
Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight, explained with studies - hmppark7
http://www.vox.com/2016/4/28/11518804/weight-loss-exercise-m...
======
rukuu001
I've lost the reference, but the result of a decently-sized study (based on
self-reported data) on people who moved from the obese (or morbidly obese)
category into the healthy category and stayed there for 12 months:

80% lost the weight with diet and exercise changes; slightly less than 20%
lost the weight with diet changes alone; less than 1% lost the weight with
exercise alone.

------
mikekchar
The key is how much exercise. Jog a mile and that's around 100 kcal. Now, go
to a corner store and look at every single snack on the shelves.

Can you find one that is less than 100 kcal?

How many can you find that are over 500 kcal? That's 5 miles. In my corner
store I can find _lots_ of snacks that are up in the 800 kcal range (it's a
meal!!!). 8 miles. Of jogging.

One of the things that drives me crazy is that if you go on the internet and
find calorie calculators for exercise, they are often wrong by a fairly high
margin. You'll see sites that tell you that you'll burn 1200 kcal from an hour
of cycling. Well... if you are riding 45 kph, then yeah...

It's pretty easy to lose weight from exercise if you do it regularly and don't
increase your diet. If you burn 500 kcal a day (jogging 5 miles or 8 km --
every day!), then you'll burn a pound a week. But that muffin you eat as a
reward? Or that power bar you enjoy on your 20 km cycle route. Yeah... Sorry,
you're back to zero.

And that's the problem. It takes real effort to burn a pound a week and it
takes absolutely no effort to eat a pound a week. So you definitely should
exercise, but you _must_ watch your diet at the same time. Some people are
good because they don't increase their diet at the same time as the exercise.
But most people need to pay attention.

~~~
WkndTriathlete
You mention the inaccurate exercise calorie burn calculators, but then state
that jogging one mile burns 100 kcal. For most people, jogging one mile does
not burn anywhere close to 100 kcal.

Calorie burn rates for untrained to semi-trained people fall in the 1-4
kcal/minute range. For trained individuals, burn rates can go as high as 15-20
kcal/minute during interval training. For reference, elite-level long-distance
endurance racers (marathoners, long-course triathletes) typically burn about 3
kcal/minute.

~~~
mikekchar
Hmmm... You made me break out the calculator. I'm thinking 150 w is probably
about right for the effort for a 10 minute mile. 150 wH is roughtly 130 kcal.
So divided by 6 that gives just over 20 kcal. So you are right!

It shows you how easy it is to fall into the trap of repeating things you've
heard :-P

~~~
js2
Now wait just a second here. Looking at:

[http://www.runnersworld.com/peak-performance/running-v-
walki...](http://www.runnersworld.com/peak-performance/running-v-walking-how-
many-calories-will-you-burn)

Which summarizes:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22446673](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22446673)

A 156 lb subject burns 112.5 kcal/mile running a 10 minute mile. But that's
gross calories. A random BMR calculator (5'8" male, 156 lbs, 45 y/o i.e.
myself + 10 lbs) gives ~ 1600 kcal/day, which is 1.1 kcal/minute, or 11 kcal
in 10 minutes. So that's a net kcal burn of pretty close to 100 kcal/mile.

What am I missing?

(Aside, I ran over 3300 miles last year and did not lose weight; I don't doubt
the futility of trying to lose weight through exercise alone.)

~~~
mikekchar
I think the difference is the amount of energy that you burn directly from the
running and the amount of energy that you burn due to increased
metabolism/repairing your body due to the exercise. The first is not going to
be that different between people, but the second could possibly be quite
variable. I spent a bit of time trying to find primary sources for the
justification of these numbers and I couldn't find anything easily. I don't
doubt they exist, but I've been burned enough times through sloppy
interpretations of scientific papers that it probably makes sense to take a
close look before I shoot off my mouth again ;-)

I suppose either way, the original point stands -- it's incredibly easy to eat
your way out of progress made with exercise.

------
hmppark7
I used to think that running on a treadmill was the only way to lose weight.
So I was eating 3,600 calories of pasta every single day and ironically trying
to burn those extra calories with a 30 minute walk. Fat loss is done through
proper eating, I wish the fitness industry would stop advertising more
advanced ab workouts for losing belly fat.

~~~
anta40
Last month, I tried to limit my calorie intake. I lost about 1 kg/week. And I
didn't do any exercise, at all.

Maybe I'd achive greater weight loss if combined with exercises, though.

~~~
tekklloneer
You would. Calories in - calories out.

Simple math. That's not all there is to it, but if you're trying to burn fat,
it'll take you most of the way there.

~~~
holri
It is not that simple. Regular exercise raises also your base energy
consumption while you are not exercising. All that muscles, greater heart,
bones etc. have to built somehow after exercise, that uses energy. You are not
getter faster, lighter and stronger while running, but in the rest.

~~~
maxerickson
The maintenance burn on a pound of muscle is pretty small.

Like 5-10 calories a day.

~~~
holri
It is not only maintenance but also building burn.

------
notacoward
The real point is not that X does or doesn't work, but that weight gain/loss
is complicated and personal. I lost ~40 pounds after I started running. My
diet was essentially the same or maybe a bit worse - the "compensatory
behavior" mentioned in the article. Do I expect running to have the same
effect for everyone, and recommend it to everyone on that basis? Nope. It
didn't even completely work that way for me. After I lost 40, I slowly gained
back 10 before my weight seemed to stabilize. This time, _definitely_ no
change in diet. No idea why that happened.

I could name a dozen friends who have had similarly "anomalous" experiences -
both good and bad, with various approaches to weight loss. Turns out there's a
lot going on in there, and not the same lot for everyone. Some studies have
shown that gut flora have a large effect on weight gain/loss, so at least for
some people the answer might be neither diet (as generally thought of) nor
exercise but changing one's internal ecosystem. The good news is that
biologists and medical researchers are beginning to untangle these factors, so
in another ten years we might all have access to _personalized_ weight control
that actually works consistently.

------
aspyct
Well exercise worked for me. Started cycling to work, lost 10kg in 6 months,
with no change made to my diet.

~~~
thanksgiving
Maybe you're right but if you're anything like me, I don't believe you.

I am just not a good observer for my own actions. The very act of logging what
I eat changes what I eat, how much I eat, and how often.

If you asked me last year how I lost weight, I'd have said by drinking more
water. That is likely not true in hindsight. At least, it is not the complete
truth. The point is that I can't tell you what worked, even just for me.

~~~
stefs
maybe not the complete truth but: drinking more water makes you feel fuller
and thus less hungry, decreasing your overall calorie intake by making you
less likely to snack.

~~~
cardiffspaceman
Here's a study of just the satiety part [0]. Now, I won't state that there
couldn't be an effect on diet anyway.

[0] "Drinking water prior to a meal does not affect hunger and satiety ratings
in young adults and older subjects"

[https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-
core/c...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-
core/content/view/S0029665111004642)

------
satysin
Weight loss really isn't that complicated.

Want to lose weight? Consume less calories than your body needs so it has to
convert your excess fat for fuel.

Exercise can help you use more calories so you get a slightly bigger deficit
but unless you exercise like crazy every day it isn't going to give you much
of a deficit.

I think the issue is people think doing half an hour of cardio and some
weights means they can continue to eat whatever they want or only do slight
calorie reduction.

If you are not losing weight it is because you are still consuming more
calories than you need.

Exercise is great for making you fitter but weight loss comes from calorie
reduction.

So calculate how many calories your body needs based on age, sex, height,
weight and honest daily activities and then eat 15% less and you _will_ lose
weight.

Edit: Just to be clear I am _not_ saying exercise isn't important. Everyone
should exercise but, IMHO, the more important part of losing weight is getting
your calorie intake under control.

~~~
wry_discontent
You can see the problem in the article: "And according to my bike, I had
burned more than 700 calories. Surely I had earned an extra margarita."

No, that's not how food works. That's why your diets fail.

I think some people are talking past one another in these discussions. Yes,
you will lose weight if you consume fewer calories than you burn. But the
discussion of _how_ to make that happen is more complicated.

------
dimitar
Great work by Vox, I love how much they do on informing the public.

BTW the Vice URL: [http://www.vox.com/2016/4/28/11518804/weight-loss-
exercise-m...](http://www.vox.com/2016/4/28/11518804/weight-loss-exercise-
myth-burn-calories)

~~~
TamDenholm
Thanks for this, the yellow highlighting was extremely annoying, i didnt
realise it wasnt even the original url until i started looking for a way to
turn it off.

------
akuji1993
Clickbait title. A better way to name is would've been "Why exercise is not
enough to lose weight".

~~~
ealexhudson
Nonsense. The studies show that exercise will limit your weight loss even when
you control your calorific intake: so if your primary goal is to lose weight,
you shouldn't be exercising. The title is fine.

Of course, it's not the _healthiest_ option, but that's not the point of the
article.

~~~
vorotato
Actually the article itself said that exercise and portion control lost the
most weight.

"In general, diet with exercise can work better than calorie cutting alone,
but with only marginal additional weight-loss benefits."

Then they show a chart where people who exercised ate a little more didn't
lose as much weight. Well big surprise , they were cheating.

------
chatmasta
Why does everyone need to make weight loss so complicated? All you need to do
is burn more calories each day than you consume. If you're not exercising,
you're still burning calories, so in that case you just need to eat less than
you're burning!

Maybe the trouble is people exercise and then they think they're hungrier than
they are so they eat more calories than they even burned.

~~~
oxide
Calories in, calories out. I know this because I struggle to gain weight,
quite the opposite problem most folk have.

If I eat over 3k calories, I gain weight. If I eat less than 3k, I lose it.

Not tracking my calories and quitting my workouts due to wisdom teeth
extraction and a nasty sinus infection turned chronic has cost me 20lbs.

20lbs I worked very, very hard to gain. Consuming half a gallon of whole milk
a day, forcing myself to eat even when I had no appetite, etc. Working out. I
felt great and looked better than I had in awhile. All gone now, back to
square one.

My goal is to get over this sinus infection, (black plague, whatever it is)
continue counting calories, as well as exercising, to put that weight back on
and then some.

~~~
return0
Time is your friend. After 30 it becomes a lot easier :)

~~~
coldtea
Time is not exactly a friend. After 30 parent might have the opposite
problem...

~~~
return0
its a bad friend

------
upofadown
>We have very little control over our basal metabolic rate, but it's our
biggest energy hog. "It's generally accepted that for most people, the basal
metabolic rate accounts for 60 to 80 percent of total energy expenditure,"
Kravitz said.

This is hardly a new discovery. The article tries to present the well known
fact that weight is mostly related to calories in vs calories out as something
that could actually useful in some way but then fails to come up with any
helpful advice.

Sure, exercise is not all that for weight loss, but what else is there? You
have to exercise anyway for health so it isn't like exercise is a variable in
anyone's lives. If exercise doesn't make me skinny then why should I care?

After working out all summer I have a significantly more muscle and a
significantly less body fat. For all I know I might actually be heavier at the
end of the summer. I don't really know because I don't pay any real attention
to my weight. I think it is an overrated metric.

------
ensiferum
Short explanation:

It's much easier to control your diet than it is to run a marathon every other
day.

~~~
wvh
But if you can force yourself to run a marathon every other day, you'd very
likely also be able to stick to a healthy diet. So both kind of depend on
self-control – or whatever one wants to call it – and it would be interesting
to know what exactly makes modern (or western?) people so different in this
regard, as well as the difference between individuals with a similar
background.

~~~
coldtea
> _But if you can force yourself to run a marathon every other day, you 'd
> very likely also be able to stick to a healthy diet._

And you'd also have huge damage to your bones, feet and possibly heart.

------
muse900
As a person that have lost over 40kg's in the past I'd say this is a very true
point.

I converted from an obese man to a gym body person.

The process was long and took a lot of discipline. After years keeping it I'd
say the thing I've learned from it is that your diet is around 70% of the
effort you have to put in.

A lot of people think that lets say bodybuilders are just a product of drugs
"oh ye if I take steroids I'll become like him" ... No. Thats definitely not
true. While I don't condone the use of any enhancement, I have to admit that
being a bodybuilder is a lot more tougher than you think and it requires a lot
more discipline on your schedule than you'd think. So yes cut down food and
yes exercise a bit... dont just stay inactive, even walking helps ( You'll
find out later that the more active you remain by walking etc the easier its
going to be when you are older ).

------
peteretep
Can't outrun a fork.

------
cousin_it
I'm 34 and stay thin (BMI 21) by eating as much non-carb food as I want and
doing strength training every couple days. My theory is that starving yourself
and running long distances is counterproductive, because it teaches your body
to be economical with energy, which is the opposite of what you want. And
eating mostly fat is good for you, because it keeps hunger in check and
teaches your body to use fat for fuel, which is exactly what you want. It's
broscience, but it works for me.

~~~
magic_beans
So what do you eat for lunch during the work week, for example? And for
dinner?

~~~
cousin_it
Meat, fish, eggs, dairy, nuts, leafy greens, onions, mushrooms... Also fruit
or berries if I want something sweet. No bananas though, because they make me
hungry. A great lunch for me would be a lot of chicken with cream, mushrooms
and onions, then an orange for dessert. Washed down with water (I hate soda).

------
vorotato
Article says, exercise alone is not enough to lose weight. Well duh. That's
like saying driving your car is not enough to lose gas, because you keep
filling it up. People who say Oh you just need to exercise more don't realize
that some people eat a mountain of food every single time they eat. People
will likely use this clickbait title to sit on their ass and drown themselves
under a mountain of carbs or if they're "trying to eat healthy" a vat of beef.

Lets clarify things. If you're not exercising that's a problem. You should be
exercising, it's healthy. Do not worry about if exercising is going to make
you lose weight or not. If you're not controlling portions that's a problem
and it will make you fat. Exercise will not fix your 3000 calorie a day diet.
Don't think that because you're eating 3500 calories of beef a meal that
you're going to lose weight because it's not carbs. Do not expect a restaurant
to give you a normal portion because the average american restaurant gives you
a personal food trough. Do not expect to lose weight by eating normal meals
but then snacking literally all day long, or drinking calorie rich beverages
all day long.

------
return0
"Exercise" and "diet" are very vague parameters . In each organism, exercise
means different things, and nutrients are consumed differently. Even calories
are a bad parameter. We need a more scientific approach to diet, based on
individual metabolic profiles.

------
amelius
> The researchers behind the study found that people who have had success
> losing weight share a few things in common: They weigh themselves at least
> once a week. They restrict their calorie intake, stay away from high-fat
> foods, and watch their portion sizes.

There's also research showing that staying away from high-carb foods can help
lose weight. [1]

See especially this diagram: [2]

> They also exercise regularly.

So we should exercise to lose weight, contrary to the title of the article?

[1] [https://authoritynutrition.com/23-studies-on-low-carb-and-
lo...](https://authoritynutrition.com/23-studies-on-low-carb-and-low-fat-
diets/)

[2] [https://cdn.authoritynutrition.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/1...](https://cdn.authoritynutrition.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/10/Weight-loss-on-low-carb-and-low-fat-diets-smaller.jpg)

~~~
WA
> _There 's also research showing that staying away from high-carb foods_

Most people should actually watch their carb intake more than their high-fat
intake. The most silly products are fat-reduced but sugary things, such as
certain cereals.

------
stefs
good article, but what i miss is: if there's a biological ceiling, how do we
explain top athletes that burn 10k calories a day?

~~~
halomru
I think it's more reasonable to call it a plateau than a ceiling. There's only
so much energy the body can conserve in other activities.

If you do six hours of exercise burning 1000 calories per hour, it's
physically impossible to compensate that away: in that day you burned at least
6000 calories, and more realistically upwards of 7000 (keeping your body alive
for another 18 hours, building/repairing muscles, etc). I guess the article
conveniently leaves that out because it's largely irrelevant: few people are
able to invest that amount of time into their diet.

~~~
scarface74
I was a part time fitness instructor for over 10 years. I would burn about
1000-2000 calories exercising most days of the week. It did help me lose a
maintain weight loss because I definitely didn't watch what I eat.

That being said, I would always tell other people that to key to weight loss
and maintenance isn't "dieting" it's finding a combination of cutting back on
how much you eat and exercise that is sustainable for you long term.

The other part of the equation is that realistically, unless you are already
in shape, your body can't handle the intensity required to burn 1500 calories
in a day in a reasonable amount of time. If the most you can handle is walking
4 miles an hour, you'll be walking three or four hours a day. I know people
who run 6 miles a day in the morning and in the evening but it took awhile to
build up to that.

------
richardboegli
"Just eat less"

Shameless plug....

Fed up with diet and exercise failing, I proved to myself that I could lose
weight without exercise and wrote a book about it using my diary notes. I lost
40kg in 40 weeks (90lb in 9 months) without exercise.

[http://40in40book.com](http://40in40book.com)

------
bmh_ca
My wife had a terrible autoimmune disease (dermatomyositis) and gained a lot
of weight because she was pumped with huge amounts of steroids.

So I looked into some of the biochemistry, social, psychological, and
neurological factors around weight loss, and there's a few crucial problems:

1\. Most of the information and advice is unscientific, pro-industry, or
outright fraud that peddles feel-good short-term weight loss for long-term
financial gain;

2\. The common-sense approach, "eat less", does not work – evidence suggest it
fails to take into account how the brain and body work (and, in particular,
how we make decisions);

3\. There are at least three equilibriums in balance, of which we tend to deal
only with the first:

i.) The short-term hunger cycle (days) – i.e. we eat when we're hungry;

ii.) The medium-term (months) "set-point", deep in the decision-making part of
the brain, that crops up (there's a good Ted talk about this), that controls
metabolic function - how much we eat, and of what we eat how much is stored as
fat;

iii.) The long-term/result-based (months-years) hydrocarbon cycle - hormones
emitted because of fat cells that are not flush with energy (i.e. living fat
cells that can contain more hydrogen) trigger brain chemistry changes that
appear to trigger reduced inhibitions during decision making. Binging.

4\. Stigma and social support – understanding of weight-loss is widely
misunderstood, oversimplified, taken for granted, or part of a counter-
productive commercial motivation (i.e. in Western society we're surrounded by
people who think you can pay for weight loss — "I went to Jenny Craig and lost
10lbs"). People trying to lose weight are often shunned from the very social
settings needed for weight loss to occur, and commercially driven advice
dominates our perceptions, leaving it tainted or geared towards short-term
cycles of self-doubt, insecurity, impotence, and frustration, that in almost
all cases (>95%, IIRC) leads to perpetual, cyclical weight gain.

It seems that for any weight loss to be permanent, it must deal with all three
cycles. Media articles like the linked are helpful for spreading awareness of
the complexity of the issue, but they rarely go beyond a widely-accepted
single-focus theory ("eating > exercise"), which I recall being common
knowledge in the 1980's (when we used to say "diet is 90% of the battle").

All that said, there appear to be two ways that have a substantial probability
of permanent weight-loss:

A.) become a calorie-counting fanatic; or B.) gastric bypass (staples, not the
tube).

The number of people who have the mental fortitude and social setting to
sustain A. is less than 0.5%, I seem to recall. Leaving bypass surgery as the
only option, but it remains expensive and uncommon.

One article I read indicated that if everyone who needed bypass had it, many
food companies in the USA would be driven out of business. I thought that was
a fascinating insight into the meta-forces that could be at work.

The above is just a set of highlights from my recollection of critically
reading hundreds of articles on the topic. What was particularly striking
during my research was how weak (if not outright misleading) the vast majority
of the articles were, with a few – sadly, exceedingly – rare exceptions.

In future we might come to understand the biology better, but that's a small
part of the battle. I suspect much research needs to happen on the medium-term
"set-point", but it would appear that we need not just research but a better
formulation of how research is fundamentally driven, commercial food and
weight-loss incentives are aligned with health and actual results, cultural
attitudes that help sustain sensible choices rather than stigmatize and
ostracize, and better ways for information about complex topics such as this
to be disseminated in useful ways.

------
Nelkins
Meta question for OP: Do you have an association with Liner? I notice that
this is the second article you've posted that uses it[1].

To any mod that reads this: Can the URL be changed to point to the original
article[2]?

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13801423](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13801423)

[2] [http://www.vox.com/2016/4/28/11518804/weight-loss-
exercise-m...](http://www.vox.com/2016/4/28/11518804/weight-loss-exercise-
myth-burn-calories)

Edit: I see that you do from your submission history[3]. This seems a little
disingenuous to me.

[3]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=hmppark7](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=hmppark7)

~~~
dang
Thanks—we changed the URL from
[http://getliner.com/AaD03?hacker=true](http://getliner.com/AaD03?hacker=true).

It's ok for people to post their own stuff to HN (though not exclusively, and
not overdoing it). But it's not ok to post URLs that hijack or wrap other
URLs. That breaks the HN guideline asking for original sources:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

