If exercise makes you fat, I will literally eat my own shorts!
Fit Girl | Aug 27, 2009 | Comments 0
You may have heard of this ugly little rumour flying around that exercise makes you fat, it featured in last week’s Time magazine, and had me steaming at the ears. It wasn’t pretty. In fact it’s probably taken all of about a week and a half for me to calm down – cue much milder rant!
So this guy Dr. Timothy Church wanted to know whether exercise actually helps you to lose weight and did a little research with four groups of non-exercising women. All four groups were told NOT to change their diet (alarm bells should be ringing here Fit Girls, and if they’re not, welcome new reader, you must be reading Fit Girl for the first time). One group did no exercise at all, the second group exercised once a week, the third group exercised twice a week and the fourth group exercised three times a week (this exercise was long slow cardio by the way, none of our super powered high intensity metabolism rockers. I know, what hope did the poor lambs have?)
After 6 months, whilst all of the women lost weight, some of the women that exercised three times a week lost less weight than those that didn’t exercise at all. Church’s argument was that the women who exercised regularly rewarded themselves with junk food post-exercise. Quite rightly, he said that if you burn off 100 calories in a workout, and then eat a 140 calorie muffin, you’ll be in a 40 calorie surplus. He said that it would be better to have not exercised at all, so as not to overdose on the calories. But let’s not forget the study group here. They probably thought, ooh yeah I’m doing all of this exercise, that real nice man Timmy said I can continue eating the way I eat, and add some treats along the way. So girls, get your tweezers out, we’re gonna pluck this study apart!
Rant 1 – You had them doing long slow cardio Tim! Where was the high intensity cardio and the resistance training??? Us Fit Girls know that that’s the way to go!
Rant 2 – Educate them for God’s sake! Timmy referred to some of his wife’s friends who complained about not losing weight after an hour run (guess what, the long slow stuff again…yawn!) He then realised that it was because they were rewarding themselves with muffins in Starbucks after. Poor darlings, obviously they don’t read Fit Girl musings on what one should eat after a spot of exercise. Big Macs and muffins are generally off the list.
Rant 3 – The women ate more after exercise because it made them hungrier. Erm, that’s a sign of an increased metabolism, your body requires more energy to function. But if these poor ladies didn’t top up post exercise with a chicken salad and brown rice instead of hoovering up a bacon double cheeseburger with extra mayo and large fries, then guess what?…that floaty dress is gonna have a lot less room for floatin’!
Rant 4 – The actual study, not just the controversial bits adorning the press, also showed that there was a large reduction in waist circumference of all of the study groups. Sigh. Again Timmy, we know that your weight doesn’t necessarily measure whether your jeans are going to feel looser. Fat tissue is soft and takes up a lot of space, muscle tissue is dense and takes up less space. Put on a pound of muscle, and you will appear smaller, put on a pound of fat, and you will appear, not so small!
Rant 5 – If you’re going to make such a controversial statement, be responsible with it. A lot of people that hate exercise and struggle with their weight, will have used this as an excuse to ditch exercise for good. Whilst Tim does touch on the fact that exercise is good for your health, his main focus is the weight loss bit. How about, the right kind of exercise, complemented with good nutrition is both good for your health, and will make you lose weight. It’s not rocket science.
In a time when we are seeing ever increasing obesity levels in both adults and children, we don’t need to be told that exercise is a waste of time Timmy!
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