By Richard Tardif
The more I learn, the more I understand the benefits of physical activity and its benefits for the body. Exercise for weight loss? I don’t believe it any more.
Think about this? Exercise is the Mother of Invention – if we used our muscles eight hours a day, instead of butt-planting ourselves in a chair behind our desks, and if we ate appropriately, and rested like our ancestors, there would be no fitness, weight loss or vitamin industry to speak of, and exercise, which many of us see as a chore, would be something at the end of each chapter in a textbook.
But let’s be thankful for exercise, because with our sedentary lifestyle, sooner than later we have to embrace exercise as something that keeps us naturally healthy, keeps us moving, maintains bones, develops muscle strength, improves brain function, fends off diseases, and lifts energy levels, among many other things; but not something that makes us thin. That’s not something any of us want to embrace, is it?
We may find it easier to embrace a widely reported and heavily criticized 2015 study that at first glance justifies not exercising. The study measured the daily energy expenditure and activity levels of more than 300 men and women living in five countries, and found that the number of calories burned during regular exercise will actually reach a plateau, which indicates that our bodies stop burning extra calories beyond a certain level. Those with moderately active levels, such as a daily walk to work, and a trip to the gym twice a week, were found to burn about 200 calories more per day than those living couch potato lifestyles.
“It’s a surprise,” said Herman Pontzer of the department of anthropology at City University of New York, lead author of the study, titled Constrained Total Energy Expenditure and Metabolic Adaptation to Physical Activity in Adult Humans.
“As we move from moderate activity levels up to more and more activity, our bodies adapt, so that energy expenditure per day stays basically the same, even as we’re more and more active,” Pontzer said in a CBC Health report in January 2016, and in many other reports. The study concluded that,
“Exercise did have an effect on how many calories people used, called energy expenditure. But the number of calories burned didn’t increase dramatically as people got more exercise. Those who had a moderate activity level burned a few more calories daily, on average around 200, compared with the most inactive people. But those who exercised beyond the moderate activity level saw no effect of their extra effort as far as how many calories they burned.”
The study had its limitations, a given (sample size, short time period, no account for daily stress and it’s nearly impossible to accurately monitor how much people move and eat outside the laboratory, and not well controlled for age), but for some it’s justification for not exercising, as it suggests weight loss through exercise is like pushing a rock up a hill – that rock may just roll back down again.
Put down the remote and get off the couch. There is an answer to the study’s conclusions, one that serious trainers have known for decades. People who seriously train know to adapt their training routine so that it becomes progressively more difficult, and increases the likelihood of a higher calorie burn. Those who don’t ramp it up will only see “exercise onset loss” in the beginning, and experience emotional disappointment when the loss plateaus, which often leads to self-loathing, some binging, ending the exercises and no reason to start again.
“As one exercises, the body becomes more efficient and therefore the impact on the body is less leading the individual to plateau and not see further changes in weight loss and in the body,” said Helen Neves, a personal trainer with a BSc in Exercise Science from Concordia University, and also a Master Instructor at the YMCA in Montreal. “To avoid this, exercisers must change their routines and exercise every four to six weeks and within that time increase the intensity.”
This too is not something many of us want to embrace? Work harder?
“More than exercise, diet has the greater impact on weight loss,” adds Neves who firmly believes that exercise does benefit weight loss, paired with proper nutrition. “I don’t necessarily mean less calories. What I mean is proper dietary consumption of high quality foods so avoid added sugars and foods with little to no nutrition.”
Neves points out that when people diet as in cutting calories without ensuring adequate nutrition for their cells, their bodies will dip into their protein stores found in muscle and they will begin to store fat for future starvation bouts. “This is what causes the quick and added weight gain once the diet is stopped,” she said. “For those who need to cut calories, it is important to ensure high nutrition and high quality foods are ingested.”
Weight loss comes down to a combination of proper and consistently sound nutrition, continued exercise and then increasing levels of exercise intensity? In general, yes, but as a one-size-fits-all answer, no.
“Each individual requires slightly different nutrition and will react to different dose and volume of exercise,” Neves said. “The challenge is therefore not following someone else’s program but to identify what works best for each individual. A healthy body knows what to do and will shed the fat it does not need.”
It’s not the first study carried out in energy expenditure. In 2010, Pontzer studied a small sample of the Hadza of Tanzania, one of the world’s few known remaining hunter-gatherer societies, assuming that because of the walking associated with hunting and gathering, the individuals could maintain appropriate body weights. He found that the Hadza were burning the same energy, but they’re not as obese as Westerners. They don’t overeat so they don’t become obese, and they were resting more when they were not hunting and gathering.
It was a small sample, another given, yet it says, eat less and rest more, as opposed to eat less and move more. Losing weight is complicated. The study had implications for resting metabolic rates, or the number of calories the body burns maintaining our systems while at rest. That’s another story for another blog post.
So how does one keep the weight off once the weight is gone, hopefully for good? Is there one right way? No, there isn’t, and as we have learned it’s different for everybody, but there is one commonality for weight control once the weight has been properly shed – if you’re going to keep it off you’ve got to like how you’ve lost it enough to keep doing it.
Here is a tip someone sent me: When trying to lose weight, understand that the task often involves tackling eating habits that are as old as you are.
Richard Tardif is an award-winning Journalist, author and personal fitness trainer. Richard’s first book Stop the Denial: A Case for Embracing the Truth About Fitness, challenges, surprises, and inspires you to embrace a fitness lifestyle that will work in achieving your individual goals.
The Fitter blog is about nutrition, fitness, health and wellness. We cannot separate these values.
