14 ms·

High-intensity exercise, some new news

149 points by luu 4y ago

imoverclocked 4y ago
Glad this person keeps an exercise journal for the rest of us to read. A lot of n-of-1 anecdata with an extremely hand-wavy summary.
- xchaotic 4y ago
  As he correctly states- even n1 can lead to science, especially if everyone published similar journals there’d be a lot of ns.
- Fricken 4y ago
  My hand-wavy anectdata checks out with the author's. After a broken leg, I had a 2 year long sedentary period in which I gained 20 pounds. I burned it off using HIIT and it took a little more than a month. I noticed results right away, and kept going until I was done. I ate according to my appetite. I don't get these kinds of results doing either regular endurance or strength training.
bckr 4y ago
Wait, how could exercise not lead to weight loss? Given that you eat the same amount of calories, exercising will lead to a lower overall calorie count, and building muscle will lead to a higher metabolic rate. Wut?
- abeppu 4y ago
  It definitely isn't a given that you eat the same amount of calories. The train of thought seems to be that if you exercise at moderate or low intensity, people will often eat enough to compensate (or more). And the kinds of exercise studied often don't build appreciably muscle.
- r3drock 4y ago
  You could get hungrier because of the exercise and therefore eat more, which would prevent weight loss.
  - LouisSayers 4y ago
    After a hard workout I've often felt not all that hungry at all. Being lazy, sitting on the couch etc seems to have the opposite effect... I also wonder about what our brain consumes visually. If you're watching other people eating and drinking, it kinda makes you want to do the same.
    - bigDinosaur 4y ago
      It depends on the kind of exercise IME. Swimming is one I've found that generates an enormous appetite.
- pbazarnik 4y ago
  Possinly by replacing fat tissue with muscle? I guess it will depend on protein vs sugar and fat content in the diet.
  - collegeburner 4y ago
    ^ this is what happens. When i started working out i lost a shitton of fat and gained muscle over like 2 years about what i lost from fat. For the whole time I just recomped not gaining or losing much weight but massive change still. Maybe this is more the case for men since we have high androgens and build lots more muscle? Interested to see how it differs in women.
    - adrianN 4y ago
      Even men have a hard time putting on a pound of muscle per month after the first couple of months of training. You must've been very dedicated if you managed to replace a "shitton" of fat with muscle. I don't think the average gymgoer can expect that to happen.
- cjensen 4y ago
  Most exercise does not burn the number of calories people expect. For example, running a 5K doesn't quite burn the calories of a single Big Mac. If you think "I am exercising so I can eat a little bit more" it's very easy to eat more calories than burned. Exercise because exercise is good for you. Try to eat fewer calories if overweight because that's good for you. It's best to treat these as separate problems: don't expect exercise to help you lose your weight.
  - _the_inflator 4y ago
    Exactly this. Also it nowadays in the Big Mac world promotes the Halo Effect - I trained so much, now I take my reward and go binge eating/drinking. This is the vicious cycle: People expect more kcal to lose from exercising while underestimate the amount of kcal, eating and drinking can cause, especially alcohol.
    - ukoki 4y ago
      The trick is to exercise after your last meal just before bed. That way you clear out your glycogen reserves and your body has no choice but to fuel itself on fat until breakfast (or lunch if you can manage a mild intermittent fasting and skip breakfast)
  - mordechai9000 4y ago
    > Exercise because exercise is good for you If at all possible, find an exercise activity you enjoy, and do it because you enjoy it.
- nxpnsv 4y ago
  Train more, eat more, gain muscle. Easy.
- chrismartin 4y ago
  In short, you cannot outrun your fork.
- _the_inflator 4y ago
  Over- and underestimating: Overestimating the effects of exercising, while underestimating the amount of kcal people eat and drink, especially alcohol. Also the amount of muscle people build. Human beings are extremely energy efficient. And excess muscles only drain human bodies from energy. Does not make sense. My pro tip: count your kcal for one month. Everything that goes into your mouth - except water - needs to be tracked and especially weighted. You gonna be surprised. Everything, no exception. I count kcals and exercising for years now. My simple best advise: eating is 80-90% of the deal. Disciplined eating beats sports every time. More sports leads to more energy demand. And many overweight people cannot do sports. I give you another example. If I manage to get a negative kcal of more than 500kcal a day, this is very tough to take. Your body revolts. It takes a lot of discipline to go with -500kcal for a couple of days in a row. Another tip: go plant based. Added sugar etc. does not help.
  - thefz 4y ago
    > I count kcals and exercising for years now. My simple best advise: eating is 80-90% of the deal Exactly this. A climb up the local hill with my MTB taxes me for 1000kcal. Skipping three beers after amounts for the same amount of energy, and is way easier to achieve
  - bsder 4y ago
    > If I manage to get a negative kcal of more than 500kcal a day, this is very tough to take. Your body revolts. It takes a lot of discipline to go with -500kcal for a couple of days in a row. And -500kcal per day is only 1 pound of weight lost per week. Gaining weight is easy. Losing weight is very rough.
    - aix1 4y ago
      > Losing weight is very rough. As someone who went from 105kg to 75kg, I wouldn't describe the process as "rough". It took a series of small, sustainable changes to activity levels and diet over an extended period of time. At no point did I feel like I was forcing myself to do stuff I didn't want to or was depriving myself of anything. Couldn't be happier with the results (with how I feel, with the various active pursuits that are now part of my life etc).
- swader999 4y ago
  Very hard to outrun the kitchen. Diet is almost the whole picture for weight loss.
- JamesBarney 4y ago
  Given you eat the same number of calories, your body expenses the same amount of calories metabolically, and you move around exactly as much before.... That's a lot of givens, given you're talking about a complex system that's evolved over the last million years to keep you from starving. But actual answer is exercise causes most people's metabolism to slow down slightly, to engage in less movements both conscious and unconscious, and their hunger to increase. Basically if your body realizes you're expending a bunch of energy it starts to conserve energy in all the other ways.
- davisoneee 4y ago
  Your body doesn't want to waste away, so it tries to concerve energy. Whether this be aspects such as slightly reducing your metabolism, or by stopping various 'fidgety' behaviours that, while small, add up to burn calories during the day (think actions like bouncing your legs or moving your ankles). After exercise, you are more likely to just sit still. It can also divert resources away from your immune system in the short-ish term (e.g. colds spread easily through the Tour De France peloton, which partly is due to close proximity for ours at a time, but is also just people being worn down and more vulnerable when working out heavily for a prolonged period). Exercise CAN lead to weight loss (I used to weigh ~115kg/250lb/18st, now weigh 74kg/160lb/11.5st ...mostly lost over 2 years), but as the old saying goes "You can't out-run a bad diet". It's much easier to eat 500 (k)calories than it is to burn 500 cal. As for exercise-induced hunger, yes some people don't feel hungry 'after' exercise...but e.g. if you exercise mid-day, do you add more to the following meals (e.g. evening, or more snacking?), adding more calories overall? Note: I found weight loss 'simple', as I find it very easy to follow a repetitive diet, so while calorie counting has flaws with the inaccuracy of estimates, calorie counting works IF YOU USE IT RIGHT. I at least knew if I eat roughly the same breakfasts and lunches, it's much easier to identify dietary habit changes or volume reductions if I wasn't achieving weight loss.
kirillzubovsky 4y ago
If you look at the scientific papers on how our bodies burn stored energy, then it becomes rather straight forward why high intensity exercise leads to weight loss. Exact numbers escape me, but exercise somewhere between 65-80 percent of your heart rate leads to optimal consumption of carbs and fats. Too low stress and you aren’t using up much stored energy; too high and the body needs sugars to keep going. Better yet, it’s prolonged intensity that matters, as it takes the body a few minutes to activate all the pathways required to start burning fats and carbs. So for example long distance running will burn more fats than sprinting.
- aix1 4y ago
  Here is one relevant study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19855335/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19855335/
- chrismartin 4y ago
  I wonder what the blog author considers "high intensity"? 65-80% of MHR is common advice (see my other comment) but generally _not_ considered high intensity. 80% is still supposed to be under the lactate threshold.
- jaqalopes 4y ago
  The important thing seems to be heart rate. If you're a slow runner distance alone might not get you there. A series of sufficiently hard sprints and breaks that stretches over 30 minutes is better than 30 minutes of continuous jogging.
- notacoward 4y ago
  This matches my own experience. I got into a bit of a rut for a year or so, taking multiple breaks even during a 5km (3.11 mile) run. Both my pace and my weight suffered. Then I pulled myself out of it, usually doing three to four miles (and as much as six as long as it's not too hilly) without a break. Not surprisingly, pace and weight both got better again. Looking at my numbers, I concluded that the first five minutes at the start or after a break basically don't count. There's a direct correlation between benefits and time spent outside of those windows. The mechanisms don't matter. I'll follow the empirical results, and at least for me that means fewer breaks.
LouisSayers 4y ago
High-Intensity Exercise is good although it can really tire you out. I took part in two eight week healthy eating research studies just over a year ago. One was the mediterranean diet (think olive oil in your porridge, a glass of wine with meals, olives, fish). The other was the Australian government recommended healthy eating guideline (Balanced meals, lots of veg, lower carb, some cheese, some dairy, no alcohol). I did the gov recommended diet first, and then the mediterranean. My fat content reduced on the gov recommended diet, and increased slightly after on the mediterranean. I usually hover around 72kg - 76kg, and on these diets I slimmed down, and got below 70kg for the first time in I don't know how long... My exercise regime didn't change at all (I was doing a medium amount of exercise at the time). If all you did was go to the gym regularly and eat the gov recommended diet, in my experience you'll definitely slim down. Say goodbye to that chocolate cake however - for that you might need to add some HIT / HIIT (high intensity interval training).
- balfirevic 4y ago
  Did study prescribe portion sizes or did you choose how much to eat on each diet yourself?
  - LouisSayers 4y ago
    There were recommended portion sizes based on our weight, but we didn't have to weigh anything or count calories etc, it was more important that we ate the right ratios and certain types of food every week. We also were given sample meal recipes.
RubyRidgeRandy 4y ago
What has been well understood for quite some time is that low, steady-state cardio will burn the most calories over high-intensity workload. The effort needed to maintain a high-intensity workload is exponential. The average non-trained person may be able to walk 20-30 miles at one time before their legs give out, that same person wouldn't be able to sprint a mile, let alone half a mile if we're talking all-out sprint. Even if you take into account increased VO2 max it doesn't add up. High-intensity exercise has its place in health, but is a poor tool for weight loss. Dr. Mike Israetel had a video on this exact topic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0ejGgLRQZI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0ejGgLRQZI
- patrulek 4y ago
  > but is a poor tool for weight loss Still better than nothing and you only need up to 20 min to complete training.
- tempestn 4y ago
  The post described the mechanism; it's not about the calories directly burned by the activity, but rather the effect on appetite. You lose weight by eating less, and hard exercise can make it easier to do so.
- hackernewds 4y ago
  The difference is the amount of time required. Time spent being equal, you will get more fat burn/weight loss through HIIT exercise
  - edanm 4y ago
    That's true, but people tend to misunderstand this. Of course sprinting all-out for 5 minutes is better than walking for 5 minutes. If all you have is 5 minutes, and you're trying to get the most out of that session without any other consideration, you should sprint. But for most people, 5 minutes of all-out sprinting is very, very hard, and has a very fatiguing effect - you won't want to (or be able to) exercise again for a while. As opposed to walking, which most people can realistically do for a long time. The concept here is the amount of fatigue you're accumulating. As a fat-loss tool, a low-fatigue exercise that you can do for a long time will mean much more total calories burned, as opposed to a high-fatigue exercise you'll only realistically do for a very short duration.
chrismartin 4y ago
Maybe wrong place to ask, but is there guidance based on modern evidence on what makes a workout "high intensity", and how to structure a routine of them without leading to over-training or injury, especially for people who have excess fat? I row and cycle casually. Most of the ostensibly-evidence-based, in-vogue advice that I hear is to do a large volume of work (1-2 hours per day) at between 65% and 80% of maximum heart rate -- not very high intensity. This same advice recommends a very limited amount of work (1-2 hours per week at most, or even none at all!) at any intensities above that. You see this all over /r/rowing ("steady state"), and on the Science of Ultra podcast (discontinued but has lots of pragmatic advice distilled from research). [0] The low-intensity, high-volume approach was actually pioneered in 1970s East Germany. [1] That advice is mostly intended to help already-healthy people get fitter, but I'd be surprised if the science would lead people who have excess fat to work at a harder intensity than people who don't, especially when accounting for the increased injury risk and wear on joints. [0] https://www.scienceofultra.com/podcasts/139 https://www.scienceofultra.com/podcasts/139 [1] http://footnotes-catalan.blogspot.com/2011/05/rowing-machine-legacy-of-east-germany.html http://footnotes-catalan.blogspot.com/2011/05/rowing-machine...
- xchaotic 4y ago
  There’s the concept of Zones and you can measure the intensity directly with a power meter or indirectly with HR. Anything that reaches close to your sustained max HR or max power is considered high intensity as it uses different energy systems to produce muscle energy And yes there’s overwhelming research that for a non pro athlete you should only do one or two high intensity workouts per week (and pad with low intensity sessions to get enough training time)
  - NoPicklez 4y ago
    Spot on
- ukoki 4y ago
  This is called "polarized training". Dr Stephen Seiler is the most well-known researcher investigating this and has done many lectures and interviews with endurance sport Youtubers and podascters about this -- just search for his name on Youtube. The research shows that lots of exercise volume at low intensity, a bit of excersise volume at high intensity, and zero volume at mid intensities is (counterintuitively) the most effective way to build performance at all intensities for endurance sports. This applies both for trained professional athletes and regular people who are untrained. In some of the videos you'll find, he provides definitions for these zones and makes suggestions about the ideal volume of exercise, as well as the structure of high intensity workouts (how many intervals? how long? etc -- there is research about exactly what intervals are best) If you are interested in improving cycling performance, https://intervals.icu/ https://intervals.icu/ is a fantastic dashboard that can be used to track training, performance and has many charts directly relating to polarised training and Dr Seiler's research (I'm thinking specifically of charts for time-in-zone, cardiac decoupling and heart rate reserve) There are many cycling training Youtubers but Dylan Johnson is one who comes to mind who looks takes a very evidence-based approach and breaks down the latest research in videos for beginners who want to improve cycling performance
szundi 4y ago
Question is: If you get too tired and excercise less with high intensity, does it burn more fat compared to more occasions of longer steady 80% intensity workouts.
- xchaotic 4y ago
  Fat oxidation only ramps up once you depleted your glycogen stores. That usually happens an hour into an exercise or so. So doing short hiit session does not directly burn fat but does ramp up your metabolism for the rest of the day.
boshalfoshal 4y ago
I know this website generally likes to have discussions on things like this for intellectual stimulation, but is it really necessary to micro optimize exercise to this extent? I don't think there needs to be some sort of mathematical proof or nobel prize winning study to tell you to exercise and eat well if you want to lose fat or become fit (for average individuals looking to improve their health). Go outside, work hard and sweat for an hour, eat a nutritious meal and get a good amount of sleep. It's not really rocket science. Don't pre-emptively optimize all your workouts based on some cutting edge science before even brute forcing it, building work ethic is far more important. As its commonly said in CS, premature optmiziation is the root of all evil. If doing the basics doesn't work, then sure consider delving deeper into more complex routines.
- hgomersall 4y ago
  It depends why you're doing it. It's plausible that different exercise has different physiological effects, in which case blithely calling them all the same thing may miss many potential benefits exercise can offer.
- WA 4y ago
  This. As an untrained person, you can go for a walk with a 90 bpm heart rate and lose a lot of weight and gain strength and endurance. The psychology is way more important for the average person than an optimal training: do something you enjoy doing several times a week.
  - maccard 4y ago
    > you can go for a walk with a 90 bpm heart rate and lose a lot of weight A 1 hour brisk walk is roughly 400 calories, which is roughly the same as a 5k run, not eating a Starbucks muffin, or not eating half a small pizza. Exercise, even light walking is incredibly beneficial, but you won't lose any weight doing so. Weight is lost in the kitchen.
    - orwin 4y ago
      But the muscle mass will rise your metabolic consumption. You can loose all your extra weight in the kitchen. Nevertheless, doing a sport help, a lot. I lost 15kg just by changing my eating habits (over 3 years). But the last mile is really hard to get to without exercises. I'm a sailor, but i only get to windsurf/kayak/so catamaran during summer, where i loose ~5kg i immediatly gain over the autumn-winter period. Doing a new, indoor sport did help a lot. This year, even though i only started in February, i already have my weight of October (when i usually stop enjoying myself on the water)
NicoJuicy 4y ago
When i lost 25 kg in 3-4 months, i combined weight lifting with rope skipping ( every day) and some additional sport. My heart pounded out of my chest every single time. But I lost weight with a very fast pace and didn't adjust my food too much ( i actually ate more, but healthier alternatives). Muscle made me gain weight less fast on low motivational periods. I now restarted sports and doing inline skating + fitness. Going up a bridge first to get my heart pounding again after 5 years inactivity. It feels great. I'll try to change habits every month for muscle confusion. Since the human body optimizes for what you do ( and when) a lot. Inefficiency is key.
JamesBarney 4y ago
Post is over simplifying the research and it's conclusions. The likely fact that exercise does not result in significant weight loss does not mean exercise won't keep you from gaining weight, keep you from regaining weight, or help you lose weight that you specifically put on from stopping exercise. We have good evidence if you're fat you probably won't get skinny from exercise. But we also have good evidence that if you lose a bunch of weight exercise is really important for keeping it off. Basically the human body is very complicated so you can't make many assumptions.
- hackernewds 4y ago
  The laws of thermodynamics don't change though. Calorie deficit over time will get you to lose weight. Exercise can ensure that can be done in a healthy manner (besides hard dieting)
  - dan-robertson 4y ago
    I think the idea that all of weight loss can be reduced to calories-in-calories-out is not favoured. A simple point is that the body can regulate its metabolism so increasing/decreasing calorie intake can just lead to a slightly higher/lower body temperature while maintaining the same weight. In some sense that metabolism counts as ‘calories out’ but the feedback loop means that you can’t easily control it independently of calorie intake.
    - carom 4y ago
      It can be reduced to that with a lot of emphasis on how you reduce calories. Do you break your habits such as alcohol, sugar, and caffeine that hinder reduction? Do you cut out carbs or do keto? At the end of the day it is fewer calories, what matters is if it is sustainable. I bulked for lifting in the winter. Got to a body fat percent where I wasn't happy with how I looked. I then needed to decide to cut or continue gaining strength. This decision actually caused a lot of strife when before I realized I couldn't do both effectively. I looked at my calories and what I wanted to reduce. It didn't work well, I had a hard time tracking calories and making the correct cuts despite a simple diet. Now it is summer, it is hot, I'm not using AC. My body wants less food, I cut out rice, mostly on meat and dairy. Consistently losing weight now. I attribute it largely to the heat. My take away is that it is eating less, but eating less is hard.
Terry_Roll 4y ago
Reads like an observation of the effects of L-carnitine!
- sdze 4y ago
  In an eight-week study in 38 women who exercised four times per week, there was no difference in weight loss between those who took L-carnitine and those who didn’t (24). What’s more, five of the participants taking L-carnitine experienced nausea or diarrhea (24). Another human study monitored L-carnitine’s effect on fat burning during a 90-minute stationary bicycle workout. Four weeks of taking supplements did not increase fat burning (28).
  - Terry_Roll 4y ago
    Weight loss does not differentiate between fat or muscle! The devil is in the detail! Did the fat change into muscle or not? The study doesn't state either. Arnold Schwarzenegger used to exercise and throw up, during military basic training or sports training, its not uncommon to have things like runner's diarrhoea, vomitting in the gym, there is a lot of vomiting in the gym on base here. Vomiting is the bodies way of purging the digestive system to benefit the exercise being undertaken. Elite Athlete's know this so it sounds like L-Carnitine can be beneficial over time. It used to be known as Vitamin BT until it was discovered the body makes it, but it declines with age and inactivity.
z9znz 4y ago
I'm not sure I believe "max heart rate" limits. They must vary per person, perhaps significantly. In my early 40s, I did a lot of higher altitude mountain biking (single track, usually involving a good mix of climbs and descents). I wore a heart rate strap, which should be pretty accurate at measuring HR. According to my Garmin data uploaded to Strava, one of my long rides (4 hours moving) had an average hr of 161 bpm and a max of 192. It also shows that 15% of my time was > 174 bpm. According to heart.org, my max should have been 175. Since that's more than half an hour operating above the supposed max HR, I don't believe those max limits. Even so, I think pushing oneself to the limit for periods of time is great as long as it doesn't kill you. And now for those of us who have been sedentary for some extended time (blame COVID), HIIT can mean going up and down the stairs a few times! Perhaps I should wear my heart strap around the house; I feel like my current max HR is probably significantly below what it should be. On an unrelated note, a couple of years ago I went from not exercising to trying to learn to run. For one month, several days a week, I did a run/walk of a mere 6km. I did push myself to decrease the total time spent, and there was some progress. Before that month, my resting HR was around 65 bpm. After that month, my resting HR was in the low 50s, occasionally dipping into the high 40s. This was a bit scary to read, since online info about low resting hr supposedly means something bad; but I didn't feel bad. And after I stopped exercising, my resting rate went back to the usual mid 60s.
- mountainb 4y ago
  Those max HR things are just estimates. It's really based on your conditioning and your age, with conditioning being more important. A max HR in the 190s sounds about right for your self reported level of conditioning and age at that time. Your max is whatever your max is before you collapse; it's not what a chart says.
- n8henrie 4y ago
  The highly sophisticated formula of "220 - age" leaves a bit of wiggle room, I'm sure. It would seem particularly convenient to have MHR reduce linearly (by whole numbers) annually. I always thought of MHR as "you'll have a hard time getting your heart rate faster than this," not "your heart will explode if you work hard enough exceed this."
sdze 4y ago
What I never understand: is lifting 10 times 60lbs the same for the muscle and body than lifting 100 times 6lbs? In terms of muscle protein synthesis and growth.
- balfirevic 4y ago
  No. There, now you understand :-) Edit: To make my (I believe) correct but not very useful comment more useful - this is a good article about training volume: https://www.strongerbyscience.com/the-new-approach-to-training-volume/ https://www.strongerbyscience.com/the-new-approach-to-traini...
  - sdze 4y ago
    Thanks ;)
zh3 4y ago
Coincidentally on the BBC today: "Weekend burst of exercise can be enough to stay fit" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-62040665 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-62040665
0n0n0m0uz 4y ago
i walk 5 miles 4-7 days a week and if everyone did just that and nothing else it would eliminate a great majority of health issues. I am 37 and plan to do this until I no longer can. Walking is the perfect exercise in that you can easily multitask with a podcast, phone call, listening to music, writing/dictating. It is very low impact so the likelihood of injury is pretty low. You can do it anywhere on earth and need only a good pair of shoes.
- tsol 4y ago
  I like the idea, but how long does this take you? In a treadmill in an hour I usually end up around 3 miles
  - 0n0n0m0uz 4y ago
    My pace is about 4mph. I generally walk from 8:30 - 10:30 pm and have no problem falling asleep by 12. Sleep like a baby. At first I was beat after 2 miles, now I can do 6 and it’s like nothing, after about a month I really started to adapt to it.

149 points by luu 4y ago

Glad this person keeps an exercise journal for the rest of us to read. A lot of n-of-1 anecdata with an extremely hand-wavy summary.

xchaotic 4y ago
As he correctly states- even n1 can lead to science, especially if everyone published similar journals there’d be a lot of ns.
Fricken 4y ago
My hand-wavy anectdata checks out with the author's. After a broken leg, I had a 2 year long sedentary period in which I gained 20 pounds. I burned it off using HIIT and it took a little more than a month. I noticed results right away, and kept going until I was done. I ate according to my appetite. I don't get these kinds of results doing either regular endurance or strength training.

bckr 4y ago

Wait, how could exercise not lead to weight loss? Given that you eat the same amount of calories, exercising will lead to a lower overall calorie count, and building muscle will lead to a higher metabolic rate. Wut?

abeppu 4y ago
It definitely isn't a given that you eat the same amount of calories. The train of thought seems to be that if you exercise at moderate or low intensity, people will often eat enough to compensate (or more). And the kinds of exercise studied often don't build appreciably muscle.
r3drock 4y ago
You could get hungrier because of the exercise and therefore eat more, which would prevent weight loss.
- LouisSayers 4y ago
  After a hard workout I've often felt not all that hungry at all. Being lazy, sitting on the couch etc seems to have the opposite effect... I also wonder about what our brain consumes visually. If you're watching other people eating and drinking, it kinda makes you want to do the same.
  - bigDinosaur 4y ago
    It depends on the kind of exercise IME. Swimming is one I've found that generates an enormous appetite.
pbazarnik 4y ago
Possinly by replacing fat tissue with muscle? I guess it will depend on protein vs sugar and fat content in the diet.
- collegeburner 4y ago
  ^ this is what happens. When i started working out i lost a shitton of fat and gained muscle over like 2 years about what i lost from fat. For the whole time I just recomped not gaining or losing much weight but massive change still. Maybe this is more the case for men since we have high androgens and build lots more muscle? Interested to see how it differs in women.
  - adrianN 4y ago
    Even men have a hard time putting on a pound of muscle per month after the first couple of months of training. You must've been very dedicated if you managed to replace a "shitton" of fat with muscle. I don't think the average gymgoer can expect that to happen.
cjensen 4y ago
Most exercise does not burn the number of calories people expect. For example, running a 5K doesn't quite burn the calories of a single Big Mac. If you think "I am exercising so I can eat a little bit more" it's very easy to eat more calories than burned. Exercise because exercise is good for you. Try to eat fewer calories if overweight because that's good for you. It's best to treat these as separate problems: don't expect exercise to help you lose your weight.
- _the_inflator 4y ago
  Exactly this. Also it nowadays in the Big Mac world promotes the Halo Effect - I trained so much, now I take my reward and go binge eating/drinking. This is the vicious cycle: People expect more kcal to lose from exercising while underestimate the amount of kcal, eating and drinking can cause, especially alcohol.
  - ukoki 4y ago
    The trick is to exercise after your last meal just before bed. That way you clear out your glycogen reserves and your body has no choice but to fuel itself on fat until breakfast (or lunch if you can manage a mild intermittent fasting and skip breakfast)
- mordechai9000 4y ago
  > Exercise because exercise is good for you If at all possible, find an exercise activity you enjoy, and do it because you enjoy it.
nxpnsv 4y ago
Train more, eat more, gain muscle. Easy.
chrismartin 4y ago
In short, you cannot outrun your fork.
_the_inflator 4y ago
Over- and underestimating: Overestimating the effects of exercising, while underestimating the amount of kcal people eat and drink, especially alcohol. Also the amount of muscle people build. Human beings are extremely energy efficient. And excess muscles only drain human bodies from energy. Does not make sense. My pro tip: count your kcal for one month. Everything that goes into your mouth - except water - needs to be tracked and especially weighted. You gonna be surprised. Everything, no exception. I count kcals and exercising for years now. My simple best advise: eating is 80-90% of the deal. Disciplined eating beats sports every time. More sports leads to more energy demand. And many overweight people cannot do sports. I give you another example. If I manage to get a negative kcal of more than 500kcal a day, this is very tough to take. Your body revolts. It takes a lot of discipline to go with -500kcal for a couple of days in a row. Another tip: go plant based. Added sugar etc. does not help.
- thefz 4y ago
  > I count kcals and exercising for years now. My simple best advise: eating is 80-90% of the deal Exactly this. A climb up the local hill with my MTB taxes me for 1000kcal. Skipping three beers after amounts for the same amount of energy, and is way easier to achieve
- bsder 4y ago
  > If I manage to get a negative kcal of more than 500kcal a day, this is very tough to take. Your body revolts. It takes a lot of discipline to go with -500kcal for a couple of days in a row. And -500kcal per day is only 1 pound of weight lost per week. Gaining weight is easy. Losing weight is very rough.
  - aix1 4y ago
    > Losing weight is very rough. As someone who went from 105kg to 75kg, I wouldn't describe the process as "rough". It took a series of small, sustainable changes to activity levels and diet over an extended period of time. At no point did I feel like I was forcing myself to do stuff I didn't want to or was depriving myself of anything. Couldn't be happier with the results (with how I feel, with the various active pursuits that are now part of my life etc).
swader999 4y ago
Very hard to outrun the kitchen. Diet is almost the whole picture for weight loss.
JamesBarney 4y ago
Given you eat the same number of calories, your body expenses the same amount of calories metabolically, and you move around exactly as much before.... That's a lot of givens, given you're talking about a complex system that's evolved over the last million years to keep you from starving. But actual answer is exercise causes most people's metabolism to slow down slightly, to engage in less movements both conscious and unconscious, and their hunger to increase. Basically if your body realizes you're expending a bunch of energy it starts to conserve energy in all the other ways.
davisoneee 4y ago
Your body doesn't want to waste away, so it tries to concerve energy. Whether this be aspects such as slightly reducing your metabolism, or by stopping various 'fidgety' behaviours that, while small, add up to burn calories during the day (think actions like bouncing your legs or moving your ankles). After exercise, you are more likely to just sit still. It can also divert resources away from your immune system in the short-ish term (e.g. colds spread easily through the Tour De France peloton, which partly is due to close proximity for ours at a time, but is also just people being worn down and more vulnerable when working out heavily for a prolonged period). Exercise CAN lead to weight loss (I used to weigh ~115kg/250lb/18st, now weigh 74kg/160lb/11.5st ...mostly lost over 2 years), but as the old saying goes "You can't out-run a bad diet". It's much easier to eat 500 (k)calories than it is to burn 500 cal. As for exercise-induced hunger, yes some people don't feel hungry 'after' exercise...but e.g. if you exercise mid-day, do you add more to the following meals (e.g. evening, or more snacking?), adding more calories overall? Note: I found weight loss 'simple', as I find it very easy to follow a repetitive diet, so while calorie counting has flaws with the inaccuracy of estimates, calorie counting works IF YOU USE IT RIGHT. I at least knew if I eat roughly the same breakfasts and lunches, it's much easier to identify dietary habit changes or volume reductions if I wasn't achieving weight loss.

kirillzubovsky 4y ago

If you look at the scientific papers on how our bodies burn stored energy, then it becomes rather straight forward why high intensity exercise leads to weight loss. Exact numbers escape me, but exercise somewhere between 65-80 percent of your heart rate leads to optimal consumption of carbs and fats. Too low stress and you aren’t using up much stored energy; too high and the body needs sugars to keep going. Better yet, it’s prolonged intensity that matters, as it takes the body a few minutes to activate all the pathways required to start burning fats and carbs. So for example long distance running will burn more fats than sprinting.

aix1 4y ago
Here is one relevant study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19855335/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19855335/
chrismartin 4y ago
I wonder what the blog author considers "high intensity"? 65-80% of MHR is common advice (see my other comment) but generally _not_ considered high intensity. 80% is still supposed to be under the lactate threshold.
jaqalopes 4y ago
The important thing seems to be heart rate. If you're a slow runner distance alone might not get you there. A series of sufficiently hard sprints and breaks that stretches over 30 minutes is better than 30 minutes of continuous jogging.
notacoward 4y ago
This matches my own experience. I got into a bit of a rut for a year or so, taking multiple breaks even during a 5km (3.11 mile) run. Both my pace and my weight suffered. Then I pulled myself out of it, usually doing three to four miles (and as much as six as long as it's not too hilly) without a break. Not surprisingly, pace and weight both got better again. Looking at my numbers, I concluded that the first five minutes at the start or after a break basically don't count. There's a direct correlation between benefits and time spent outside of those windows. The mechanisms don't matter. I'll follow the empirical results, and at least for me that means fewer breaks.

LouisSayers 4y ago

High-Intensity Exercise is good although it can really tire you out. I took part in two eight week healthy eating research studies just over a year ago. One was the mediterranean diet (think olive oil in your porridge, a glass of wine with meals, olives, fish). The other was the Australian government recommended healthy eating guideline (Balanced meals, lots of veg, lower carb, some cheese, some dairy, no alcohol). I did the gov recommended diet first, and then the mediterranean. My fat content reduced on the gov recommended diet, and increased slightly after on the mediterranean. I usually hover around 72kg - 76kg, and on these diets I slimmed down, and got below 70kg for the first time in I don't know how long... My exercise regime didn't change at all (I was doing a medium amount of exercise at the time). If all you did was go to the gym regularly and eat the gov recommended diet, in my experience you'll definitely slim down. Say goodbye to that chocolate cake however - for that you might need to add some HIT / HIIT (high intensity interval training).

balfirevic 4y ago
Did study prescribe portion sizes or did you choose how much to eat on each diet yourself?
- LouisSayers 4y ago
  There were recommended portion sizes based on our weight, but we didn't have to weigh anything or count calories etc, it was more important that we ate the right ratios and certain types of food every week. We also were given sample meal recipes.

RubyRidgeRandy 4y ago

What has been well understood for quite some time is that low, steady-state cardio will burn the most calories over high-intensity workload. The effort needed to maintain a high-intensity workload is exponential. The average non-trained person may be able to walk 20-30 miles at one time before their legs give out, that same person wouldn't be able to sprint a mile, let alone half a mile if we're talking all-out sprint. Even if you take into account increased VO2 max it doesn't add up. High-intensity exercise has its place in health, but is a poor tool for weight loss. Dr. Mike Israetel had a video on this exact topic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0ejGgLRQZI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0ejGgLRQZI

patrulek 4y ago
> but is a poor tool for weight loss Still better than nothing and you only need up to 20 min to complete training.
tempestn 4y ago
The post described the mechanism; it's not about the calories directly burned by the activity, but rather the effect on appetite. You lose weight by eating less, and hard exercise can make it easier to do so.
hackernewds 4y ago
The difference is the amount of time required. Time spent being equal, you will get more fat burn/weight loss through HIIT exercise
- edanm 4y ago
  That's true, but people tend to misunderstand this. Of course sprinting all-out for 5 minutes is better than walking for 5 minutes. If all you have is 5 minutes, and you're trying to get the most out of that session without any other consideration, you should sprint. But for most people, 5 minutes of all-out sprinting is very, very hard, and has a very fatiguing effect - you won't want to (or be able to) exercise again for a while. As opposed to walking, which most people can realistically do for a long time. The concept here is the amount of fatigue you're accumulating. As a fat-loss tool, a low-fatigue exercise that you can do for a long time will mean much more total calories burned, as opposed to a high-fatigue exercise you'll only realistically do for a very short duration.

chrismartin 4y ago

Maybe wrong place to ask, but is there guidance based on modern evidence on what makes a workout "high intensity", and how to structure a routine of them without leading to over-training or injury, especially for people who have excess fat? I row and cycle casually. Most of the ostensibly-evidence-based, in-vogue advice that I hear is to do a large volume of work (1-2 hours per day) at between 65% and 80% of maximum heart rate -- not very high intensity. This same advice recommends a very limited amount of work (1-2 hours per week at most, or even none at all!) at any intensities above that. You see this all over /r/rowing ("steady state"), and on the Science of Ultra podcast (discontinued but has lots of pragmatic advice distilled from research). [0] The low-intensity, high-volume approach was actually pioneered in 1970s East Germany. [1] That advice is mostly intended to help already-healthy people get fitter, but I'd be surprised if the science would lead people who have excess fat to work at a harder intensity than people who don't, especially when accounting for the increased injury risk and wear on joints. [0] https://www.scienceofultra.com/podcasts/139 https://www.scienceofultra.com/podcasts/139 [1] http://footnotes-catalan.blogspot.com/2011/05/rowing-machine-legacy-of-east-germany.html http://footnotes-catalan.blogspot.com/2011/05/rowing-machine...

xchaotic 4y ago
There’s the concept of Zones and you can measure the intensity directly with a power meter or indirectly with HR. Anything that reaches close to your sustained max HR or max power is considered high intensity as it uses different energy systems to produce muscle energy And yes there’s overwhelming research that for a non pro athlete you should only do one or two high intensity workouts per week (and pad with low intensity sessions to get enough training time)
- NoPicklez 4y ago
  Spot on
ukoki 4y ago
This is called "polarized training". Dr Stephen Seiler is the most well-known researcher investigating this and has done many lectures and interviews with endurance sport Youtubers and podascters about this -- just search for his name on Youtube. The research shows that lots of exercise volume at low intensity, a bit of excersise volume at high intensity, and zero volume at mid intensities is (counterintuitively) the most effective way to build performance at all intensities for endurance sports. This applies both for trained professional athletes and regular people who are untrained. In some of the videos you'll find, he provides definitions for these zones and makes suggestions about the ideal volume of exercise, as well as the structure of high intensity workouts (how many intervals? how long? etc -- there is research about exactly what intervals are best) If you are interested in improving cycling performance, https://intervals.icu/ https://intervals.icu/ is a fantastic dashboard that can be used to track training, performance and has many charts directly relating to polarised training and Dr Seiler's research (I'm thinking specifically of charts for time-in-zone, cardiac decoupling and heart rate reserve) There are many cycling training Youtubers but Dylan Johnson is one who comes to mind who looks takes a very evidence-based approach and breaks down the latest research in videos for beginners who want to improve cycling performance

szundi 4y ago

Question is: If you get too tired and excercise less with high intensity, does it burn more fat compared to more occasions of longer steady 80% intensity workouts.

xchaotic 4y ago
Fat oxidation only ramps up once you depleted your glycogen stores. That usually happens an hour into an exercise or so. So doing short hiit session does not directly burn fat but does ramp up your metabolism for the rest of the day.

boshalfoshal 4y ago

I know this website generally likes to have discussions on things like this for intellectual stimulation, but is it really necessary to micro optimize exercise to this extent? I don't think there needs to be some sort of mathematical proof or nobel prize winning study to tell you to exercise and eat well if you want to lose fat or become fit (for average individuals looking to improve their health). Go outside, work hard and sweat for an hour, eat a nutritious meal and get a good amount of sleep. It's not really rocket science. Don't pre-emptively optimize all your workouts based on some cutting edge science before even brute forcing it, building work ethic is far more important. As its commonly said in CS, premature optmiziation is the root of all evil. If doing the basics doesn't work, then sure consider delving deeper into more complex routines.

hgomersall 4y ago
It depends why you're doing it. It's plausible that different exercise has different physiological effects, in which case blithely calling them all the same thing may miss many potential benefits exercise can offer.
WA 4y ago
This. As an untrained person, you can go for a walk with a 90 bpm heart rate and lose a lot of weight and gain strength and endurance. The psychology is way more important for the average person than an optimal training: do something you enjoy doing several times a week.
- maccard 4y ago
  > you can go for a walk with a 90 bpm heart rate and lose a lot of weight A 1 hour brisk walk is roughly 400 calories, which is roughly the same as a 5k run, not eating a Starbucks muffin, or not eating half a small pizza. Exercise, even light walking is incredibly beneficial, but you won't lose any weight doing so. Weight is lost in the kitchen.
  - orwin 4y ago
    But the muscle mass will rise your metabolic consumption. You can loose all your extra weight in the kitchen. Nevertheless, doing a sport help, a lot. I lost 15kg just by changing my eating habits (over 3 years). But the last mile is really hard to get to without exercises. I'm a sailor, but i only get to windsurf/kayak/so catamaran during summer, where i loose ~5kg i immediatly gain over the autumn-winter period. Doing a new, indoor sport did help a lot. This year, even though i only started in February, i already have my weight of October (when i usually stop enjoying myself on the water)

NicoJuicy 4y ago

When i lost 25 kg in 3-4 months, i combined weight lifting with rope skipping ( every day) and some additional sport. My heart pounded out of my chest every single time. But I lost weight with a very fast pace and didn't adjust my food too much ( i actually ate more, but healthier alternatives). Muscle made me gain weight less fast on low motivational periods. I now restarted sports and doing inline skating + fitness. Going up a bridge first to get my heart pounding again after 5 years inactivity. It feels great. I'll try to change habits every month for muscle confusion. Since the human body optimizes for what you do ( and when) a lot. Inefficiency is key.

JamesBarney 4y ago

Post is over simplifying the research and it's conclusions. The likely fact that exercise does not result in significant weight loss does not mean exercise won't keep you from gaining weight, keep you from regaining weight, or help you lose weight that you specifically put on from stopping exercise. We have good evidence if you're fat you probably won't get skinny from exercise. But we also have good evidence that if you lose a bunch of weight exercise is really important for keeping it off. Basically the human body is very complicated so you can't make many assumptions.

hackernewds 4y ago
The laws of thermodynamics don't change though. Calorie deficit over time will get you to lose weight. Exercise can ensure that can be done in a healthy manner (besides hard dieting)
- dan-robertson 4y ago
  I think the idea that all of weight loss can be reduced to calories-in-calories-out is not favoured. A simple point is that the body can regulate its metabolism so increasing/decreasing calorie intake can just lead to a slightly higher/lower body temperature while maintaining the same weight. In some sense that metabolism counts as ‘calories out’ but the feedback loop means that you can’t easily control it independently of calorie intake.
  - carom 4y ago
    It can be reduced to that with a lot of emphasis on how you reduce calories. Do you break your habits such as alcohol, sugar, and caffeine that hinder reduction? Do you cut out carbs or do keto? At the end of the day it is fewer calories, what matters is if it is sustainable. I bulked for lifting in the winter. Got to a body fat percent where I wasn't happy with how I looked. I then needed to decide to cut or continue gaining strength. This decision actually caused a lot of strife when before I realized I couldn't do both effectively. I looked at my calories and what I wanted to reduce. It didn't work well, I had a hard time tracking calories and making the correct cuts despite a simple diet. Now it is summer, it is hot, I'm not using AC. My body wants less food, I cut out rice, mostly on meat and dairy. Consistently losing weight now. I attribute it largely to the heat. My take away is that it is eating less, but eating less is hard.

Terry_Roll 4y ago

Reads like an observation of the effects of L-carnitine!

sdze 4y ago
In an eight-week study in 38 women who exercised four times per week, there was no difference in weight loss between those who took L-carnitine and those who didn’t (24). What’s more, five of the participants taking L-carnitine experienced nausea or diarrhea (24). Another human study monitored L-carnitine’s effect on fat burning during a 90-minute stationary bicycle workout. Four weeks of taking supplements did not increase fat burning (28).
- Terry_Roll 4y ago
  Weight loss does not differentiate between fat or muscle! The devil is in the detail! Did the fat change into muscle or not? The study doesn't state either. Arnold Schwarzenegger used to exercise and throw up, during military basic training or sports training, its not uncommon to have things like runner's diarrhoea, vomitting in the gym, there is a lot of vomiting in the gym on base here. Vomiting is the bodies way of purging the digestive system to benefit the exercise being undertaken. Elite Athlete's know this so it sounds like L-Carnitine can be beneficial over time. It used to be known as Vitamin BT until it was discovered the body makes it, but it declines with age and inactivity.

z9znz 4y ago

I'm not sure I believe "max heart rate" limits. They must vary per person, perhaps significantly. In my early 40s, I did a lot of higher altitude mountain biking (single track, usually involving a good mix of climbs and descents). I wore a heart rate strap, which should be pretty accurate at measuring HR. According to my Garmin data uploaded to Strava, one of my long rides (4 hours moving) had an average hr of 161 bpm and a max of 192. It also shows that 15% of my time was > 174 bpm. According to heart.org, my max should have been 175. Since that's more than half an hour operating above the supposed max HR, I don't believe those max limits. Even so, I think pushing oneself to the limit for periods of time is great as long as it doesn't kill you. And now for those of us who have been sedentary for some extended time (blame COVID), HIIT can mean going up and down the stairs a few times! Perhaps I should wear my heart strap around the house; I feel like my current max HR is probably significantly below what it should be. On an unrelated note, a couple of years ago I went from not exercising to trying to learn to run. For one month, several days a week, I did a run/walk of a mere 6km. I did push myself to decrease the total time spent, and there was some progress. Before that month, my resting HR was around 65 bpm. After that month, my resting HR was in the low 50s, occasionally dipping into the high 40s. This was a bit scary to read, since online info about low resting hr supposedly means something bad; but I didn't feel bad. And after I stopped exercising, my resting rate went back to the usual mid 60s.

mountainb 4y ago
Those max HR things are just estimates. It's really based on your conditioning and your age, with conditioning being more important. A max HR in the 190s sounds about right for your self reported level of conditioning and age at that time. Your max is whatever your max is before you collapse; it's not what a chart says.
n8henrie 4y ago
The highly sophisticated formula of "220 - age" leaves a bit of wiggle room, I'm sure. It would seem particularly convenient to have MHR reduce linearly (by whole numbers) annually. I always thought of MHR as "you'll have a hard time getting your heart rate faster than this," not "your heart will explode if you work hard enough exceed this."

sdze 4y ago

What I never understand: is lifting 10 times 60lbs the same for the muscle and body than lifting 100 times 6lbs? In terms of muscle protein synthesis and growth.

balfirevic 4y ago
No. There, now you understand :-) Edit: To make my (I believe) correct but not very useful comment more useful - this is a good article about training volume: https://www.strongerbyscience.com/the-new-approach-to-training-volume/ https://www.strongerbyscience.com/the-new-approach-to-traini...
- sdze 4y ago
  Thanks ;)

zh3 4y ago

Coincidentally on the BBC today: "Weekend burst of exercise can be enough to stay fit" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-62040665 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-62040665

0n0n0m0uz 4y ago

i walk 5 miles 4-7 days a week and if everyone did just that and nothing else it would eliminate a great majority of health issues. I am 37 and plan to do this until I no longer can. Walking is the perfect exercise in that you can easily multitask with a podcast, phone call, listening to music, writing/dictating. It is very low impact so the likelihood of injury is pretty low. You can do it anywhere on earth and need only a good pair of shoes.

tsol 4y ago
I like the idea, but how long does this take you? In a treadmill in an hour I usually end up around 3 miles
- 0n0n0m0uz 4y ago
  My pace is about 4mph. I generally walk from 8:30 - 10:30 pm and have no problem falling asleep by 12. Sleep like a baby. At first I was beat after 2 miles, now I can do 6 and it’s like nothing, after about a month I really started to adapt to it.