Comments on: Diet and fitness bloggers lash out against Time Magazine piece on exercise

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 00:16:47 +0000

Both Howard and Cloud are correct. Cloud did generalize ‘exercise’ when we know that pure resistance training and pure aerobic exercise have quite different physiological effects. Howard ‘debunks’ the article by ‘picking it apart,’ and in some cases may be correct. However, my observations and 10 years experience as a trainer have led me to conclude that Cloud’s conclusion that many, if not most, people will eat more when they exercise is correct. I’ve had several clients that wanted to train with me for the exercise but insisted that they not ‘diet,’ that is, not follow my dietary advice. One of these clients recently gained 10 pounds in 8 weeks. So I showed him the article and he said, “That’s me!” Also, this blooger states that Cloud, ‘loosely strings together a series of anecdotes and studies.’ The article seemed to me to be well written and ties the anectodal stories to the studies quite well…and the studies are peer-reviewed and respectable by most, if not all, scientific standards.

By: Biff

Biff — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 01:56:16 +0000

News Flash!!

One really good indication that you are beginning to lose weight is that you will get hungry.

How you respond to that hunger is what will determine whether you actually lose weight.

Hunger is not an imperative. It is a suggestion. You have to sort out, consciously, if the hunger signal is a valid one. If you are, in fact, about to perish for lack of nutrition, by all means, eat. If, on the other hand, you have stored some body fat somewhere, and you’d like to burn it up, ignore the hunger. The physiology that sends the hunger signal has a backup plan. It will actually make arrangements to burn some of that fat while it waits for the french fries that aren’t being stuffed down your throat.

In my case, mastering the response to the hunger signals has allowed me to lose about 40 pounds in the lasdt 14 months.

I’ve supplemented my caloric control with stationary biking 1 hour 3X a week and running on the weekends.

By: jason

jason — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 04:59:41 +0000

Simon, Interesting article (both Time and your post). I do think that Time over-generalized it somewhat. The desire to eat more after strenuous exercise seems to be well developed in scientific research (believed to be caused by the increase in ghrelin hormone, which is believed to be tied to strenuous exercise).

I came across similar findings in some of my research for an article on my site http://www.20bmi.com At the time, I was writing on the effects of dietary fiber and came across some interesting (if dry) writing on the effects of ghrelin and another hormone, leptin on hunger.

So, while I understand Time’s references to the “self control muscle” (or something like that) I am not sure I agree with one of their conclusions that exercise causes weight gain because the desire to eat later just can’t be withstood. There are many ways to control appetite, both pharmacalogically and by other means.

Just my 2c…

By: Milo

Milo — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 23:30:43 +0000

So, Megan, what you did was decrease your caloric intake while maintaining the same physical activity – whatever that physical activity may have been.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but in relation to your caloric intake, your caloric expenditure increased, right?

Your ratio of moving to eating increased. More moving, less eating – hmmmm. And since you were eating less, you most likely started eating smarter, too.

Sounds like you found a great balance between eating and physical activity. That balance is all anybody ever needs.

By: Megan

Megan — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 03:35:17 +0000

Well, this is anecdotal again, but I completely agree that exercise is overrated when it comes to losing weight. I recently lost a third of my body weight, and I did it by cutting calories. Increasing exercise just made me hungrier.

It’s funny, because people would always ask me if I was doing some sort of crazy exercise. I think they didn’t want to hear the real advice: “eat less”.