{"id":63,"date":"2008-03-30T19:35:02","date_gmt":"2008-03-30T17:35:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ultimatefatburner.com\/wordpress\/you-dont-need-exercise-to-lose-weightthe-popular-media-misfires-again\/"},"modified":"2015-02-12T20:18:24","modified_gmt":"2015-02-13T01:18:24","slug":"you-dont-need-exercise-to-lose-weightthe-popular-media-misfires-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/you-dont-need-exercise-to-lose-weightthe-popular-media-misfires-again\/","title":{"rendered":"The Devil’s in the Details…"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m often struck by the difference between reports on health\/fitness research that appear in the popular media, and the actual published research.\u00a0 Oh, the popular reports are accurate enough in what they say…but what they don’t<\/strong> say can be important too.\u00a0 When a scientific study catches media attention, reporters frequently act as stenographers and cheerleaders, and don’t give the details the analysis they deserve.\u00a0 Even top researchers can have\u00a0personal biases that influence the conclusions they draw, and people can be misled if they don’t get the whole story.<\/p>\n

Take, for example, this MSNBC report<\/a>, which\u00a0describes a\u00a02007 study<\/a>\u00a0that refutes conventional wisdom about diet and exercise.\u00a0 The basic conclusion was – when it comes to weight loss –\u00a0it’s all about the calories.\u00a0 You can do equally well by\u00a0eating less\u00a0OR exercising more –\u00a0but exercise\u00a0offers no metabolic\u00a0advantage.<\/p>\n

How did they arrive at this conclusion?\u00a0 The researchers took overweight subjects and divided them into two groups: the first group’s calories were reduced by 25%, while the second group used a combination of diet (12.5% reduction in calories) + exercise (which burned another 12.5%) to create the same 25%\u00a0deficit.\u00a0 Both groups lost the same amount of weight, so voila! You really don’t have to exercise to lose weight.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Well, the first thing that\u00a0struck me when I read this\u00a0was: “Hey, wait a second…the second group got to eat more food!”\u00a0 If you want to lose weight, would you prefer to eat more food or less?\u00a0 I know what I’d choose! In addition, more food = more nutrients, so nutritionally, you’re better off eating AND exercising more.<\/p>\n

So as far as I’m concerned, there’s already a problem.\u00a0 Then there was this line in the article:<\/p>\n

“And their carefully controlled study added to evidence that adding muscle mass does not somehow boost metabolism and help dieters take off even more weight.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Excuuuuuse me???<\/p>\n

Now I lift hard and heavy: I weigh 122 lbs., and my deadlift PR is 205 lbs. x 5 reps.\u00a0 I do squats, chin\/pull ups, bar dips,\"Me<\/a> bench press – you name it.\u00a0 I’m a middle-aged mother of two, and caliper measurements put me at 12% – 13% body fat (the average for a woman my age is 22% – 28%).\u00a0 Don’t tell me that adding muscle mass doesn’t boost metabolism!\u00a0 I’m leaner now than I was when I was\u00a0Sweet Sixteen and wearing size 5 dresses…and eat more in the bargain.<\/p>\n

So once again, I ain’t buyin’ it…<\/p>\n

But it took reading the full\u00a0study to appreciate the problems with this statement.\u00a0 First of all,\u00a0the\u00a0subjects in both groups\u00a0lost<\/strong> “fat free mass” (FFM) – which includes total body water, bone and…muscle<\/strong>.\u00a0 As the researchers wrote:<\/p>\n

\n“Our data suggest that fat-free mass is reduced in parallel with the degree of caloric restriction and that regular aerobic exercise (5 days per week), at least in non-obese individuals, does not preserve lean mass.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So how can this study\u00a0confirm that\u00a0adding muscle doesn’t boost metabolism, when no muscle was added? Duhhh…<\/p>\n

Even more importantly,\u00a0the\u00a0MSNBC report doesn’t reveal what kind of exercise the subjects did!\u00a0\u00a0 As noted in the above quote, the\u00a0subjects in the exercise group\u00a0did low-intensity aerobics exclusively, for\u00a0an average of\u00a045 min. (men) to 53 min. (women).\u00a0 This is fine for overall cardiovascular conditioning, but a)\u00a0it ain’t gonna\u00a0build muscle; and b) it ignores other research that links post-exercise metabolism to exercise intensity.\u00a0 Low intensity aerobic exercise may burn some cals, but only while you’re doing it…it doesn’t do much for you once the exercise is over.<\/p>\n

Now\u00a0the researchers didn’t make any distinction between types of exercise either.\u00a0 They assumed that all exercise is alike when it comes to losing weight, and the reporters passed this assumption along as a fact.\u00a0 Yet there’s very little scientific justification for it.\u00a0 It also flies in the face of my experience, both personal, and through working with people\u00a0on the private forums I moderate.<\/p>\n

You want to lose weight?\u00a0 Then lift some weight!\u00a0 While much of the research on strength training is focused either on athletes or on older people at risk for sarcopenia (age-related muscle wasting), there’s good evidence that lifting offers a solid metabolic boost that persists long after the workout ends.<\/p>\n

For example, this 2002 study<\/a> demonstrated that a heavy bout of resistance exercise (i.e., lifting weights), increased post-exercise oxygen consumption for up to 38 hours after the workout.\u00a0 Increased oxygen consumption = increased metabolism.\u00a0 This is borne out by another recent study<\/a> comparing the effects of aerobic exercise, strength training, or no exercise on body composition in women who lost sufficient weight to achieve a BMI < 25.\u00a0\u00a0 Only the women who did strength training were able to avoid losses of lean mass and strength;\u00a0and reductions in resting metabolic rate.<\/p>\n

The take home lessons: 1) you can’t always take media reports at face value; 2) exercise is a valuable part of any weight loss program; and 3) not all exercise is alike…strength training should be a key part of any weight loss program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m often struck by the difference between reports on health\/fitness research that appear in the popular media, and the actual published research.\u00a0 Oh, the popular reports are accurate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19,24],"tags":[1049,1390,1758,1867],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7892,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63\/revisions\/7892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}