Latest thinking on exercise

[Songwriter]

What's the scoop? Am I doing any good by walking 4-6 miles several times a week? I do this for cardiovascular health and also to lose weight.

I keep reading contrarian talk about exercise. Is nothing sacred anymore? If cardio exercise doesn't work, how come I lost 20 lbs backed when I trained and ran two marathons? (17 years ago)

Honestly, I would like to know what is the current thinking among those of you who read alot.

Another benefit to trying to have some sense of being in shape is just generally being able to do stuff. If you are a couch potato, you don't have any stamina. Right? And muscle tone. Flabby humans aren't pretty. Toned ones are. To me, anyway.

I think we're meant to be lean animals. Is it just diet for the most part?

[Ottawa]

What Taubes was saying was that there have been no studies that show a correlation between exercise and weight loss.

Exercise, particularly aerobic, does not build much muscle and creates hunger.
This is usually countered with calories in/calories expended shows gain/loss.


I know that exercise does have benefits and even Taubes argues that you feel better doing it. My HDL improved greatly from exercise.

"If cardio exercise doesn't work, how come I lost 20 lbs backed when I trained and ran two marathons? (17 years ago)"
I'm sure it sped up my loss as well but only after the major loss from eating low carb. Also I believe that resistance does way more towards weight loss than aerobics.

[maxlharris]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=10487375&ordinalpos=2&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

The thinking Taubes is talking about is slow cardio, or steady state cardio. Get on the treadmill, set it to 4 mph, incline 0, and go for 30-90 minutes. The contention is that there are no studies showing that this will improve weight loss. I buy that. If you do that kind of exercise, you probably eat high carb, low fat, which doesn't keep your hunger down, and more work = more demand for food. Taubes central point on this is that exercise tends to make you hungry and, in a calories in/calories out universe, you probably get very hungry from 200-300 calories of exercise, and wind up either really hungry or eating 300-500 more food calories. I don't disagree with that either.

Additionally, Taubes is not suggesting that you can't lose weight with exercise in the short term. It's in the long term. And, since you're reading here, the marathons and training didn't work out to be long term solutions.

The study I cite above was done at UConn by Jeff Volek and company.
Here's the chart that breaks down their results:

http://rodale.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/10/24/0704_burn_blubber.jpg


Now, one interpretation is that diet moves the scale. They all lost about the same weight. A more nuanced approach to weight would suggest that diet is good, diet + aerobic exercise is probably better (small sample) and diet+weights+aerobic is the best.

The other thing from Taubes that I thought was interesting on the subject was this: Fat makes you lazy not lazy makes you fat. So, you're doing your normal thing and your hormonal balance shifts or your diet changes or your beta cells burn out or whatever, and you start to pack the pounds on, subtle. This will make you couch bound. It's not the couch and TV that make you fat (although the propensity for the couch and TV to make you shovel high carb fried stuff in your face might). It's the fat that makes you sluggish and resistant to exercise, etc.

[The Munster]

The latest thinking on exercise?

Here is the link to the article that changed my life.

What is Fitness? (http://www.crossfit.com/cf-download/CFJ-trial.pdf) by Greg Glassman

[Gaelen]

Glassman's article is excellent, with two exceptions.
1) I don't think the Zone diet is necessarily the optimal way to eat (but then again, I'm here, so that's to be expected.)
2) The scale of sick-well-fit is still ridiculously skewed toward men. The example given for body fat percentage is perhaps the most obvious, where 40% is sick, 20% is normal or well, and by his logic, 10% = fit. In a woman, age and hormonal issues also have to factor into the curve. A young woman at 10% body fat is going to have issues with normal body functions, difficulty conceiving and bearing children. An older woman with 10% body fat is going to have issues maintaining bone density, whether she is otherwise 'fit' or not. It's a bit too one-size-fits-all in that sense, but otherwise a very good read and a sound set of theories.

Max, re:
The thinking Taubes is talking about is slow cardio, or steady state cardio. Get on the treadmill, set it to 4 mph, incline 0, and go for 30-90 minutes. The contention is that there are no studies showing that this will improve weight loss. I buy that. If you do that kind of exercise, you probably eat high carb, low fat, which doesn't keep your hunger down, and more work = more demand for food.

Anecdotally, in this community there is a history of people who accomplished great body reshaping and fat loss and whose main exercise while on plan was simply walking--up hills, for distance and for longer time periods, frequently (some daily), but not with any weight added except weather appropriate clothing and maybe a water bottle. This isn't offered as proof against Taubes' contention, just an example of how assuming that steady state cardio doesn't help because you are also assuming a high carb, low fat eating pattern may not be a valid assumption.

I agree with Taubes' contention, but if the underlined dietary assumption (high carb, low fat) ISN'T true, then what would be the effects of 'steady state cardio' when you were following PP? I'm betting it wouldn't be consistent with Taubes' contention that slow or steady state cardio has minimal effect on weight loss.

[maxlharris]

Anecdotally, in this community there is a history of people who accomplished great body reshaping and fat loss and whose main exercise while on plan was simply walking--up hills, for distance and for longer time periods, frequently (some daily), but not with any weight added except weather appropriate clothing and maybe a water bottle. This isn't offered as proof against Taubes' contention, just an example of how assuming that steady state cardio doesn't help because you are also assuming a high carb, low fat eating pattern may not be a valid assumption.

So, Taubes would contend that the diet made them walk and lose weight, not the walking.

I would argue that walking around town is not steady state cardio, as I described. In fact, walking around town, as you describe it is not steady state cardio. The hills would be the key. Normal town walking/running is best simulated with a 1-degree tilt on the dreadmill, averaged out. So, if you're in a town that's not in central Kansas, the up-and-down constitutes a form of intervals, ergo, not steady state/flat cardio.

My assumption of low fat, high carb, low calorie in exercise studies is a bias on researchers. Aside from the University of Connecticut and Dr. Jeff Volek, I don't know anyone who is treadmilling lab subjects on low carb diets.

The finding that I found there was that treadmilling (and weight lifting for that matter) didn't lead to any extra weight loss. The sedentary group, the cardio group and the cardio + weightlifting group all lost about the same weight in the study. But the Cardio people lost less muscle than the couch potatoes and the weight+cardio lost 97% of their weight from fat, which was by far, the best.

So, I'm still with Taubes. Flat exercise != weight loss, anecdotes to the contrary. The question of what weight is being lost, however, is one that's near and dear to me.

Last word on the anecdotal experience of members of this board. You do PPLP. You dump carbs. You start a walking program. You quit smoking. You drink water. You take supplements. You maybe start sunning. You maybe start learning new things again. You maybe develop a better attitude. Who is to say it was the walking that did it? No reasonable controls = no worthwhile discussion of causation.

FWIW: on the margin, steady state cardio is probably better than steady state couch sitting. And it has health benefits beyond dubious weight loss claims, so do what you like.

[laughingW]

What's the scoop? Am I doing any good by walking 4-6 miles several times a week? I do this for cardiovascular health and also to lose weight.
If you like it, that's one thing. But it sure takes a lot of time and are you doing exercises to compensate for any unwanted training effects that come along for the ride? And it misses the mark on muscle development and bone stimulation.


I keep reading contrarian talk about exercise. Is nothing sacred anymore? If cardio exercise doesn't work, how come I lost 20 lbs backed when I trained and ran two marathons? (17 years ago)
Where did you learn about cardio exercise? (just curious what you call sacred, LOL) As to back then - if I knew what you were eating, and how much muscle and fat you had, before and after, and how you trained... then we could talk about "how come." Could be, you lost fat. Could be, you lost muscle too, and now here you are 20 years later unable to metabolize as well as you used to.


Honestly, I would like to know what is the current thinking among those of you who read alot.
I read a lot and I'm putting my effort and precious fitness time into 2 areas: interval exertion with weights, and mobility / walking / biking at no exertion whatsoever. The interval exertion is to stimulate heart, bones, muscle, and get stronger. The no exertion movement is part recovery for the other and part a return to my Amish roots. (ha ha)


Another benefit to trying to have some sense of being in shape is just generally being able to do stuff. If you are a couch potato, you don't have any stamina. Right? And muscle tone. Flabby humans aren't pretty. Toned ones are. To me, anyway.
Right, how could we have stamina and muscle tone without training for it?


I think we're meant to be lean animals. Is it just diet for the most part?
Mostly yes according to Taubes' research.
You can have stamina, muscle tone, and still be fat.
The fat part comes from dietary starches and sugars.

Obviously we are meant to be adaptable animals who can store or use fat as life demands.

[maxlharris]

Laughing, I don't find anything in your post particularly off base, but since you have called me to task on exercise recommendations that might not be particularly relevant for the morbid obese, I wonder if that doesn't cut both ways. Granted, OP in this post hasn't said anything about their weight, but I'm thinking probably not morbidly obese, so perhaps a caveat might be in order.

PS- You could develop improved stamina/muscle tone by actually doing some activity or training for the activity. But if I go hiking to hike and develop stamina or muscles, the intent doesn't alter that it's training. I suppose a purely dietary intervention like PP without exercise, could improve stamina, but whether that's training or not, is really a philosophical question. I think yes, but would be open to other opinions.

Last thought: Obviously we have evolved to be adaptable animals. Also obvious is how far and fast we have changed the conditions we have to adapt to, and that's obviously (at least to any rider of the DC Metro) led to people chronically far from any useful physical adaptation or people lacking the evolutionary margin to make useful physical adaptations to their environments. I'm with songwriter. If we're meant to be anything, it is, on the whole, lean, like pretty much every other non-hibernating being on the planet. Of course, meaning implies external will, and that's a larger philosophical question that I don't want to discuss in this space, but at the core, living as we evolved, we would be lean, like hunter gatherers. Of course, that's too far from any place with a headwaiter, so I'm out of that life, too.

[laughingW]

Laughing, I don't find anything in your post particularly off base, but since you have called me to task on exercise recommendations that might not be particularly relevant for the morbid obese, I wonder if that doesn't cut both ways. Granted, OP in this post hasn't said anything about their weight, but I'm thinking probably not morbidly obese, so perhaps a caveat might be in order.
Quite right and thank you for really hearing me on the effects of exercise on the morbidly obese. We have how many years of exercise science ? but not much studying that population.


PS- You could develop improved stamina/muscle tone by actually doing some activity or training for the activity. But if I go hiking to hike and develop stamina or muscles, the intent doesn't alter that it's training. I suppose a purely dietary intervention like PP without exercise, could improve stamina, but whether that's training or not, is really a philosophical question. I think yes, but would be open to other opinions.
I guess I'm with you on that too, since I believe we are always in training. Stamina would be relative to the activity. Is that what you meant?

[maxlharris]

I guess I'm with you on that too, since I believe we are always in training. Stamina would be relative to the activity. Is that what you meant?


Essentially, yes. Whatever you're up to, it's training towards something. Even if it's training towards being a better couch potato.