
Mice compensate for extra exercise by reducing other physical activity: study - montrose
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/well/move/why-exercise-alone-may-not-be-the-key-to-weight-loss.html
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dljsjr
This headline could not be more uninformative if it tried unless it was
totally off topic.

Like probably a lot of people here, I read the headline and said to myself "no
shit, of course diet matters" but then I read the article and the conclusion
is actually pretty interesting: CICO is of course still king and that's not at
all what this is about; this group did a mouse study and found that when they
increased the amount of exercise available to the mice (and they started to
exercise more), something happened _that was not fatigue related_ that cause
them to be MORE sedentary when they were not exercising, and in fact the
increase in sedentary behavior almost perfectly counteracted the increased
energy consumption from the running (they still ended up slightly net negative
but extremely minor).

It's a short article and worth the read. Still a garbage headline.

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dang
If you can get it into 80 chars we'll change the headline above.

Edit: eloff wins for simplicity and good English.

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eloff
Mice compensate for extra exercise by reducing other physical activity

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dang
Lord that's impressive. Can I get an API?

~~~
eloff
Hah, that made my day :)

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mikenew
I would love to see resistance training looked at in comparison to distance
running, which is usually what's meant by "exercise" in this context. The
theory behind jogging for exercise is that you'll raise your calorie output,
but as the article states, you may just end up compensating by being less
energetic throughout the rest of the day or feeling hungrier and eating more.
The idea behind resistance training is that you apply a stress to your
muscles, and in response to that stress your body dedicates a higher than
normal percentage of the calories you take in to repairing and rebuilding your
muscle fiber.

Anecdotally, I've been powerlifting for the past 2 years or so as my
"exercise", and while I weigh about what I did two years ago, my body looks
completely different. Weightlifting may not cause you to lose weight, but no
one actually wants to lose weight, they want to lose fat.

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paulcole
Do you think that distance running doesn't apply stress to the muscles?

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mikenew
Anabolic and catabolic stress is dramatically different. Just compare the body
of an olympic marathon runner vs an olympic weightlifter. The limiting factor
for jogging is usually your cardiovascular system, and you stop when you feel
exhausted, not when your leg muscles can't move anymore. That's why it's
referred to as "cardio". In weightlifting you stress your muscles to near the
point of failure, not your cardiovascular system.

~~~
paulcole
> Just compare the body of an olympic marathon runner vs an olympic
> weightlifter

Is this a useful comparison? Olympic marathoners are small people who are
extremely weight conscious. Olympic weightlifters are also very aware of their
weights as they compete in weight classes.

> The limiting factor for jogging is usually your cardiovascular system, and
> you stop when you feel exhausted, not when your leg muscles can't move
> anymore.

No offense but this is just telling me you're guessing and don't know much
about distance running or jogging. Most average people who run for exercise
stop because they've finished their workout not from exhaustion.

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mikenew
I used to be a distance runner but had to stop because of an injury, and I'm
now a powerlifter. So yes I do know something about it. What is your point?
Are you trying to argue that distance running leads to the same level of
muscle hypertrophy as weightlifting?

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byteCoder
For weight loss, diet is more important than exercise, by far.

There are several aphorisms about this:

1\. "Abs are made in the kitchen." 2\. "You can't outrun a bad diet."

Personally, I've found that carb restriction (e.g., Keto) has worked well for
me for keeping my blood sugar (A1c) levels down (with an added bonus of weight
loss). YMMV

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garrettdc
I've seen keto work great for a lot of people. Generally, they have been those
that tended to overeat on carbs and junk foods like chips, soda, pizza, etc.

The mechanism at the end of the day is still caloric restriction that leads to
weight loss. Keto is just a means to that end.

~~~
bad_user
Yes and no, calories aren’t equal.

E.g. insulin levels affects digestion, food high in sugars stimulates insulin
secretion, which in turn leads to more fat being stored.

Foods made of refined carbohydrates can give you diabetes and yes, you can eat
more calories on a Keto diet, versus a high carbs diet. I know because I tried
both, with strict measurements and daily notes.

That said, I don’t think keto diets are healthy. Our body is made to eat
vegetables. And we need carbs and sugars too — except that when they come from
fruits and vegetables, you also get fibers, which diminishes insulin
secretion, plus you get needed nutrients not found in white bread or
cheesecake, so again, we’re talking of calories that aren’t equal.

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jzoch
I had the opposite experience. I measured calories everyday and for some time
would still eat garbage but lose exactly what I calculated according to my
TDEE (adjusted over time based on actual results not some calculator) and when
I switched to eating healthful foods experienced exactly the same weight loss
with the caveat that it was SO MUCH EASIER. I was hungry less often and felt
good rather than terrible with headaches. All in all, a calorie is a calorie
is true enough that whether or not its a bad calorie wont significantly affect
your weight loss but will make the process much easier and you'll end up
healthier as a result of eating well.

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eloff
A calorie is a calorie is just too simplistic. I used to hold that viewpoint,
but I think now reality is more nuanced.

1) A ketogenic diet is wasteful by nature, you excrete some percent of the
calories you consume.

2) It completely ignores the effects of hormones. You need insulin to store
fat and build muscle. A diet that triggers more insulin may result in storing
more fat. This does not violate the first law of thermodynamics - this energy
will either be burned from your fat stores, or compensated for by reducing
your metabolism. I expect in reality a combination of both.

~~~
bad_user
It's not only simplistic. It's _reductionist_ , the mentality that promoted
margarine over butter and sweetened foods over fatty foods since 1960,
yielding generations of diabetic, obese people with heart problems and
increased rates of cancer, to the point that we're considering it an epidemic.

Nutritionists have promoted so many falsehoods based on faulty studies,
forever damaging the image of the healthcare industry, that people now feel
justified in ignoring sound medical advice and embracing alt-truth (e.g. anti-
vaxers).

~~~
eloff
alt-truth, that made me chuckle. I should `#define alttruth false` and then
replace all instances of false with alttruth for an April 1st commit.

But I understand that mentality. I see myself as a very logical person
compared to the general population, yet when my doctor tells me I need to
lower my cholesterol, I ignore her. What does she know? What they taught her
in Medical school, and I don't trust that at all. She doesn't have the time in
our rushed 10 minute appointments to debate me on the subject, or even give me
a recommended reading list.

I feel the need to do my own research on the subject by reading medical papers
but I haven't had the energy or inclination yet. From what I have bumped into
over the years, it seems your basic HDL and LDL numbers don't say much about
risk of heart disease or stroke.

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hn_throwaway_99
"Fork putdowns" have been the commonly recommended "exercise" for weight loss
by many in fitness community for a long time for good reason :)

~~~
komali2
For the obese gamers chugging mountain dew(me, and my friends) the biggest
difference came from switching to drinking water. That got us down to weights
that seemed feasible to diet and exercise our ways further down.

It was a super simple shift and wrought such a significant change to our body
shape and weight that we were motivated to do the "hard" things - i.e. diet
and exercise.

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aklemm
Quitting sugary drinks is one of the best things I ever did.

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obeattie
So I think the theory is that when we take up exercise, we move less during
non-exercise time. They explored this in mice by tracking their movements with
infrared devices.

But surely we have oodles of data from devices like Fitbits and Apple Watches
to know whether this behaviour is true for humans or not.

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WillPostForFood
We may move less during non-exercise time, but also eat more, because we are
extra hungry from exercising.

 _exercisers, whatever their species, tend to become hungrier and consume more
calories after physical activity. They also may grow more sedentary outside of
exercise sessions. Together or separately, these changes could compensate for
the extra energy used during exercise, meaning that, over all, energy
expenditure doesn’t change and a person’s or rodent’s weight remains
stubbornly the same._

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at-fates-hands
I remember when I got out of college and had stopped playing sports. My
roommate at the time convinced me to start weight lifting and training hard at
the gym. I was taking all kinds of supplements (creatine, various amino acids,
whey protein, etc), working out 1.5 to 2 hours at a time, and it was working,
albeit slowly.

Looking back a few years later, I realized maybe I didn't see the big changes
I was expecting since my roommate and I would hit the Burger King on the way
home since we were always so hungry after working out. It dawned on me we were
completely erasing all the work we just did in the matter of twenty minutes
eating cheeseburgers and onion rings with several cups of pop to boot.

~~~
azemetre
If you're talking about gaining strength you need to continually lift more
weight before you reach your natural limit every session. It shouldn't be too
hard for the average man to reach a 180/bench 200/deadlift 240/squat after a
years worth of training.

It's also hard to gain muscular physiques in general. You have to cut an
enormous amount of body fat to obtain things like an Adonis belt but if your
goal is strength it shouldn't be too hard to hit novice benchmarks.

I also doubt you were seriously burning the amount of calories you think you
were working out. Unless you're a professional or Olympic athlete, someone who
is training for over 6 hours a day, you will likely never burn more than 400
calories from a "moderate" gym session.

People dramatically over estimate how much they burn working out. There's a
reason why people say "You can't outrun a bad diet."

~~~
stevesimmons
> People dramatically over estimate how much they burn working out.

Not to mention many people spend just a fraction of their time in the gym
actually lifting weights. Mostly sitting at machines, resting between sets and
playing with their phone.

My gym routine is "super-sets" pairs of exercises working complementary groups
of muscles. So I'll do say 4 sets of lat pulldowns alternating with shoulder
presses, with zero breaks. Then switch immediately to the next pair of
exercises.... Net result is far higher average intensity in a shorter time.

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lukeschlather
This article (and the study) sort of is working from a faulty premise, which
is that losing weight is a good thing. There's a lot of evidence that losing
_fat_ is a good thing, but if you increase your muscle mass by 10% and your
fat mass by 3%, is that bad? What if you decrease your muscle mass by 5% and
also decrease your fat mass by 5%?

Without accurately measuring that sort of thing, I worry most diet studies
only muddle the conversation with meaningless anecdotes when it's unclear what
the weight loss actually consisted of.

~~~
bo1024
Another common false implication is that weight loss is the "only" good thing.
Cardiovascular health is important as well.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Sugar causes cardiovascular inflammation and doesn’t satiate you.

A high fat, moderate protein, low carb diet (ie “ketogenic”) will cause weight
loss with no exercise while increasing cardiovascular health (stick to plant
material if you can versus a meat heavy diet, to keep colorectal cancer at
bay).

If you pick one exercise to do, lift weights, either to increase or maintain
muscle mass.

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chiefalchemist
> "In most of these experiments, the participants lost far less weight than
> would have been expected, mathematically, given how many additional calories
> they were burning with their workouts."

Maybe it's the sceptic in me, but I'm reading this as: the calorie model is
broken, or at least flawed.

When someone else reproduces this I'll give it a second chance. As it is,
calorie fail aside, I get the feeling someone beat up their data and/or had an
odd set of mice. That is "get different mice, we're not finding anything
interesting."

Personally, I'm extremely unlikely to change my diet + exercise habits over a
mouse.

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imhelpingu
Exercise modulates my appetite such that I eat much healthier. I know it's
anecdotal, but this effect is patently obviously to me.

~~~
majos
I find that it makes it easier for me to eat more, to the extent that as I try
to gain weight I've taken up sprinting again -- I just find it easier to eat
more after sprinting, more I'm sure than I actually burn in 15 minutes of
sprints.

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douglaswlance
People tend to compartmentalize "exercise" as the thing they do at the gym or
a couple times a week; instead of the activity they're doing all day, every
day.

You are always exercising to a certain degree, every second of every day. From
sleeping to full exertion--you're always somewhere along that spectrum of
physical activity.

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marcc
Of course not. Common advice given to a new runner who is trying to lose
weight is "you can't outrun a bad diet".

Exercise is super important in maintaining good cardiovascular health, a good
mental state, and does help with weight loss.

~~~
cup-of-tea
In fact, if you run and keep eating too much you'll stay fat and destroy your
joints.

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solracanobra
So what's the benefit of these? We understand that the key to weight loss is
calories in, calories out.

What's so hard to understand about that..? Maybe I am missing the point. Is
this just to gather more evidence to prove caloric deficits are the correct
way?

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Faaak
CICO is not exactly true. Not all calories are equal. Fat calories, for
example, are much less absorbed by the body than carbohydrates.

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Andre_Wanglin
It's still CICO. It's just that the way we currently measure the caloric
content of a food does not represent what is actually bioavailable.

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laretluval
So it’s CICO for some unobservable quantity of calories. Real useful.

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adrianN
It's really useful if you don't change your diet, but eat less of the same
stuff as before.

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laretluval
Not necessarily. Bioavailable calories may not be a linear function of
calories consumed.

CICO is empirically vacuous.

