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And yet, people who exercise more are overwhelmingly more likely to be a healthy weight. This is all one really needs to know. Sometimes cargo-culting works.

And yet, people who exercise more are overwhelmingly more likely to be a healthy weight. This is all one really needs to know. Sometimes cargo-culting works. This article gets close to what I suspect is the truth about exercise and weight-loss, but it's so focused on the premise of dismissing metabolism, it fails to say anything truly interesting. For ages I listened to these ideas about exercise and weight-loss, and dismissed its role, focusing instead on "simply eating less calories". And then I realised I was being kind of dumb. I've since formulated some ideas about the connection between exercise and weight-loss, and in particular, running and weight-loss. So far, my subjective experience of starting running have born these out and I plan to write about them at length. But for now, be careful taking such research and applying it to your actual life. As someone with a graduate level education, and a natural born academic, I've realised these researchers are far too clever for your own good.

forward1 3y ago
> people who exercise more are overwhelmingly more likely to be a healthy weight. They are also more likely to eat better and have healthier lifestyle habits, not to mention the social affluence correlation. That being said, a caloric deficit is a sure way to lose weight. The whole and unprocessed plant based foods the article aludes to can help bridge the gap between the caloric deficit and satiety.
- SuperNinKenDo 3y ago
  Yes. Agree completely with you on people who exercise more being more likely to eat better and have healthier lifestyle habits. That said, while I recognise that there's a psychological reason for that correlation, i.e., someone looking to exercise more for health or aesthetics reasons is probably more likely to also make similar choices aroung their diet and general lifestyle, the crux of my fledgling theory is that exercising itself can change things in your body in such a way that you, for example, start to crave certain foods and disprefer others. I'm excited to explore the idea and my experiences testing it further. But with that said, the real lesson is that, whether your theory as to why something works is true or not, it doesn't effect the fact that it works. So, when a scientist (or secondary source like this) comes along and suggests that you don't need to do that thing, there's good reasons to be sceptical of such certainty when your observations seem to suggest it is in fact effective.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
mrcode007 3y ago
I’ve recently started a diet change supervised by a nutritionist. I was prohibited from doing any exercise that raises heart rate, including all cardio. I was advised to do slow and controlled weightlifting which I do maybe 5-10 minutes 3 times a week. My activity levels compared to period before new diet are dramatically decreased. I sit more, workout less, the weight is coming off and it feels like some sort of cheat code. All my vitals improved by at least 20%. Blood pressure, cholesterol levels, plus a six pack for essentially nothing. Here’s my weight logged daily https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/wwc6tfji54emxmkb4n876/IMG_6238.PNG?rlkey=lw0h0x04krjfi6hircppwwbxq&dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/wwc6tfji54emxmkb4n876/IMG_623... The entire experience made me feel like the fitness industry is bordering on fraud with the promises. The other thing is that the doctors are not believing this is done with diet alone and in a span of just a few weeks. As part of this experience I learned that most doctors don’t take nutrition classes in college, at the level of depth required to address problems with food. It made me believe diverting patients to nutrition specialists should be often a first step instead of drugging people up. Take it for what you want but this has been my experience so far. Change diet, workout less. The big deal is that I never knew how to eat properly. It sounds so strange coming out of my mouth even to me right now. I had zero clue how to eat because nobody taught me and I had no habits. I knew the theory but had zero clue how to apply it in practice.
- dsq 3y ago
  I would very much like to see the plan you were given. I also struggle with extra weight, and have used IF to some success.
  - mrcode007 3y ago
    What’s your email?
- Melatonic 3y ago
  Why did you have to reduce your exercise in addition to learning how to eat right ? Seems like you could have just kept the higher exercise level and then ate appropriately for that
filoleg 3y ago
> And yet, people who exercise more are overwhelmingly more likely to be a healthy weight This is what can be called a “correlation not causation.” Control for eating, and the picture would likely look different. In the same way as “people who ride subway are more healthy than those driving cars.” It isn’t that riding subway on its own produces some miracle health benefits, riding subway usually means that you walk more and sit less (compared to driving a car as your primary commute method). If you control for that and start walking the same amount even if you drive, you will likely find the difference in health outcomes between driving and using subway disappear.
- SuperNinKenDo 3y ago
  Yes, if you control for eating the picture will look different, because you're creating a different picture. Modern, Western scientific thinking always tries to isolate variables, our medicine is always trying to isolate that one specific molecule, etc. This has given us fantastic insights, and allowed us to see the trees for the forest, but we also then start to miss the forest I feel. The forest is a complex and difficult to quantify system of interrelation and interconnection. We may never fully understand the forest, but that doesn't mean the route to effective knowledge about navigating this landscape is to ignore forests, and concentrate on individual trees. I hope the metaphor is clear enough. There are different ways of knowing, and to jarringly switch metaphors, just because you've built a hammer, doesn't make every form of knowledge a nail.

forward1 3y ago

> people who exercise more are overwhelmingly more likely to be a healthy weight. They are also more likely to eat better and have healthier lifestyle habits, not to mention the social affluence correlation. That being said, a caloric deficit is a sure way to lose weight. The whole and unprocessed plant based foods the article aludes to can help bridge the gap between the caloric deficit and satiety.

SuperNinKenDo 3y ago
Yes. Agree completely with you on people who exercise more being more likely to eat better and have healthier lifestyle habits. That said, while I recognise that there's a psychological reason for that correlation, i.e., someone looking to exercise more for health or aesthetics reasons is probably more likely to also make similar choices aroung their diet and general lifestyle, the crux of my fledgling theory is that exercising itself can change things in your body in such a way that you, for example, start to crave certain foods and disprefer others. I'm excited to explore the idea and my experiences testing it further. But with that said, the real lesson is that, whether your theory as to why something works is true or not, it doesn't effect the fact that it works. So, when a scientist (or secondary source like this) comes along and suggests that you don't need to do that thing, there's good reasons to be sceptical of such certainty when your observations seem to suggest it is in fact effective.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

mrcode007 3y ago

I’ve recently started a diet change supervised by a nutritionist. I was prohibited from doing any exercise that raises heart rate, including all cardio. I was advised to do slow and controlled weightlifting which I do maybe 5-10 minutes 3 times a week. My activity levels compared to period before new diet are dramatically decreased. I sit more, workout less, the weight is coming off and it feels like some sort of cheat code. All my vitals improved by at least 20%. Blood pressure, cholesterol levels, plus a six pack for essentially nothing. Here’s my weight logged daily https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/wwc6tfji54emxmkb4n876/IMG_6238.PNG?rlkey=lw0h0x04krjfi6hircppwwbxq&dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/wwc6tfji54emxmkb4n876/IMG_623... The entire experience made me feel like the fitness industry is bordering on fraud with the promises. The other thing is that the doctors are not believing this is done with diet alone and in a span of just a few weeks. As part of this experience I learned that most doctors don’t take nutrition classes in college, at the level of depth required to address problems with food. It made me believe diverting patients to nutrition specialists should be often a first step instead of drugging people up. Take it for what you want but this has been my experience so far. Change diet, workout less. The big deal is that I never knew how to eat properly. It sounds so strange coming out of my mouth even to me right now. I had zero clue how to eat because nobody taught me and I had no habits. I knew the theory but had zero clue how to apply it in practice.

dsq 3y ago
I would very much like to see the plan you were given. I also struggle with extra weight, and have used IF to some success.
- mrcode007 3y ago
  What’s your email?
Melatonic 3y ago
Why did you have to reduce your exercise in addition to learning how to eat right ? Seems like you could have just kept the higher exercise level and then ate appropriately for that

filoleg 3y ago

> And yet, people who exercise more are overwhelmingly more likely to be a healthy weight This is what can be called a “correlation not causation.” Control for eating, and the picture would likely look different. In the same way as “people who ride subway are more healthy than those driving cars.” It isn’t that riding subway on its own produces some miracle health benefits, riding subway usually means that you walk more and sit less (compared to driving a car as your primary commute method). If you control for that and start walking the same amount even if you drive, you will likely find the difference in health outcomes between driving and using subway disappear.

SuperNinKenDo 3y ago
Yes, if you control for eating the picture will look different, because you're creating a different picture. Modern, Western scientific thinking always tries to isolate variables, our medicine is always trying to isolate that one specific molecule, etc. This has given us fantastic insights, and allowed us to see the trees for the forest, but we also then start to miss the forest I feel. The forest is a complex and difficult to quantify system of interrelation and interconnection. We may never fully understand the forest, but that doesn't mean the route to effective knowledge about navigating this landscape is to ignore forests, and concentrate on individual trees. I hope the metaphor is clear enough. There are different ways of knowing, and to jarringly switch metaphors, just because you've built a hammer, doesn't make every form of knowledge a nail.