The Fat Trap: Our Bodies Are Fighting Against Us

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/tara-parker-pope-fat-trap.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

by tysone • 15 years ago

92 145 15 years ago

cliftonk• 15 years ago

Carbohydrates produce insulin, insulin causes us to store fat. It's not complicated. There have been scientific studies out since the 30's entirely dismissing calorie counting as being effective.

Good Calories, Bad Calories: http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Challenging-Conventi...

kenjackson11• 15 years ago

It's almost like you didn't read the article. Which is too bad, because it's probably one of the best weight loss articles I've ever come across.

rubashov4• 15 years ago

I thought the article wasn't very good. It goes on at length with the only takeaway being that fat people have a very hard time maintaining weight loss and we're not sure why.

Shorel3• 15 years ago

In the article they reference low fat diets and calorie counting, in every single study cited.

In fact, the word carbohydrates appears only once in the whole article.

In Taubes book calories from fat != calories from sugar.

It's not hard to see why they reach very different conclusions.

simsimsalabim2• 15 years ago

I struggled for years trying to get in shape unsuccessfully before going on a ketogenic diet and losing ~100 pounds. It was kind of like switching from programming with memory to programming with values. It still takes hard work, but it feels like the odds are not as stacked against you anymore.

CoffeeDregs• 15 years ago

I so want to know what to do about carbs and fat. I like Taubes, Sisson, etc, but am really confused about GCBC when I read stuff like: http://www.cspinet.org/nah/11_02/bigfatlies.pdf

Any wisdom to share?

simsimsalabim2• 15 years ago

The linked pdf makes a number of factual errors. it incorrectly suggests that ketogenic don't encourage eating lots of vegetables and low-sugar fruits. It also trys to twist "not all calories are the same" into "you can eat as much as you want". and of course, trans fats should always be avoided.

but you should really decide for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6vpFV6Wkl4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

rubashov4• 15 years ago

I think I buy into what nutritionists call the "food reward" hypothesis of obesity. http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/search/label/Food%20re...

The key driver of modern obesity is the high availability of varied and intensely pleasing flavors. Even thirty years ago food was more bland, and there was way less variety in the grocery store. 100 years ago cooking with spices was a rare treat. Animals get fat on what is called the "cafeteria" diet, where they are presented with the choice of a high variety of flavors and nutrients. They do not get fat when presented with a monotonous diet.

Low carb dieting works because you are reducing food reward by removing pleasant starchy and sweet flavors, so people eat less. Low fat dieting also works for the same reason; people have had success by eating mostly plain potato.

tomjen3• 15 years ago

If it has been known for so long, why isn't it something that mainstream science tells us?

Remember there is plenty of people who believe all kinds of things which still have (like thinning medicine with water makes it more effective) no basis in reality.

And your claim doesn't pass the bullshit filter: there are millions upon millions of people who were starved to death in Hitler and Stalins camps. If fat and calories don't matter, why is it that there isn't a single fat (or even close to normal weight) prisoner of the third rich? Or from the Gulags?

But we don't even need to go there, you can just look at basic themodynamics: energy cannot be created from nothing, so when the people take in less food, they grow thinner and eventually die.

gizmo• 15 years ago

Straw man. Of course calorie restriction (starving yourself) works. Nobody in their right mind would claim otherwise. Taubes argues that starving yourself is just a very inefficient (and unpleasant) way to lose weight.

seiji• 15 years ago

Gary gives his perspective on your questions at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6vpFV6Wkl4

ramy_d• 15 years ago

challenge? http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/...

sandGorgon• 15 years ago

This is not entirely correct: check out Guyenet's rebuttal and conference video http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-h...

http://www.dietdoctor.com/ahs-showdown-gary-taubes-vs-stepha...

b3b0p• 15 years ago

Care to provide these scientific studies? Pubmed? Links?

Your post can only make me think of this: http://www.leangains.com/2009/02/low-carb-talibans.html

yummyfajitas7• 15 years ago

It's not complicated, it's merely false.

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-h...

There have been scientific studies out since the 30's entirely dismissing calorie counting as being effective.

[citation needed. The actual studies please, not Gary Taubes.]

Shorel3• 15 years ago

> This brings us to a core concept that Taubes fails to incorporate in his thinking: the idea that insulin signaling in fat tissue depends both on the concentration of insulin around, and on the sensitivity of cells to that insulin. In obesity, fat tissue is insulin resistant.

Did the author of the article read another Taubes book?

In the mentioned book, insulin resistance was a very important point. And the reason I cringe when I hear someone is injecting even more insulin into their body to combat diabetes.

kenjackson11• 15 years ago

This article seems to be to be strong justification for policies to keep people from getting overweight to begin with. I know for example, there have been battles in school districts to get rid of flavored milk and such.

I really would love to see better foods in schools. It's largely a captive audience. If we could reduce the number of people who leave high school overweight, even if by just a small number, it would probably have pretty decent long-term benefits.

And likewise better college programs. For example, at my college, if there was a "good health" program I could have easily signed up for, which included aerobic/weight training and meals there's a good chance I would have done it.

bgentry2• 15 years ago

Exactly. Once you've become obese, you've already lost (in general).

Not the most encouraging thing to say to those who are already overweight, but it's an important detail nonetheless.

radu_floricica4• 15 years ago

One you start a heavy diet, you've lost. There may be ways to lose weight that don't prompt the same response for your body. Maybe losing weight much slower? Or alternating fasts with periods of eating well? There is still much research to be done, and many ideas to be tested.

dredmorbius28• 15 years ago

No.

It's harder.

There does appear to be a "fat memory" (there's also a muscle memory -- those who've done strength training in their youth will make faster, bigger gains when resuming training later on).

But, absent some underlying organic cause or insult (injury, genetic propensity, illness), the same principles that work for those who have little trouble losing weight work for those who are obese. Perhaps a little more time and effort are involved.

The lesson that's been instructive to me as I travel through the decades has been to watch those who were typically thin as they hit their 30s and 40s. If they aren't practicing good nutrition and activity practices, even they tend towards girth, though it's usually a potbelly rather than an all-encompassing growth.

Nobody gets a free ride on this one.

algoshift2• 15 years ago

> strong justification for policies to keep people from getting overweight to begin with

Thinking that legislation is the solution to everything is part of so many problem in the US. You can't stop fat gain with laws any more than stopping people from driving over the posted speed limits on highways (which are government legislated and policed).

Education and free market effects are the only real and long-term solutions to these and other problems.

Educate people and they will vote with their actions. Food quality will improve overnight if Walmart shoppers stop buying everything with corn syrup and a myriad of unrecognizable chemical cocktails added for flavor, looks, preservation, whatever.

Finally, one needs to recognize that a certain percentage of the population will be fat no-matter what. I don't know what that number might be, but the key point is to face the reality that one can't fix every life. It's an individual choice.

If health insurance costs were paid directly by the policy holder and the market was free and open across state lines you might just see insurance policies that say things like "if your body fat content is over 20% your deductible increases by 100%, if it's over 33% your coverage is cut in half." or some such thing.

People react immediately to things that affect them directly. This sort of a free market approach is proven to motivate people to change behaviors. Your automobile insurance gets more expensive if you accumulate speeding tickets, therefore you slow down.

Keep government out of it. Almost everything they touch turns into an ugly mess.

ams61102• 15 years ago

Keep government out of it. Almost everything they touch turns into an ugly mess.

Amen to that. Especially considering how closely the obesity "epidemic" correlates to government recommendations on what to eat (namely the "food pyramid").

barrkel2• 15 years ago

Sometimes I wish people like you would move to Somalia. If lack of government is what you really want, you can have it.

Rubirosa• 15 years ago

>Thinking that legislation is the solution to everything is part of so many problem in the US. You can't stop fat gain with laws any more than stopping people from driving over the posted speed limits on highways (which are government legislated and policed).

Okay, let's do an experiment. We have two cafeterias, and randomly assign students to one or the other. In one we serve the standard fare, and the other 'healthy fare.' Assume we agree on what's healthy, and that it prevents obesity for most.

Do you think the kind of food available has no effect on obesity rates? Will the obesity (and diabetes) rates be equal between these two groups of students?

Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker. I can't see how not giving kids the choice of eating junk food will lead to worse outcomes. They aren't going to go home and say, "OMG, I gotta make up for all the junk food I didn't eat at school now!"

I think increased deductible for the obese is a fine idea. But if that would work, so would a high tax on sugar (eg 0.5-1+ cents per gram), if indeed sugar is in part to blame for obesity as I believe. The benefit of a sugar tax is that it is felt before the person has gotten fat. The disadvantage is that even the slim and healthy must pay it. Even so, in a proper diet, sugar consumption should be well under 50g/day, more like <20g/day.

There are no nutrition labels on alcohol. On wine bottles, basic facts like the sugar concentration and the specific blend of grapes is often omitted, subject to local laws.

People often don't care enough to even get to the point where they can educate themselves. It's a bit of a chicken and an egg problem - if manufacturers don't disclose the information, consumers will never hear it, and will never ask for it in large numbers. Mandatory disclosure via government regulation solves that "information asymmetry." Once it's on the label, consumers can discriminate with regard to that information.

hughw• 15 years ago

Keep corporations out of it. Almost everything they touch turns into an ugly mess.

dredmorbius28• 15 years ago

That would be a far more compelling argument if it wasn't for the fact that in large part it's been government regulations and policies which have gotten us into this mess. Not solely, but in part.

Promoting large-scale agricultural activities, especially corn, potatoes, soybeans, and as a result CAFO beef, HFCS, and fa[s]t foods, largely an outgrowth of President Nixon's 1970s agricultural policies, have greatly re-shaped the American food landscape.

Industrialization of other parts of the food industry, particularly as pertains to processed/prepared foods, has done more. Regulations pertaining to such operations (including centralized inspection of meat processing plants, say) squeeze out small operators. Efficient, perhaps, but not healthful.

Liberating food processors from the consequences of their actions (allowing economic externalities in the form of negative health consequences) is a large part of problem.

Likewise institutional food policies at schools, through low-income food support (read up on Roger Lustig and WIC-provided OJ in his anti-fructose rants), universities, chain restaurants (you know, of course, that Michael Dell is a major shareholder of Applebees and IHOP), university, hospital, and military systems.

Toss in some really piss-poor science (Ancel Keys "lipid hypothesis") and, yes, some horribly broken policy. There's a lot government could do to fix things.

Mark Bittman's New York Times food column has highlighted a number of policy fixes which would help. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/b...

pan693• 15 years ago

My girlfriend is from Thailand and a few months ago I went to visit her parents and home town. She's from central Thailand. One thing that stuck me was the lack of "fat" people walking around. Everyone is skinny and healthy looking, especially older people. When I pointed this out to my girlfriend she said that only the youngest generation of under 10 year old are somewhat fat. This coincides with the first fast food chains and supermarkets opened in her home town about 10 years ago. It's obviously the "western diet" that's doing all this. Chuck full of fat and sugar.

streptomycin• 15 years ago

The whole "eating fat makes you fat" thing has been pretty thoroughly discredited.

shaggyfrog• 15 years ago

Jamie Oliver has been taking on the problem of bad food in schools in both the UK and the US. It's a really pernicious problem, mostly because of all of the politics and bureaucracy involved, and the heavy lobbying by the companies making the crap food. Pizza is a vegetable, right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamies_School_Dinners

scelerat2• 15 years ago

Not only better food, but better health education in general, including P.E., the 'lab' component to all that book learning.

When you are fit and healthy, running around and playing games like soccer, volleyball, tennis, basketball is fun. They are activities which are social and which you can do throughout most of your adult life.

Same goes for swimming and running. Those are harder to teach as "fun," especially to children, since they don't necessarily have a game component and are more mental in nature. Yoga and weightlifting fall into this category too.

Regardless, it seems that some people obsess over the number on the scale or the appearance in the mirror, rather than focus on treating their bodies well and using them in active, physically rewarding ways. Weight and body image should follow from this approach, not drive it.

Travis3• 15 years ago

Having just finished reading "Willpower", I wanted to comment here. The primary hypothesis of the book is that humans have a store of "willpower", which is depleted every time we exercise it (including making tough decisions) [see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion]. When we avoid our favorite foods, we deplete our willpower. When that reserve is gone, it is much more difficult for us to make the "right" choice.

The really interesting twist was when they presented the brain glucose study results. The authors suggest that it's glucose levels in the brain that partially determine the size of the willpower reserve. Thus, when you diet, you not only deplete your reserve by making a decision to avoid fatty foots, but you also starve your brain of the glucose it needs to replenish the ability to make tough decisions.

They support it with some interesting and fairly compelling evidence. I highly recommend reading it.

daenz• 15 years ago

> The primary hypothesis of the book is that humans have a store of "willpower", which is depleted every time we exercise it (including making tough decisions)

That's pretty interesting. I wonder if this says something about the inevitability of a level of corruption in government (government, by definition, makes tough decisions, depleting willpower, but willpower is necessary for resisting corruption).

Travis3• 15 years ago

The book does address the incongruity between the level of self-control required to rise to a high level of power and the shocking lack of self-control and forethought of a Spitzer type person.

It doesn't tackle corruption per se, but does address politicians and power. (although IMO, it wasn't the strongest section in the book)

tptacek• 15 years ago

This is also something dealt with pretty early in Daniel Kahneman's excellent _Thinking Fast And Slow_.

radu_floricica4• 15 years ago

"Thinking Fast and Slow" was the wider, more interesting book, but I found "Willpower" to be the practical one. Got at least a couple of potentially life changing things from it - its views on dieting, and the concept that creating a habit gives basically free willpower. But they are both excellent books, and I would be extremely happy to see them reaching as wide an audience as possible.

Splines• 15 years ago

Hence the saying, "Never shop hungry".

It's a hard learned lesson, but treating future-you as someone who is lazy and weak-willed pays off.

gordonc• 15 years ago

Seconded. This book has made me rethink all of my behaviors and professional practices – from the gym, to food, drinking, and my UX design recommendations and reasoning. It provides a framework for how we make decisions, a truly phenomenal and amazing accomplishment, when you consider it.

Travis3• 15 years ago

If you haven't yet read it, I also highly recommend, "Nudge". It's similarly eye opening WRT how incentives shape outcomes.

radu_floricica4• 15 years ago

I loved the way the brains of dieting people reacted and "consumed" willpower when sitting near a bowl of sweets, but the brains of non-dieting people didn't. I think I quit all thought of ever dieting again that moment. I'm working now on slooowly losing weight by behavioral means (stopped eating near a computer, for example), and so far it's a stallmate. But I'm hopeful.

dredmorbius28• 15 years ago

There's a lot of crossover in my understanding of fitness (diet/nutrition, strength, cardio), and of willpower and volition in its various states. Many food/fitness issues are born of concepts very similar to addiction (and heavily pursued by food marketers and advertisers under similar grounds).

I've tried going very low carb, and found the experience quite dissatisfying. Cognitive, strength, and cardio abilities all suffered. My best bet is to stick to a small quantity of whole grains (rolled or steel-cut oats generally) in the morning, some fruit and vegetables through the day, most carbs post-workout.

As to cutting the volitional element of diet control, a number of experiences, ranging from "Supersize Me" to other readings and experiences, made me stop considering a wide range of alleged "food products" as food, and instead, seeing them as toxins. The choice is then not one of "do you want to eat this food" but "do you want to eat this poison". It makes saying "no" much easier. Practicing a "thanks, but no" doesn't hurt either.

It also helps (and HN often assists in this) to realize that a great deal of modern "culture" and media are dedicated to polluting your choice-discrimination mechanisms. Avoiding commercial media (TV, radio, malls, etc.) drastically reduces your exposure to mental toxins as well. Yes, "gamification", "viral spread", "addictive experience", and all that.

Shopping also becomes the one time you're really having to make choices. I avoid stores that carry mostly junk, have my "regular items" I stock up on, and stick to them. Treats become nuts, dried fruits, dates, and figs.

Scheduling a regular time to be at the gym (or wherever else you exercise) is another key.

Stick to all of this: avoid the bad foods, feed your brain/body enough slow-burning glucose to keep it happy, avoid distractive influences, keep your home and personal environments free of temptations, and you'll spare yourself a lot of the need of having to exhaust willpower. Though as with any muscle, I suspect that occasional exercise with periods of recovery strengthens it in the long run.

Tichy• 15 years ago

In a way, isn't it a good thing if the body can get by with less calories? Personally I find it a bit frustrating that my body is so inefficient. For example, Chinese people are certainly as smart or smarter than I am, yet their bodies tend to be smaller so presumably they require less calories for maintenance. Of course the brain still craving for more is a problem, but being able to get by on less calories seems like a good thing.

ebbv• 15 years ago

What a crock of shit. There's always some new study that lazy people want to use to excuse being fat and lazy.

I was fat for most of my adult life but when I was 30 I finally got sick of it and spent the next 18 months losing over 100 lbs to get healthy.

Am I miraculously cured and could never get fat again? No. I could get fat again easily and during the holidays I put on like a few pounds due to bad habits. But I'm taking it back off. It's a constant battle, not "with my body" -- which implies that it's out of your control, like cancer -- but with the bad habits I developed during childhood and perfected during my 20's. I have to fight against them and I have to NOT be lazy, I have to exercise, in order to avoid getting fat again.

There's no "magic" going on, we've understood for many decades that weight loss and gain are ALL about calories in vs. calories out, and that's true for everybody except a tiny, tiny percent who have various medical conditions.

When someone loses the weight during some "trick diet" like special shakes, and then they go off the shakes and gain the weight back, that's no more surprising than if someone who is skinny suddenly starts eating 5 large pizzas a day and gains weight.

Lasting weight loss requires that you change your habits and learn to eat for fuel and fight against your tendency to eat to relieve boredom, for comfort, for pleasure, etc.

Articles like this which encourage people to put their hands in the air and say "It's not my fault! I can't help it!" make me sick because I think of people like my aunt who suffered for years from diabetes, going blind and eventually dying, which was NEEDLESS. If she had only been able to get help and actually lose weight and get healthy, she could have been happy, healthy and might still be with us today.

rubashov4• 15 years ago

I do find it interesting that over the same period the obesity epidemic developed standards of public dress, and arguably behavior, deteriorated badly. People got fat at the same time flipflops and cheesy t-shirts became suitable public attire. Pure coincidence?

Everybody wants to write about the biological science of the obesity epidemic, but it's pretty hard to argue that people nowadays are just less disciplined in various respects.

electromagnetic2• 15 years ago

> People got fat at the same time flipflops and cheesy t-shirts became suitable public attire. Pure coincidence?

Yes, as before the 1950's it was common to see the working class wearing 'waist overalls' (AKA baggy jeans) and wife beaters in public. It was after the 1950's that they became a staple in teen culture and spread to the middle class as those teens matured.

I don't see how there's a difference between cheesy t-shirts and wearing a wife beater (technically underwear) in public. I actually think t-shirts are more acceptable, despite wife beaters being a staple, like jeans, in the working class back before the 1900's. They became acceptable footwear in the post-war period when soldiers returned from Japan with them.

Note that Japan has had sandals as a cultural staple for centuries, to the point that they invented the tabi(?) AKA toe socks to be worn with them (because, you know inventing real shoes that keep your feet warm was just an absurd notion). So despite being commonly regarded as thin compared to westerners, I suppose they've become grossly obese by their own standards since they invented the sandal.

It's quite frankly absurd logic. I might as well say that Americans are fatter than Brits because it's acceptable to wear a lounge suit to formal events, whilst in the UK its less acceptable and generally only a full tux is regarded as fitting formal wear.

Sorry, the reason Americans have the fattest arses in the world is because its government gives massive subsidies to corn growers. Corn incidentally is a great source of calories and low source of nutrients. This means poor people have to consume larger amounts of food to get the same nutrition. This means they tend to get obese, because despite eating copious amounts of calories, they're still malnourished.

People get fat because of the abundance of cheap, low quality calories.

The most likely reason why South East Asians are healthier than westerners is because their government subsidizes higher nutritional quality foods. Rice for instance is a better start than corn. Similarly subsidizing salmon and tuna as opposed to cattle farm beef is again better.

I'm not saying beef is bad for you, but the shit in a McDonalds patty is, especially when you can get 1lb for like $2. The stuff you're paying $15 a lb for is likely not as bad as the vegans would want you to believe.

mrj• 15 years ago

Read the article. The point remains that somebody who has lost a lot of weight must still eat fewer calories than somebody who naturally maintains the same weight. There is something else going on that's not fully understood yet, it's not just being lazy.

Florin_Andrei• 15 years ago

You're probably getting downvoted for the first phrase - there does seem to be some genetic component, albeit it's not clear how important it really is.

I agree with everything else you said.

rubashov4• 15 years ago

The genetic component has to do with susceptibility to overeating, though. It's not some magic "metabolism" setting as is most commonly claimed.

scarmig• 15 years ago

Silly.

Obviously we all have free will and can theoretically do anything. But simply the existence of an extremely specific set of actions that aren't physically impossible that someone must take to achieve something is not enough to say that, if they don't have that thing, they don't deserve it.

I was fairly overweight at one point (BMI of 27, not muscle) and managed to get down to a more healthful range. The thing is, I was in a very real sense hungry all the time. I remember eating the same thing together with a roommate, and at the end he'd be quite full while I felt like I had barely eaten an appetizer. On top of that, I'd spend probably 5 hours a week exercising, not counting commuting to work on a bike every day, eating no junk or fast food (avoiding eating out altogether, actually), while he barely even left the house and seemed to subsist on tortilla chips and salsa. And yet despite that effort, I eventually trended to a higher weight while his didn't change.

So far as I can tell, the issue wasn't any moral failing on my part. And we've had people moralizing about how fat people are lazy and lazy people are fat for decades, with no perceptible counteracting influence on the health of the people in the USA.

So what's the value in that, when what we could be focusing on is how to hack the human body to get around those pain points?

jbwyme• 15 years ago

The whole weight loss approach described in the article seems flawed to begin with. The human body is an adaptive organism and will fight any drastic changes trying to stay in balance. 500 calories a day will certainly cause the body to begin changing hormone levels. Then you come out of it after a while and start eating correctly you still have severely imbalances hormones (relative to normal levels). So now you're eating healthy but have completely screwed up the way your body handles food, essentially storing more calories than before. If you slowly shift into better habits and allow your body time to keep up you'll end up with a calorie burning machine. The main problem is people get so motivated to change they dive in head first (such as. 500 calorie per day diet), throw everything out of whack, try to maintain their losses which start coming back and end up worse than where they started.

kenjackson11• 15 years ago

The human body is an adaptive organism and will fight any drastic changes trying to stay in balance.

You do realize that's pure speculation on your part. It's nice to be able to just say things like, "the brain is so powerful that if you imagine eating it will be like you did". But you actually need the science and data to back it up.

Furthermore, where is the line? Is 500 calories too much? What about a 50 calorie per day deficit? What about 1 calorie? Is it better to lose the calories per day, or in a single sitting? Does it matter the food composition? Does it matter if the deficit is paired with exercise? What if the deficit is purely exercise (no reduction in caloric intake)? Etc... You use the scientific method to try to understand this. Not just speculation from random Joe's on the corner, because frankly everyone and their mom has an opinion. And that's why everyone and their mom has a new diet they've just introduced.

mgcross• 15 years ago

Pubmed has a lot of abstracts pertaining to metabolic rate: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18198305 "Body weight is defended in non-obese participants during modest caloric restriction, evidenced by metabolic adaptation of RMR and reduced energy expenditure through physical activity." There are plenty of other studies that support CR as a factor in lowered RMR. I read one (can't remember where) that used non-obese women. IIRC, the women on 300kcal deficits had no change in metabolic rate, while those on 500 did.

saturdaysaint3• 15 years ago

Other people have pointed out that the author's stated theory of calory intake isn't universally accepted, but I'd add that the author's conception of exercise is also problematic. The value of the cardio she holds up as evidence of her subjects devotion to weight loss is suspect.

She mentions changes to her subjects musculature on restricted calorie/high cardio diets as an impediment to future weight loss. So why not do what's practically canon among modern athletes and bodybuilders - make healthy muscle development (or at least preservation) a primary goal of the diet/exercise regime. In other words, do the opposite of what all these beleaguered people are doing?

Bodybuilders disdain cardio because it results in hormone changes that actively inhibit muscle development. Conversely, weight lifting boosts testosterone and lean body mass.

The whole outlook here is so out of keeping with the wisdom of the highly fit people I know (and my own experience shedding and keeping off 50 pounds of excess weight for five years without the grueling effort she describes) makes me question her conclusions.

aantix• 15 years ago

Adding muscle is 1) extremely difficult (no, you cannot add 30 lbs of muscle in 30 days unlike the ads would make you believe) and 2) the effects are largely exaggerated.

Quoting Lyle McDonald, a noted leader in fitness science and nutrition :

"Some of this also comes from the still gross misconception that ‘muscle burns a ton of calories’ (a myth I took apart in Dissecting the Energy Needs of the Body – Research Review). That is, they hope to jack up metabolic rate by increasing muscle mass. Which is a futile activity because the effect is minimal (on top of the fact that the obese are already carrying extra muscle mass). A pound of muscle burns about 6 calories at rest, you have to add a ton to impact on metabolic rate (see also the next issue I discuss, low metabolic rate isn’t a problem). And that takes a lot of time, time better spent focusing on active fat loss."

ellyagg5• 15 years ago

I added 25 lbs of muscle in <month. Since high school I'd never been able able to gain much muscle. Even lifting heavily and being quite strong and eating voraciously the highest I could get to was 163 lbs at 5'11" when I was 25. Earlier this year, I heard of the Gallon of Milk a Day (GOMAD) diet and tried it. I went from 152 to 177 in less than a month, while doing CrossFit three days a week, and one day each a week testing my 1RM max in the squat and bench press. I've never had any appreciable bodyfat (~12%) and I did not gain any during this time. I did not use any supplements of any kind, not creatine, nor steroids, nor insulin.

Edit: Incidentally, since it did indeed happen, the incredulity expressed by the down votes indicates just how proud I should be about it. ;) I never complain about down votes, but there is something mind bending about being down voted for something you know to be pure fact and to realize your down voters literally have no idea what they're talking about.

kenjackson11• 15 years ago

Other people have pointed out that the author's stated theory of calory intake isn't universally accepted

Very little in nutrition is universally accepted.

So why not do what's practically canon among modern athletes and bodybuilders - make healthy muscle development (or at least preservation) a primary goal of the diet/exercise regime. In other words, do the opposite of what all these beleaguered people are doing?

Because it generally doesn't work for weight loss. Each additional pound of muscle will burn about 3 calories per day more than that pound of fat. So if you lose 10 pounds of fat and add 10 pounds of muscle (no small feat), that will net about 30 calories per day. Less than about 5 minutes of jogging.

Adding muscle mass is great when you're already lean, which is why it makes sense for athletes and bodybuilders. But talk to NFL linemen who try to lose weight after they retire and you'll see that simply lifting weights isn't sufficient. They need to cut back on food and spend a lot of time running. And from people I know -- they'd much rather just lift weights.

yummyfajitas7• 15 years ago

It's very true that losing 10lbs fat and gaining 10lbs muscle will only net 30 calories/day. So what? The goal isn't to get your weight below a certain number unless you are a boxer aiming for a weight class. The goal is to get a healthy body composition.

I'm 6'5", and I weigh 242lb, for a BMI of 29. (Overweight is 25, obese is 30.) If you looked at me, you'd never guess I was overweight - the most you'd see is a little excess belly fat if I took my shirt off. On the other hand, I bench 170, squat 200 and press 120 (no deadlift due to back injury). When I hit 253, I'll be obese, just like pretty much everyone in the NBA. Yes, I know my squat is low.

And, like most people in the NBA, I'll be eating just as much as any fat guy. That's what gaining muscle buys you - it lets you eat as much as ever while being "that jacked guy" rather than "that fat guy".

This also ignores the fact that to build and maintain the muscle, you are burning calories anaerobically, the same as you would if you were sprinting (slower running burns fewer calories, since it's primarily aerobic).

saturdaysaint3• 15 years ago

Yes, this is why I mentioned muscle preservation and focused on the hormonal impact of different kinds of exercise. The "calories-burned-per-muscle-pound theory" is probably a drastic simplification of the benefits of resistance training. Then again, the article in point shows that muscle mass isn't the only relevant metric - the article shows that changes in muscle quality (becoming more "slow twitch" in character) can have vast health implications. Conversely, it might follow, that nobody needs to gain a pound of muscle to accrue benefits from weight training.

xsmasher• 15 years ago

You're discounting the calories burned while lifting the weights. Running also gets easier as you lose weight, so you'll top out unless you add miles/time or speed.

7952• 15 years ago

A lot of people exercise because its fun. In the same way that you should have a healthy diet because it will probably taste better. I would argue that weight loss on its own gives little immediate benefits. Doing sport because its fun has lots of immediate benefits, and gives a constant sense of achievement. Weight loss is just an added benefit.

If tracking weight loss doesn't lead to weight loss it is an invalid treatment for obesity.

saturdaysaint3• 15 years ago

Very true. Stress's impact on weight is probably underappreciated, both in terms of the hormone changes and the poor decisions people make when they're stressed. I think one of the biggest health benefits of exercise is the emotional uplift it gives, which in turn leads to making unhealthy things like drinking and eating bad foods less appealing.

ellyagg5• 15 years ago

What a fatalistic article. Before taking the tone that this article does, I would need to see hundreds of studies suggesting that reversing overweight tendencies is not possible. It may be the minority, but legions of people have reversed their weight problems, and not all required herculean efforts. It's very doubtful that once you're significantly overweight, there's no hope.

While we need this research, this article spins it to make it less than helpful for a certain segment of the population. Rather than focusing on the people (most of them), who can't maintain their weight after dieting, we really need more research explaining those who can, and not simple dismissals that those rare people are machines whose lives revolve around counting calories. People can change their metabolism. For example, there is a case study documenting someone who lost almost 400 pounds over the course of just over a year, using a strict fast[1]. After 5 years, he had maintained his weight loss. Why was that? I can think of possible reasons that have not been thoroughly studied. For instance, after several days or weeks, people on strict fasts report not feeling hungry any longer. Is it possible one's metabolism/sense of hunger resets on a strict fast?

Long term fasting can be dangerous, not least of which because very overweight people often have other health problems. The study cited mentions several people who died on long term fasts, particularly during refeeding. Due to the danger, and probable need for doctor supervision, safe systems of long term strict fasts haven't necessarily been fully fleshed out, although some fasting diets exist that aren't strict fasts, and I would imagine would be quite safe, like PSMF or Dukan diet.

What I like about a fasting diet is that there's no room for fooling yourself. As soon as you introduce attempts to mimic yummy foods or introduce varieties of flavor and texture, you open the door to cheating and desiring things you can't have. If, on the other hand, you're consuming 600 calories of whey protein and some green powder for nutrients, there's little room for error.

We know that the human metabolism isn't a simple calories in, calories out furnace. Medical research is very clear that this isn't the case. Good Calories, Bad Calories is heavily cited. One example that confounds a simple arithmetical analysis is that the body uses a lot more energy to turn protein into fat. So the body uses calories to store calories in that case. Another example is that eating carbs actually changes most people's behavior: Unless they are consciously counting, people will tend to eat more food if they are eating carbs.

[1] http://pmj.bmj.com/content/49/569/203.full.pdf

cliptomania• 15 years ago

Agreed. It's odd considering that people have no difficulty accepting that alcoholics have a permanently altered relationship with booze.

Given that ex-fatties still have to eat, my idea would be to have the same meal every day, liquidized and diluted with as much water as possible, and to take no pleasure from consuming it. (Pleasure can be found elsewhere, e.g. in meaningful work.)

>For instance, after several days or weeks, people on strict fasts report not feeling hungry any longer.

That is true in my experience (I once fasted for 15 days).

In a fast there is opportunity for renewal of brain tissue:

http://www.cell.com/cell-stem-cell/abstract/S1934-5909%2811%...

Ofc, this approach won't work if the fast is too short (it takes other tissues several weeks/months to renew themselves, e.g. skin = 6 weeks). So some limited food intake is necessary. Also won't work if the subject develops, say, a cocaine or porn habit to replace food.

gwern• 15 years ago

> It's odd considering that people have no difficulty accepting that alcoholics have a permanently altered relationship with booze.

Odd, perhaps - but was that always the case? Was there no 'medicalization' of alcholism (or tobacco addiction, or eating disorders, or...) which turned it from a moral failing to a disease?

jlarocco• 15 years ago

I think part of the problem is dieting. 500 calories a day sounds miserable. I'd be interested to see if they get the same results for exercise.

A few years ago I dropped about 100 pounds, and I've yet to put the weight back on. What did it for me was lots of biking, hiking, trail running, and skiing. At this point, I have so much fun "exercising", I don't know if I could put the weight back on if I wanted too.

dredmorbius28• 15 years ago

500 cal/day isn't miserable, it's insane.

It's counter to well over 50 years (if not more) of medical evidence and experience with sustainable weight loss. Look up the Minnesota Starvation Experiment -- used to study the effects of long-term starvation among WWII POWs and concentration camp survivors. This involved six months of semi-starvation -- at 1500 cal/day. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Starvation_Experiment

Fewer than ~1200-800 cal/day is generally considered "VLCD": very low calorie dieting. If macronutrients and micronutrients aren't very carefully controlled, the body is essentially eating itself in slow motion. And odds are very good you wouldn't be able to exercise much if at all at 500 cal/day.

endtime• 15 years ago

It depresses me to see the results of people being misguided into caloric restriction. Good Calories, Bad Calories should be required reading at weight loss programs: http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Challenging-Conventi...

spodek• 15 years ago

I didn't see the biggest data point to me, which is that Americans have become more obese in the past several decades, far too short a time for our genetics to have changed.

This data point suggests a major non-genetic component to getting obese.

Processed foods, labor-saving devices, and cars have come into existence and dominated our lives. It's hard not to conclude they play a major role.

radu_floricica4• 15 years ago

The article is not about getting obese, but about the fundamental flaw of all dieting methods - being "famished" changes the body and makes it much easier to gain weight.

If anything, this knowledge could put dieting itself among the risk factors for obesity.

berntb• 15 years ago

The interesting thing to me in the article is that these metabolical changes show up at 10% weight loss. What happens if someone lose 5%, stay at that weight a year and then lose another 5%? Will the changes still occur?

An important point implied in the article, is that weight lifting works. (As the GP discussed.)

(Personally, I was outsourced a year ago and took the chance to remove sugar from my diet. Works well, but it might be something else in mybnew environment that makes me lose weight.)

drcube• 15 years ago

Your point is valid, but it doesn't rule out genetics. Our genes express themselves differently in different environments. So our changing environment could cause people on average to get fatter, while genes still determine who gains weight and how much.

algoshift2• 15 years ago

I've been studying this peripherally for the past year or two. Nothing too scientific but, yes, methodical little experiments here and there. I might put-up a website to see if my thoughts help others.

I think I would say that my first finding is perhaps an obvious one: The very first requirement for weight loss is behavior modification. Obvious from the outside. But I think the reality is that from the inside, if you will, a person can focus too much on the wrong behaviors.

For example, if you need to work out for an hour a day, five days a week to loose weight the entire endeavor is destined to fail from inception. That is not a sustainable modification in behavior but for a few individuals for whom the new regime becomes a fun part of their lives. Health clubs make their money by signing-up ten times more people that will fit into their buildings and they can do this because they know that people will not stick with the program.

The other finding might be that fast weight loss is another formula for failure. My opinion is that fat loss should take one to two years. Many reasons for this. Perhaps the most important of them is what I mentioned above: behavior modification. Without permanently changing the way you do things, failure is guaranteed. Slow weight loss allows you to have a long "conversation with yourself", if you will, where you explore strengths, weaknesses, desires, success, failure, ideas, methods and, in general, converge on a path that is sustainable.

And that's the third idea: Converge on a long term sustainable solution. No solution is worth the effort and expense if it makes you do things that you can't reasonably do for the rest of your life. Signing-up for programs that ship you food on a weekly basis is not a way to live your life. What if you travel or don't have the money? Going to the gym 10 hours a week is ridiculous for most of us. That is not a long-term solution. Living on beans and lettuce and diet drinks is, well, not living.

A long and carefully managed process of converging on a sustainable solution has major benefits that can and should last for the rest of your life. You should be able to pig out during the holidays and have that slice of cheesecake or ice-cream when you want to. However, your long-term modified behavior should kick-in with enough regularly to guide you back onto that sustainable long-term path I was talking about.

I don't know what the motivation behind a lot of these studies might be. Sometimes it seems that all they are after is a pill or a new surgery they can sell you. Humans don't need any of that to maintain healthy body composition, they just need to do the right things, nature and biology will take care of the rest.

tlb• 15 years ago

Central heating, too. 100 years ago, most people got cold at night.

dredmorbius28• 15 years ago

Where this article (and a great many like it) annoy the bejesus out of me is in their sole focus on diet for fat loss.

Yes, diet matters.

In fact, diet matters a lot.

It matters in both quantity (the old "calories in/calories out"), quality (especially macronutrient breakdown and degree of processed foods), and timing (particularly of carbs in morning/post-workout feedings).

But diet is not the whole story.

Your body is comprised of several types of tissue. For the most part, the variable elements are adipose mass (a/k/a "fat"), skeletal muscle (those things Arnold Schwarzenneger made famous), and retained fluid (a/k/a "water weight") which is highly variable, responsive to carb loading, inflammation, and other factors, and is most of what rapid weight loss programs target -- which by analog means it's not long-lasting weight loss. You won't see appreciable changes, generally, in bone mass or organ size, absent excess skin on the morbidly obese.

The body has a complex set of autoregulatory systems, which seem to go out of whack under conditions prevalent in modern industrialized societies: abundent processed high-carbohydrate diets, little activity, social stresses, environmental toxins (particularly androgenic compounds). And yes, genetic and other factors play a role.

The question is, what can you do about it.

The article suggests "eat less".

Eating less can influence your body fat. And skeletal muscle, though not in a good way by itself (dieters lose 20-25% or more of their weight as muscle, absent countermeasures). But it's also going to kick off a bunch of adaptations which largely work against the goals of a deliberate low-calorie dieter.

So, what else can you do about it?

Pick up heavy shit. Lifting weights is what stimulates skeletal muscle to grow. Add 2-3 days of 30-60 minutes of resistance training to your program, and you'll retain, or add, muscle, while losing body fat. This is what programs such as "Body for Life" and others promote. It's basic stuff that strength trainers and strongmen have known about for over 100 years. Compound, freeweight, whole-body exercise: squats, deadlifts, press, bench press, chins (if you can do them), rows, pull-downs. Some core/ab stability work.

Especially if you're past 30 or 40. Your body is now well into losing the muscle it had originally had, at the rate of about 1/2 pound per year. You can literally turn back years of loss in a few months of training, to great effect.

Move. Intensely if possible. For someone grossly out of shape, simply walking for 20, or 15, or 10, or even 5 minutes a day is a good start. But if you can walk or jog for a good 20-40 minutes, what you want to do is up the ante with intensity, not duration, with high-intensity interval training (HIIT). Google "Tabata intervals" for a particularly engaging pasttime. No, doing the 20 minute treadmill waddle is NOT sufficient. Though if you're doing HIIT 2-3x weekly, another few sessions of longer moderate-intensity cardio will help.

So, yet another article saying "low-calorie dieting alone results in temporary weight loss in subjects" is hardly surprising. What have those in the know long known? That low, and especially very-low (>1000 cal/day deficit) dieting results in a high degree of lean-tissue loss, that metabolism slows by 40% after a few weeks, and that the post-diet recovery generally results in gaining yet more fat on a muscle-deprived frame, for a worse overall health outcome.

And we know this shit, well: http://alwyncosgrove.com/2010/01/hierarchy-of-fat-loss/ http://liamrosen.com/fitness.html

A great article previously posted to HN is "Everything You Know About Fitness is a Lie". This NY Times piece falls well into that lie category: http://www.mensjournal.com/everything-you-know-about-fitness...

So:

- Yes, diet. Cut processed foods, get sufficient protein, minimize excess carbs, eliminate junk calories (white anything, soda, HFCS, trans-fats, sugar, fruit juice). Figure out your BMR and estimated activity level (NOT your BMI, another bullshit fitness concept that needs to be shot dead) as a ballpark sanity check for calories.

- Pick up heavy shit. Specifically, a whole-body, freeweight, compound-movement strength program 2-4x weekly. If you can't use freeweights, machines are OK, but you'll do better with stuff that moves freely through space for numerous reasons.

- Move. If you're not moving at all, then start with something, and increase that until you're at 20-40+ minutes daily. If you're already moving, increase intensity 2-3x weekly. If you're doing both, add some more moderate cardio, particular morning fasted activity (your body's got no option but to burn fat at this time).

- Sleep, manage stress, get approriate recovery, cut out toxins in your life (chemical and social), address injuries or illnesses. Be gentle but firm with yourself.

If you want more, take a look at The New Rules of Lifting, Body for Life, or Mark Rippetoe's excellent Starting Strength.

In time you'll see big changes. Pretty much guaranteed.

Oh: yes, it's a lifestyle thing, you see. You'll have to keep doing some of this for most of the rest of your life. Odds are you may even find you like both the activity and the results.

If not, and you're honestly following the program, we can talk about what else to look at.

(Edits: minor typo/style fixes)

BrainInAJar• 15 years ago

> If not, and you're honestly following the program, we can talk about what else to look at.

Lifting heavy shit sucks. Some people like it sure, but it really, really sucks. It doesn't work for me, and it doesn't work for others either.

I have a bit of a suspicion that muscle fibre type (fast vs. slow twitch) has some bearing on whether or not you like it but someone like me ( a slow-twitcher ) needs endurance sport rather than weightlifting in order to be able to continue doing it (psychologically) for more than a couple months. So swimming, cycling, running, rock climbing, etc. doesn't build muscle as quickly or effectively but it increases your caloric deficit by multiples and for some is a much better way of changing lifestyle.

Good comment, otherwise

dredmorbius28• 15 years ago

My predicted 1RMs are consistently well above my actual maxes.

Once I start moving a weight, I can hit it for a lot of reps. Doesn't mean I can pick up the bar with what I would be predicted to hit, or even get within 20-50# of that number (depending on the lift). A friend was watching me squat the other day and thought I was spent at 3. I managed 16 reps.

Back in the day when I swam competitively I was best at middle-to-long distance, similarly biking and hiking. Classic Newtonian body here (once in motion, tends to stay there).

While my strength numbers aren't quite where I'd like to see them, they're good given circumstances, and while I haven't been training for mass/hypertrophy per se, I'm finding clothes shopping is increasingly a PITA: jeans, slacks, shirts, even boxers. I simply don't fit the designers' patterns any more.

What's been your specific training experience? I started with a sort of fart-around 8-12 rep mostly-machines program, graduated to a couple of years of 5x5, and for the past couple of years have done largely Wendler 5/3/1. The last two are beginning and intermediate strength programs, for those not familiar with them. I find that if I can get into the 3-5 rep range (and occasional heavy singles) I'm generally going to see good results.

My experience with swimming was that it helped a bit with excess fat, but as many have noted, there's only a limited weight-loss benefit to the activity. There's a lot of speculation as to why, the upshot is that swimming and drastic fat loss aren't closely associated.

chipsy2• 15 years ago

I never made substantial progress with strength training until I switched to isometric training, which has several lifestyle advantages:

-Easy scheduling - only a 5 minute daily routine is necessary, making it more like brushing your teeth than "hard training."

-Low risks, low energy consumption - the worst that can happen is that you spike your blood pressure, which happens with isotonic methods as well. There's little wear and tear in the performance of an isometric hold, hence overtraining is difficult, while motivation is easy.

-No real equipment needed. Doorframes, steel bars, walls, self-resistance, etc., are all acceptable. This also makes it easy to switch up the holds.

Anecdotes, historical records, and modern science all indicate that it's about as good as the isotonic methods in most respects, and it's certainly a lot simpler to keep up with.

peterwwillis3• 15 years ago

"No pain no gain." If what you're doing doesn't feel at least a little uncomfortable then you aren't pushing your body enough. You don't want literal pain of course; always listen to your body. But it should feel difficult.

Perhaps you should build your fast-twitch muscles in different ways. Lifting heavy shit builds strength/power but does not build lean, functional muscle. There is such a huge variety of movements to work different parts of the body you could fill an hour's worth exercise with just a fraction of them. Body weight exercises can be very challenging and easy to start doing at your home. Personal trainers can show you exercises to do at home or the gym, as well as a multitude of free YouTube videos (but I should recommend you get a trainer to evaluate your form first so you don't hurt yourself). P90x is a very successful program and BeachBody has a couple other series which are also very challenging and provide results (I am not advertising for them; please torrent their videos if you want)

Lately I have gotten lazy so i'm doing Thai Boxing on mondays/wednesdays, kettlebell and other mixed exercise on tuesdays/thursdays and yoga on saturdays/sundays. I can't believe nobody has mentioned how surprisingly difficult yoga can be (especially the "power yoga" varieties) but I would recommend you try it if you want a less stressful beginning to a regular exercise program.

If you want to build more fast-twitch you should look into efficient plyometric exercises. Isometrics for strength (which can still be done with only bodyweight!)

BadassFractal• 15 years ago

A Rippetoe quote about this: "Only people willing to work to the point of discomfort on a regular basis using effective means to produce that discomfort will actually look like they have been other-than-comfortable most of the time. You can thank the muscle magazines for these persistent misconceptions, along with the natural tendency of all normal humans to seek reasons to avoid hard physical exertion."

Lifting heavy stuff is pain in the ass, it takes up lots of time, requires you to adjust your diet and schedule accordingly, and necessitates the learning of proper technique. It's quite a bit of work, but for many the payoff is worth it.

egypturnash3• 15 years ago

Vehement agreement. I got myself fit by discovering that I really liked learning burlesque dancing. Which meant that twice a week I'd get off my ass and exercised for an hour.

What really matters is that you find something you like to do that burns calories, and that you keep doing it on a regular basis. Bonus points if it's something that exercises your whole body and gets all your muscles in shape - as I advance and my teacher shows me new subtleties, I keep on finding ways to make muscles complain that I barely knew I had.

gonzo2• 15 years ago

> Lifting heavy shit sucks. Some people like it sure, but it really, really sucks.

I was there. Then I had an ascending aortic dissection (I managed to survive mostly unscathed), and post-recovery, started weight training. (The doctors were ... amused.)

I HATED it for a while, but eventually got to where it has become a bit of an addiction.

About the only thing I don't do is the 'valsalva' maneuver. Too much risk there for me. (My aorta is dissected from the site of the repair (mm away from the aortic valve) to somewhere in my right iliac artery (thigh).)

If I can lift, anyone who doesn't have serious back injuries or NM issues can.

egypturnash3• 15 years ago

I think you're misreading the article. Especially:

> There is no consistent pattern to how people in the registry lost weight — some did it on Weight Watchers, others with Jenny Craig, some by cutting carbs on the Atkins diet and a very small number lost weight through surgery. But their eating and exercise habits appear to reflect what researchers find in the lab: to lose weight and keep it off, a person must eat fewer calories and exercise far more than a person who maintains the same weight naturally. Registry members exercise about an hour or more each day — the average weight-loser puts in the equivalent of a four-mile daily walk, seven days a week. They get on a scale every day in order to keep their weight within a narrow range. They eat breakfast regularly. Most watch less than half as much television as the overall population. They eat the same foods and in the same patterns consistently each day and don’t “cheat” on weekends or holidays. They also appear to eat less than most people, with estimates ranging from 50 to 300 fewer daily calories.

The tl;dr of that? Eat less, exercise more. Eat breakfast. You're vehemently agreeing with the part where the article talks about what Really Works, and disagreeing with the parts where they basically say that a naïve approach based solely on food intake dowsn't work.

I will certainly agree with your general thrust of weightloss advice. I eat a lot less junk than I used to before, I shifted to a standing desk, I don't live with depressed people who drive me crazy to be around. (And who kept TONS of food around. OH HEY I'M DOWN AND THE FRIDGE IS FULL OF ICE CREAM.) I spend at least a couple hours a week doing a workout. I get enough sleep. My doctor made me cut salt out of my diet, which basically means "no crappy fast food any more, ever".

I think some of the details are what worked for YOU. My workout isn't traditional "exercise", it's not lifting weights, it's not aerobics. It's burlesque dance. Turns out that learning to move your body to emphasize all your jiggly bits and pose sexily is one hell of a full-body workout. Even at just two hours or so most weeks. Plus it does amazing things to your self-confidence - not just because your body looks better, but because one of the things you're trained in is how to appear confident, since that's sexy. I lost like thirty pounds over 4-6 months simply because I liked going downtown twice a week and having an hour of dance class.

I think the real key is not one particular KIND of exercise. It's regular, full-body exercise THAT YOU KEEP COMING BACK TO. For you, it's Pick Up Heavy Shit. For me, it's Swan Around And Jiggle My Titties. It's got the same end result: a body that's in good shape, that moves well and likes to move, so that we keep on doing it instead of sinking in front of the TV for hours on end.

(Oh yeah, and I just turned 40. I'm definitely finding myself starting to change my thinking in how I approach my body - I can't abuse it and have it bounce back any more.)

tl;dr: My experience of losing weight and getting fit generally agrees with you; I differ in the details. Plus I think you skimmed the part where the article talks about What Actually Works.

dredmorbius28• 15 years ago

I think you're misreading my reply ;-)

First: I don't focus on weight. I focus on fitness, and on body composition.

The sections of the article referencing article fail to distinguish at all between cardio and strength training. There's no mention of "strength" or "weight training" at all.

Your burlesque dancing is probably great cardio, and may do something for basic leg and core strength (you've probably got great adductors). You've probably got better rythm and prioprioception than me. And it's likely a hell of a lot of fun (not to be discounted). But if you look into strength training principles, you'll find that in order to develop strength (or size, or endurance), you've got to train in specific modalities. See Wikipedia for a good overview:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strength_training

You won't build muscle if you don't push its limits.

Another fave for women is Stumptuous: http://www.stumptuous.com/

I also never said I'd given up on cardio. These days it's more often rowing (indoors and out), and I manage a 2k indoor erg time that has me top-25 ranked worldwide (no, I haven't entered) for my age range (I've got a few on you, and sing the praises of healthy living as well). Remember: I'm coming at this from the perspective of a life-long cardio junkie and heavy-iron disdainer.

tl;dr: It's diet, strength, cardio (HIIT, LSD, NEPA), and other fitness modalities. Don't emphasize one modality to the exception of all others.

dredmorbius28• 15 years ago

One other point I'd been meaning to make. Not specific to your comments, but this is as good a place as any to add it.

Diet, strength training, cardio, sleep, and stress management are largely tools for influencing the endocrine system endogenously (by stimulating natural endocrine responses), rather than exogenously (through direct hormone supplementation).

Through diet, you can regulate your insulin/glucagon and leptin/ghrelin cycles, as well as the longer-term IGF cycle. Short-term, insulin is anabolic (which is why you eat carbs after strength training), long-term, it's lipogenic. This will have strong impacts especially on body fat, but also (timed correctly) on muscle development.

Through strength training you can influence testosterone and HGH production. The latter particularly if you're getting sufficient sleep, generally over 8 hours/night. Adequate sleep will also reduce cortisol (stress hormone) production, as will other stress-management techniques (avoidance, acceptance, meditation), which again affects body fat and muscle catabolism (breakdown).

Cardio activity also has influences on insulin and stress levels.

The five methods give you a pretty good means to adjust, again, endogenously, some very powerful influencers of your body's regulatory mechanisms.

The other side of physical activity is that it's strongly trained into your neurological system. It's nerves that carry the impulses to move muscles, and both heavy lifting and fine motor control will exercise different parts of the nervous system, with carryover in both cases to improved brain function. Strength training, music playing, painting, dance, ballet, gymnastics, balancing a 12" racing shell, learning foreign languages, problem-solving: all work different parts of your neurological system. Done for too long, any can be fatiguing, but as a regular exercise, they'll expand your capacity to do similar activity, and add improved resiliance all around.

jrockway4• 15 years ago

I think the most important thing you can do are long cardio sessions. 3-6 hours at low intensity. This is what trains your body to burn fat, because your body learns that it does not need fast energy.

If you do a daily 1-2 hour bike ride at moderate intensity (which many people do), that's nice, but it doesn't increase your fitness past a certain point or burn much fat. You just deplete your glycogen stores (about 1600 calories worth) which your next couple meals replenish. (I know because I have done this for many years and my speed does not increase unless I became way out of shape for some reason. You become fit enough to do your normal ride and that's as far as you go unless you add intervals or time.)

Short interval sessions at VO2max, as you suggest, are definitely good for you (feel those endorphins!), but they don't train your body to burn fat, they train your circulatory system to remove lactate. This is good if you are a bicycle racer or a marathon runner, but largely useless if you are trying to lose weight. (I know because I've done running and cycling intervals for a couple years and have weighed the same the entire time. More speed at the same heart rate, though, but I wish I had a power meter to really measure the effect of interval training.)

Anyway, my advice would be to go for a 3 hour walk on Saturday afternoon. Get a heart rate monitor to ensure that you're in your aerobic zone while doing so. If you want to be a bike racer or marathon runner or triathlete, then do interval training (and buy a book about it, and get a trainer). But for "normal people" that want to do something other than watch TV, it's not the best use of your time.

As for diet, processed foods are not the problem. Yes, they taste bad and are devices for evil corporations to make extra money at your expense. Avoid them for that reason, not because they are making you fat. You get fat because you eat more calories than your body needs, not because you eat sugar. It's just that it's very easy to eat a lot of calories worth of sugar without feeling full, and so you eat way more than your body needs.

I haven't been very successful with weight loss because I haven't followed two of my rules. I didn't start weekly long cardio sessions until last week, and I still haven't quite found the ideal diet for myself. Interval training with running and cycling have kept me in pretty darn good shape, but I still have a lot of excess fat. (I need to add weightlifting to my regimen also, but only because I want the core and arm strength, not because I think I'm going to lose any weight.)

dredmorbius28• 15 years ago

You could think that.

You'd be wrong.

Short, high-intensity work, and strength training, both have very large EPOC effects (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption).

The issues with processed foods are manifold. They're also easily avoided by eliminating the foods completely. A large part of the problem is that they encourage yet more overeating, while being robbed of crucial nutrients. Whole foods typically promote satiety while being nutrient-rich.

You might do better on your goals to follow up on a few of the references I've posted, as well as your own further research.

I do believe in a long training session, possibly two, per week. And I really enjoy it (hiking, cycling, rowing). But I don't think, my experience hasn't shown, and research doesn't support this being the missing factor for most people.

jrockway4• 15 years ago

Not sure why this is downmodded so far, so I'll give a citation that says exactly what I do:

http://www.amazon.com/Zinns-Cycling-Primer-Maintenance-Build...

Some exercise is going to be better than no exercise, but training for a marathon and "getting exercise" are vastly different activities.

scelerat2• 15 years ago

Exercising seems to be discussed in this article in mostly abstract terms and that's a real shame. People need to talk more about the quality of the exercise being performed as well as the time spent doing it. "Vigorous gardening"?

People don't like to talk about it or do it because changing what you normally do from day to day is hard.

I know because in the past I have gone from being a maintenance runner to being a semi-competitive distance runner and understand that carving out the time and putting in the effort to make those changes was difficult mentally and socially. I saw the results not only in race times, but in the fit of my jeans, pounds on the scale and skin on my face.

When I reduced my effort, weight and inches returned. Adding more prepared/restaurant food and alcohol increased the effect.

Now I'm approaching middle age, have slacked off the running and am watching my belly slowly grow. I know if I want it to stop or reverse, I'm going to have to change my ways: less late night partying, more discipline and even some pain. Aggressive yard work isn't going to do it, nor is biking to work (4 miles each way, mostly flat).

Merely changing your routine is hard enough. Changing it to introduce more discomfort (at least for a time, until you get used to it and your more energetic routine seems normal) is very difficult. It's difficult enough for me, a former football and track athlete who knows what to expect and has a decent tolerance for pain. It's got to be much worse for people who haven't gone through the cycles and don't know what their bodies are capable of doing and what their minds are capable of overcoming.

Talking about the exercise component can often drift off into lazy-shaming or sound like macho story-telling, but every time I hear from overweight family members or read an article like this one I always wonder, are you going for a short-term dip, or are you going to change your life? Because if it's the latter, you must prepare yourself for considerable inertia, metaphorically and physically. And then push through it.

peterwwillis3• 15 years ago

Group exercise programs can help motivate you to work through discomfort and stick to a regular schedule. I highly recommend looking at local gyms and independent trainers (ever see 5 people doing exercises in the park?) to find a group program that fits your schedule. The camaraderie sure helped me stick to a really grueling program and the benefits made it addictive.

The Fat Trap: Our Bodies Are Fighting Against Us

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