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Obesity is almost completely dominated by diet. Moving to New York, ditching the car, and walking everywhere netted me maybe 150 calories in deficit over the mo

Obesity is almost completely dominated by diet. Moving to New York, ditching the car, and walking everywhere netted me maybe 150 calories in deficit over the most active days. That's a soda or a beer, or a typical American office snack. Exercise can't come close to making up for how calorie dense most of our 'convenient' packaged food is.

Eric_WVGG 10y ago
I don't buy it. I'm also a New York transplant, and even the folks here with unhealthy diets seem to be in massively better shape than those in car-centric American cities with similar diets. That also goes for folks in car-centric cities who have healthy diets but are still overweight. My working theory is that walking all the time ramps up the metabolism. Regardless, the notion of a 1:1 relationship between calories consumed and calories "retained" seems suspicious. [edit] regarding the "you can't outrun the fork" theory of weightloss (e.g. exercising at the gym won't offset a poor diet), I absolutely agree with you, but I think there's a difference between an hour or two of intense exercise every other day (a gym membership) vs a lifestyle of walking everywhere all the time.
- mod 10y ago
  Do you spend (far more than) an hour per day walking everywhere? If not, what's the difference in that and gym-exercise?
  - Eric_WVGG 10y ago
    Definitely. As to why I think it’s different, here's a possibly dumb analogy: my building has this rooftop garden, and for the past few years, someone would walk up to the rooftop and water it a couple times a day with a hose. So far, so good. Last year I decided it would be funny to install a drop irrigation system. Half a dozen times a day it trickles out water. Just drips, possibly less total water than the hose sprays. Our yield last year was simply bananas. Plants growing taller than me in little pots and 16"-deep crates. The local plant expert explained to me that when plants get sporadic water, they grow roots deep to find more; when they get constant water, even if not as much, they "assume" water will be around whenever they need it and grow up instead. I speculate that the human metabolism works in a similar way, and that ongoing, low levels of exercise is more beneficial to the metabolism than daily spurts of high intensity exercise. just a theory IANA scientist obviously
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      > I speculate that the human metabolism works in a similar way, and that ongoing, low levels of exercise is more beneficial to the metabolism than daily spurts of high intensity exercise. Research has shown that properly structured, high intensity exercise (10 minutes) is just as beneficial as low levels over a longer duration. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0154075 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....
bksjdf 10y ago
> Exercise can't come close to making up for how calorie dense most of our 'convenient' packaged food is. Clearly you don't lift :). Just a joke, and I agree that diet is very important for losing weight, but if you work out well you can live on 4000 calories a day without gaining fat.

Eric_WVGG 10y ago

I don't buy it. I'm also a New York transplant, and even the folks here with unhealthy diets seem to be in massively better shape than those in car-centric American cities with similar diets. That also goes for folks in car-centric cities who have healthy diets but are still overweight. My working theory is that walking all the time ramps up the metabolism. Regardless, the notion of a 1:1 relationship between calories consumed and calories "retained" seems suspicious. [edit] regarding the "you can't outrun the fork" theory of weightloss (e.g. exercising at the gym won't offset a poor diet), I absolutely agree with you, but I think there's a difference between an hour or two of intense exercise every other day (a gym membership) vs a lifestyle of walking everywhere all the time.

mod 10y ago
Do you spend (far more than) an hour per day walking everywhere? If not, what's the difference in that and gym-exercise?
- Eric_WVGG 10y ago
  Definitely. As to why I think it’s different, here's a possibly dumb analogy: my building has this rooftop garden, and for the past few years, someone would walk up to the rooftop and water it a couple times a day with a hose. So far, so good. Last year I decided it would be funny to install a drop irrigation system. Half a dozen times a day it trickles out water. Just drips, possibly less total water than the hose sprays. Our yield last year was simply bananas. Plants growing taller than me in little pots and 16"-deep crates. The local plant expert explained to me that when plants get sporadic water, they grow roots deep to find more; when they get constant water, even if not as much, they "assume" water will be around whenever they need it and grow up instead. I speculate that the human metabolism works in a similar way, and that ongoing, low levels of exercise is more beneficial to the metabolism than daily spurts of high intensity exercise. just a theory IANA scientist obviously
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    > I speculate that the human metabolism works in a similar way, and that ongoing, low levels of exercise is more beneficial to the metabolism than daily spurts of high intensity exercise. Research has shown that properly structured, high intensity exercise (10 minutes) is just as beneficial as low levels over a longer duration. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0154075 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

bksjdf 10y ago

> Exercise can't come close to making up for how calorie dense most of our 'convenient' packaged food is. Clearly you don't lift :). Just a joke, and I agree that diet is very important for losing weight, but if you work out well you can live on 4000 calories a day without gaining fat.