I’ve been setting the record straight for over 12 yrs on the radio about the truth of exercise and eating for optimal well- being.
After reading the article called “Weighing the evidence on exercise,” I felt I had to chime in and debunk some information and answer some questions you may have had while reading it.
We are living in the 70’s when it comes to understanding the type of foods to eat and what exercises to perform for optimal health. By the time we understand what I'm about to share it, it will be 2025.
The article showed studies claiming exercise has been shown to add weight, and that it makes you hungry for more food than you would normally desire without exercise.
If the writer was pressed for amount of words, she could have left out some studies presented after making her point with only one of them, thereby leaving the reader a more productive message in order to help them change some bad habits they didn’t know could have been affecting their outcome. (i.e. too much coffee will stress adrenal glands, disrupt sleep, add stress to an already stressful life for most of us, in turn adding fat and decreasing performance at work and in the gym.)
First let's tackle exercise. Exercise is vital in today’s society in order to minimize stress and to gain over-all health. Resistance training provides muscle, and helps change the muscle to fat ratio in our body. When you add muscle and lose fat, you do not always affect the scale. A pound of fat is fluffy and big. A pound of muscle is dense and small. They weigh the same, of course, but the muscle looks better. The scale should be your mirror: how your clothes fit and the compliments you receive from others are the rewards.
We must first address something I call “yesterday’s results”. After years of an unhealthy lifestyle and expecting desired results after only exercising for two months is unrealistic. Today is not soon enough and tomorrow is too far in the future, so we want results for our short term efforts yesterday.
Important factors often left out when addressing fat loss goals are age, stress, and hormones. In addition, years of consuming stimulants for fat loss and drinking caffeine are all major factors which affect weight loss and weight gain.
If you leave out any of those missing habits/components when sharing information about why people are not losing weight when they exercise, you’re doing the readers an injustice.
Let’s get to the issue the article stated about how exercise makes you more hungry. That statement is 100% correct. However, healthy or unhealthy food/exercise choices you make are what will add credibility to studies that show exercise can make you gain fat or lean. Exercise is not the culprit. Saying exercise makes you fat is crazy talk and it gives me a tired head.
If you went grocery shopping, on a full stomach, and brought healthy food with you to work during the day, it wouldn’t matter if when you became more hungry, you ate more veggies and good fat to attain your fat loss goals. We are still stuck on the ancient thought that fat made us over-fat in America today. While fat calories are more dense (at 9 calories for every gram) than carbohydrates or protein (at 4 calories per gram), fat can stabilize blood, sugar carbs cannot.
We’re fatter in America today due to too many refined carbohydrates, not too much fat. I’m not saying the fat choices many people make are healthy, but if you replace the fats you eat with good fat you can lower the bad LDL cholesterol and curb hunger cravings as well as gain better mental clarity.
Did you know by eating certain fat you will actually lose fat? Did you know most people are so afraid of eating fat that they feel they can eat all they want of bread-type foods even if it’s low fat-no sodium and on and on and on? This is just silly and wrong.
Even alcohol that claims to have low calories is still bad for fat loss efforts. It can affect blood sugar spikes which adds fat around your middle. I can always tell how someone eats by where they store fat on their body.
Every time you ingest a carbohydrate like bread, corn, wine and even most fruit, you are giving your body energy. If you have fat to lose, all you’re doing is adding more energy (fat) to be worked off. But, George, fruit is suppose to be good for us. Not if you are stuck in an office all day or just not active enough to exercise off the energy (sugar) fruit has. It is NOT just metabolized like many people think. If you eat a banana, I hope you intend to exercise for an hour afterward if you have a desired goal of fat loss. Calories are not the biggest culprit. The indirect effects of the sugar and other unhealthy ingredients are.
Many expect they can sit on their butt 16 hours per day then exercise for one hour three or four days per week and lose weight. Are you kidding? Wrong! This would only be accurate for someone starting a program from zero. And then you’re body will become use to it and ask for more.
The article also addressed studies with those who walked for an hour per day. Yeah? Good luck with that! It stated people gained weight from this type of exercise too. Unless you have the motivation, time and a plan to walk many miles every day, and are ready to be in a bad mood while restricting your calories and dedicating part of your life to this way of losing weight, I don’t recommend it.
You see, we’re still stuck on this thought that we need to be exercise for hours per day while being in an aerobic fat burning state to lose weight. I have really good and really bad news for you. The good news is you are burning fat while reading this. The bad news is those “yesterday’s results” you want will need a high intensity resistant and/or endurance training program to lose the fat and gain muscle while decreasing adrenal stress at the same time.
That was a mouth full but aerobic training adds stress. High intensity training reduces stress and can therefore reduce poor food choices and help you sleep at night as well as gain muscle and lose fat fast.
More muscle in, more calories out. Aerobic training doesn’t add muscle. High intensity resistant training and/or endurance training will make you fitter, leaner and healthier in a shorter period of time over aerobic training any day.
If you go to the gym daily and walk on a treadmill or use an elliptical trainer and wonder why you’re not happy with the shape of your body, you just received the answer above.
You do not have to exercise an hour per day everyday to get great health benefits. A higher intensity workout vs schlepping your way along in your old routine will give you fast fat loss and health benefits.
I digress…so if you exercise and feel the need to eat more often than normal, what do you eat? Protein, good fat and veggies. They absorb into your body slower, keeping you fuller longer among many other benefits. Carbs… no so much.
And, don’t say you crave chocolate when you become hungry due to exercising more. That one kills me. Primitive man didn’t have chocolate bars available to crave. When you crave something sweet, it’s usually due to waiting too long to eat, not consuming the right foods to keep you satisfied and/or a deficiency in minerals. Or it could be adrenal fatigue (stress) which depletes your body of nutrients and makes you crave poor food choices.
Confused about where to turn from here? I would be too after reading the article, hence the reason for writing this piece. Readers need to understand some of the many reasons we should have a professional like a chiropractor, highly qualified personal trainer or certified nutritionist check what is missing in our health and fitness regimen and what needs to be replaced in our diet and exercise program before we ingest what we read, see or hear is the latest fad.
Keep this in mind when you exercise. If you put in 50% of the effort, how can you expect to gain 100% of the results?
Only by understanding that it takes more than just exercise and eating well to lose fat and measuring what’s missing and supplementing what your body is asking for will you attain your fat loss goals. Arm yourself with knowledge not empty words and advertising.
