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> "It's so obvious it's amazing this hasn't already been a thing since the beginning of the obesity epidemic." Why is that obvious? Because you think there's a

> "It's so obvious it's amazing this hasn't already been a thing since the beginning of the obesity epidemic." Why is that obvious? Because you think there's a link between being overweight and exercise? Exercise does not promote weight loss. (You can do a quick google search if you don't believe it.) The most important thing to influence weight loss is the nutrition. On a related note, I find it borderline sadistic that we make fat people believe they are fat because they are lazy and don't exercise enough.

15155 11y ago
Exactly this. Fat people are generally fat because of excess caloric intake. The amount of physical (aerobic) exercise needed to even burn off a can of Coke is incredible.
- Retric 11y ago
  A coke is ~10% of your daily calorie needs.* It's not that exercise is ineffective it's junk food has stupid high calorie counts plus it's easy to digest. On top of that most Americans have an incredibly lazy lifestyle. If your extremely active and stick with actual food eating enough can feel like a chore. PS: A coke is also 8 to 24 oz which is a fairly wide range.
- harmarsupercar 11y ago
  A can of coke contains about 155 calories. An average person can do practically anything which is reasonably considered exercise for 30 minutes and burn that off: http://www.health.harvard.edu/diet-and-weight-loss/calories-burned-in-30-minutes-of-leisure-and-routine-activities http://www.health.harvard.edu/diet-and-weight-loss/calories-... Hardly "incredible". Research has shown that diet is more critical than activity in the occurrence of obesity, but that doesn't been that activity doesn't matter at all.
Frondo 11y ago
That is an odd, bold claim to make, that exercise doesn't promote weight loss. I'm at something of a loss to explain how, without changing my diet, but with adding 30-50 miles of cycling (plus a little jogging) a week, I've been losing around 5 pounds a month for the last six months. Honest question time: if it isn't the exercise, what is it?
- cheepin 11y ago
  Exercise clearly helps, but it all comes down to energy balance. You can eat less, or increase calories burned through exercise to generally get the scale heading in the right direction. The problem some people have is when exercise increases their appetite to the point where they continue consuming too many calories. I looked at the article that OP referred to. It's main critique is using exercise instead of diet as a weight loss tactic. The point was that you don't need exercise to maintain a healthy weight as long as the energy balance is there. On one end of the spectrum, athletes in certain sports can maintain a lean physique while eating insane quantities of calories. On the other end, maintaining a healthy bodyfat is possible in the absence of exercise by nutrition alone. Exercise comes with its own set of benefits independent of bodyfat, and it sounds like you have chosen to meet your energy balance by increasing calories burned instead of decreasing caloric intake, but it's not the only strategy that can have success. Sources: "Can't outrun a bad diet" http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/49/15/967 http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/49/15/967
  - Swizec 11y ago
    > The problem some people have is when exercise increases their appetite to the point where they continue consuming too many calories. It's very difficult to overeat good exercise with good food. If your idea of exercise is to sit around at the gym for an hour and do a couple of lifts, that's not gonna help. I've seen a lot of that. People go there for two hours, but only get like 15 minutes of real exercise done. But if your idea of exercise is to go on a 10k run, or doing a boxing class for an hour ... well those are going to burn around 700 calories. That's a lot of calories for someone who's supposed to eat 2000 a day. Eating 2700 calories (your normal 2000, plus the 700 you burned) is hard if you're not eating cake and stuff. I personally struggle every day to keep my weight from plummeting because the amounts of food I have to eat are astounding. Especially on the days when I do a 30km run (that burns 2500 calories). Honestly, it's taken me over a year of sustained effort to train my metabolism to digest these sorts of quantities of food. And yes, I am an edge case. My point is that you can outrun a bad diet. It will take a lot of running though. PS: the biggest mistake people make is thinking that weight == health. You can be skinny and still super unhealthy.

15155 11y ago

Exactly this. Fat people are generally fat because of excess caloric intake. The amount of physical (aerobic) exercise needed to even burn off a can of Coke is incredible.

Retric 11y ago
A coke is ~10% of your daily calorie needs.* It's not that exercise is ineffective it's junk food has stupid high calorie counts plus it's easy to digest. On top of that most Americans have an incredibly lazy lifestyle. If your extremely active and stick with actual food eating enough can feel like a chore. PS: A coke is also 8 to 24 oz which is a fairly wide range.
harmarsupercar 11y ago
A can of coke contains about 155 calories. An average person can do practically anything which is reasonably considered exercise for 30 minutes and burn that off: http://www.health.harvard.edu/diet-and-weight-loss/calories-burned-in-30-minutes-of-leisure-and-routine-activities http://www.health.harvard.edu/diet-and-weight-loss/calories-... Hardly "incredible". Research has shown that diet is more critical than activity in the occurrence of obesity, but that doesn't been that activity doesn't matter at all.

Frondo 11y ago

That is an odd, bold claim to make, that exercise doesn't promote weight loss. I'm at something of a loss to explain how, without changing my diet, but with adding 30-50 miles of cycling (plus a little jogging) a week, I've been losing around 5 pounds a month for the last six months. Honest question time: if it isn't the exercise, what is it?

cheepin 11y ago
Exercise clearly helps, but it all comes down to energy balance. You can eat less, or increase calories burned through exercise to generally get the scale heading in the right direction. The problem some people have is when exercise increases their appetite to the point where they continue consuming too many calories. I looked at the article that OP referred to. It's main critique is using exercise instead of diet as a weight loss tactic. The point was that you don't need exercise to maintain a healthy weight as long as the energy balance is there. On one end of the spectrum, athletes in certain sports can maintain a lean physique while eating insane quantities of calories. On the other end, maintaining a healthy bodyfat is possible in the absence of exercise by nutrition alone. Exercise comes with its own set of benefits independent of bodyfat, and it sounds like you have chosen to meet your energy balance by increasing calories burned instead of decreasing caloric intake, but it's not the only strategy that can have success. Sources: "Can't outrun a bad diet" http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/49/15/967 http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/49/15/967
- Swizec 11y ago
  > The problem some people have is when exercise increases their appetite to the point where they continue consuming too many calories. It's very difficult to overeat good exercise with good food. If your idea of exercise is to sit around at the gym for an hour and do a couple of lifts, that's not gonna help. I've seen a lot of that. People go there for two hours, but only get like 15 minutes of real exercise done. But if your idea of exercise is to go on a 10k run, or doing a boxing class for an hour ... well those are going to burn around 700 calories. That's a lot of calories for someone who's supposed to eat 2000 a day. Eating 2700 calories (your normal 2000, plus the 700 you burned) is hard if you're not eating cake and stuff. I personally struggle every day to keep my weight from plummeting because the amounts of food I have to eat are astounding. Especially on the days when I do a 30km run (that burns 2500 calories). Honestly, it's taken me over a year of sustained effort to train my metabolism to digest these sorts of quantities of food. And yes, I am an edge case. My point is that you can outrun a bad diet. It will take a lot of running though. PS: the biggest mistake people make is thinking that weight == health. You can be skinny and still super unhealthy.