan. Here are just a few links
on the MayoClinic.com
There seems to be at least more
well publicized acceptance of Taubes claims regarding exercise than
his diet. In summary, these links about exercise point out:
I love my time on the StairMaster but there's no way
I could spend enough time on it to burn off the kinds of foods I
would love to eat. In order to battle my very very highly unwanted
belly fat, I am going to cut back on carbohydrates and keep a food
diary. There is about a month before I put on a swim suit, so I
guess I'll soon see exactly how unwanted it really is :)
