
Exercising but Gaining Weight - prostoalex
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/12/exercising-but-gaining-weight/?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&bicmst=1409232722000&bicmet=1419773522000&abt=0002&abg=0&_r=0
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teen
Running on a treadmill for an hour is about 600 calories. Eating an extra
snack before bed can easily be that. To be calorie deficient and lose weight,
it is so much easier to eat less than to exercise more. On top of that,
exercising more can stimulate your appetite... leading to over eating.
Basically you just have to be vigilant with not eating too much. I don't think
counting calories is important, but 3 small meals (by american standards) or 2
regular meals a day, with low carbs, no sugar, and low dairy, will drop you to
normal proportions very quickly.

~~~
phlosten
I made massive changes to my diet a few months ago, after being diagnosed with
Type 2 Diabetes. The doctor said diet and exercise needed. Trying to keep it
simple I didn't worry about the exercise, just changed the diet, the weight
started falling off easily, as long as I ate regularly and kept my carbs to
what was required.

I started riding to work this week. I am so god damn hungry right now.

I think if you are really needing weight loss you need your doctor involved.
There is so much I have learned through having blood test results etc to work
from.

My tips if you are interested:

* Cut out any added sugar. No sugar in coffee or whatever. Easy way to reduce energy intake. No more soft drink. * Have enough carbs each meal so your body hormones etc are getting stuff to work with. * Stay away from processed foods, keep out of those aisles. * Make exercise a normal part of life and skip the gym. Gyms are demotivational hell holes of despair. Climb the stairs at work, ride the bike, park further away, just go for a walk around the block, walk randomly around the city to explore.

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cschmidt
> * Have enough carbs each meal so your body hormones etc are getting stuff to
> work with.

Your body doesn't actually need any carbs to function. It can run off of
ketones rather than glucose. You might be interested to look into the keto
diet, which works beautifully for people with diabetes. You eat low carb, but
high fat. The FAQ of /r/keto on reddit is a good place to start.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Keto In A Nutshell:
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gZfJejOM8fJsX1iCilmnpp1q...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gZfJejOM8fJsX1iCilmnpp1qmT_KncJwWCR4-EsaEHc/edit?pli=1)

/r/keto FAQ:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/keto/wiki/faq](https://www.reddit.com/r/keto/wiki/faq)

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rdtsc
People are ridiculously bad at estimating the caloric content of food they
eat. We can see the volume of food, feel the weight, taste it but we cannot
without practice and training easily guess how many calories it will be.

Also people are just as bad at estimating how many calories they would burn by
exercisng or walking.

We've all heard it -- "I'll need to walk around the block after eating that
piece of cheese cake" phrase. I've said it myself many times. Even though I
know it will take hours and hours of walking around a very large block to burn
it off so to speak.

One more thing. There is a negative aspect of exercising in relation to weight
that is often overlooked. Because of the pervious 2 points, people who do
exercise will rationalize eating more food because "they will burn them off in
15 min on treadmill".

Now I am using "calories" here in a simplistic way, but we had long
discussions before about how it is not as simple as calories and calories out.
It is bit more complicated -- hunger, hormones, insulin level, fat storage
rates etc.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
People are bad at estimating calories, but our bodies are really good at
regulating them, if you feed it properly. The low fat diet advice has done
horrendous things to people's metabolisms, leaving people insulin and leptin
resistant. The insulin resistance disregulates the flow of fat through adipose
membranes, favoring storage; the leptin resistance disregulates the appetite
homeostasis that should regulate appetite, hunger, and weight. It can all be
tracked back to the disproven diet heart hypothesis, and the fear of fat that
ensued (and became enshrined like a religion).

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mmastrac
I'll add my single datum here. I lost a bunch of weight using the Hacker's
Diet [1] when I was in university. I've occasionally put myself back on it as
I get older, but there are two things that I believe are true about the way
that I personally lose weight:

1) Losing weight while exercising is tough. I usually choose diet or exercise
at any given time (or just light exercise so I'm not completely unfit by the
end of the diet). I've had poor luck with exercise to lose weight, but it is
very effective for maintaining it.

2) Fasting at the start of the diet -- and only at the very beginning -- seems
to be critical to my success at losing weight [2]. Perhaps this has something
to do with gut bacteria, metabolism or some psychosomatic factors. I'm not
sure, but I basically cannot lose weight without that start.

As an aside, I've been very tempted to start an intermittent fast (even while
not losing weight!) after seeing Michael Mosley's program on BBC a few years
back. [3]

[1]
[https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/www/hackdiet.html](https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/www/hackdiet.html)

[2]
[https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/www/subsubsection1_3_3_0_3...](https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/www/subsubsection1_3_3_0_3_4.html#SECTION0330340000000000000)

[3]
[http://www.bbc.com/news/health-19112549](http://www.bbc.com/news/health-19112549)

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sytelus
Anyone with even a rudimentary training knows this fact: Exercise don't help
you loose weight. Even the heavy routines burn minuscule amount of calories
that would be compensated by just couple of slices of bread. Exercise helps
you build cardio and/or muscle strengths which is very different than loosing
weight. The only sure shot way of loosing weight is diet control. Just stop
eating simple carbs (aka white floor/grain/corn stuff and sugars from non-
natural sources) and you can drop weight and keep it that way.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Exercise don't help you loose weight. Even the heavy routines burn minuscule
> amount of calories that would be compensated by just couple of slices of
> bread. Exercise helps you build cardio and/or muscle strengths which is very
> different than loosing weight.

Increased muscle mass produces increased resting metabolic rate -- exercise
often isn't a short-term help to losing weight, but its a long term help.

More importantly, "losing weight" is usually not the real objective, its a
proxy measure for _improving overall health and fitness_ , for which exercise
is useful, even without weight loss.

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jacorreia
This study shows a bit of what the general public really needs to understand
about personal health: it's very hard to train multiple aspects of your
fitness with only one type of activity.

Doing cardio makes you better at cardio. Strength training makes you stronger.
Diet and hypertrophy improves your body composition.

You'll always hear people say "Oh your legs must be so strong from all those
marathons you do." Entirely false, their cardio-vascular system is strong. I
can virtually guarantee that any moderately dedicated powerlifter can squat
more than a long-distance runner (form notwithstanding). Similarly, a
marathoner's lean physique is a result of their diet, which they require in
order to be successful at running, not because of their training.

I really wish that more people would take the time to sit down, identify their
fitness goals, and ensure that their lifestyle is focused towards achieving
their goals. For most people, all this is taking a good look at your diet!

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marknutter
So the ones who gained weight were the one who said to themselves "I can have
this extra donut, I'm working out now". Fascinating stuff.

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moonka
>While this study didn’t track the women’s eating and movement habits away
from the lab, it is likely that those who gained weight began eating more and
moving less when they weren’t on the treadmills, “probably without meaning
to,” Dr. Gaesser said.

Without knowing the whole picture, it seems hard to draw any sort of
meaningful conclusion. Weight loss is almost entirely diet-based.

~~~
tomhenderson
People often overeat when they start exercising, either because they're hungry
from the exercise, or because they feel can indulge a bit as a reward.

My view is that most people should ignore exercise and fix their diet first,
only easing in to an exercise routine slowly once they start to see weight
loss results.

~~~
moonka
>My view is that most people should ignore exercise and fix their diet first,
only easing in to an exercise routine slowly once they start to see weight
loss results.

Agreed. In the last few months, I've lost about 20 pounds via diet alone. I'm
starting to incorporate exercise now, and it's a lot easier to keep going day
after day since I can move easier, so I don't get discouraged as easily.

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dnautics
this is what I would have predicted from the description of the experimental
setup. My understanding of human metabolism (which could be flawed, I'm a
biochem PhD, not a nutrition PhD) For most people, regular aerobic exercise
results in the body more regularly entering starvation mode and saving energy
= storing fat. However, I suspect there are people with that signal defective,
who can run like crazy and become thin as rails. For most of the rest of
people, building muscle is a better strategy for losing weight.

~~~
meepmorp
Starvation mode in the sense that you seem to intend is a myth:
[http://examine.com/faq/how-do-i-stay-out-of-starvation-
mode....](http://examine.com/faq/how-do-i-stay-out-of-starvation-mode.html)

Probably. I'm not an expert.

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stevebmark
Exercise controls mainly muscle composition.

Diet controls mainly fat composition.

Exercising to lose weight is a stupid idea.

Stop getting your health research from the news. Go read a book written by a
doctor.

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thisrod
For the purpose of this study, "exercise" means "walked on treadmills ...
three times per week for 30 minutes". I'd be cautious about extrapolating the
results to more than homeopathic doses.

