By Erin Allday
Chronicle Staff Writer
Except it turns out that it’s not quite true. Exercise – whether it’s a ten-minute daily walk or a three-hour bike ride over the weekend – may be great for heart health, stress relief, liver function and even brain power. It may even take a few inches off the waistline.
But it’s not a key ingredient to weight loss. “Is exercise good? Absolutely. But not because it burns calories,” said Dr Robert Lustig, a paediatric endocrinologist at UCSF Children’s Hospital. “Diet is about weight. Exercise is about health.”
Folks are getting a lot of mixed messages about exercise these days. Some studies say just 20 minutes a day of moderate exercise is fine, while others say people need an hour of vigorous exercise most days of the week. A recent Time magazine cover story drew criticism for suggesting that exercise is pretty much useless when it comes to weight loss – an idea that frustrated many diet experts and personal trainers even as doctors like Lustig admitted it was mostly true.
Few people dispute that exercise is a critical component of healthy living. But how much is needed, and what kind of exercise is best, varies from person to person and depends on what kind of health benefits are being sought.
Exercise for health
Just a ten – or 20-minute walk at a “brisk” pace – think about how fast you’d walk if you were running late to work – can have an immediate effect on how the body processes insulin, which is helpful to people with diabetes. But to see real benefits, diabetics should walk a couple times a day, every day of the week.
On the other hand, people who want to lower their blood pressure or cholesterol levels might be better off with vigorous cardiovascular exercise – a jog on the treadmill, for example – three or four days a week.
And what about weight loss? Exercise is great for maintaining weight, but it isn’t the best way to drop pounds. A person would have to burn off about 3,500 calories to lose just one pound.
“Running a mile is about 150 calories for a guy, so to burn a pound of fat, just with exercise, is almost running a marathon,” said Dr Wayne Smith, co-director of the Medical Weight Management Programme at Kaiser Permanente in San Jose. “Most people aren’t fit enough that they can exercise at a level that will amount to weight loss.”
On top of that, Smith said, while many people overestimate the calories they burn when they exercise, they also underestimate the calories they eat. People often think exercise gives them the freedom to eat what they want, weight-loss experts say. “It’s amazing how many calories are in some foods,” said Dr Karen Earle, medical director of diabetes services at California Pacific Medical Center. “Gatorade, for example, has a tonne of calories, and sometimes people are drinking it while they exercise and then it’s just a wash.”
The long-held belief that weight loss follows exercise would seem to make sense – you eat calories, you burn them, and the more you exercise, the more you burn. But it’s not that simple, doctors say. For starters, not every calorie is created equally – the 150 calories in a banana are more useful to the body, and less likely to add weight, than the 150 calories in an ounce of potato chips. People should be paying more attention to what they put in their mouth than their exercise plan, Lustig said.
Eating right is key
Complicating things, people are built differently. Even in families, two sisters may not metabolise a chocolate chip cookie the same way. Or when it comes to exercise, one sister may lose a few pounds from running regularly for a month, while the other may stay the same weight but lower her blood pressure.
“Exercise is not one of those one-size-fits-all answers,” said Abby King, acting director of the Stanford Prevention Research Center. “For some people, adding exercise is going to be a significant benefit to their weight-loss programme. For others, not so much. Most professionals are in agreement that to get substantial weight loss you need to do the dieting thing, and do that well.”
That doesn’t mean turning to fad diets, which are difficult to maintain. Rather, dieting by restricting calories and eating healthier is the most effective way to lose weight, studies have shown.
Personal trainers will point to clients who have lost weight because they exercised, without changing their diet – but that’s hardly the norm. Weight loss experts note that many people gain muscle by working out, and because muscle is heavier than fat, they may not lose weight but they can drop a pants size or two.
Morgan Hill resident Toby Roodman, 65, knows firsthand how confusing the connection between exercise and weight loss can be. He lost more than 100 pounds in eight months as part of Kaiser’s Medical Weight Management Programme, primarily by changing his diet. He walked almost every day, but exercise wasn’t what made him lose so much weight, he said.
That wasn’t true for the rest of his weight-loss class, he said – almost everyone else added intense exercise to help them drop weight. “I’m not saying health clubs and gyms aren’t beneficial, because they are, absolutely. I’ve seen the results from people in my class,” Roodman said. “But I don’t think one should look to exercise for weight loss.”
Chronicle Staff Writer
Except it turns out that it’s not quite true. Exercise – whether it’s a ten-minute daily walk or a three-hour bike ride over the weekend – may be great for heart health, stress relief, liver function and even brain power. It may even take a few inches off the waistline.
But it’s not a key ingredient to weight loss. “Is exercise good? Absolutely. But not because it burns calories,” said Dr Robert Lustig, a paediatric endocrinologist at UCSF Children’s Hospital. “Diet is about weight. Exercise is about health.”
Folks are getting a lot of mixed messages about exercise these days. Some studies say just 20 minutes a day of moderate exercise is fine, while others say people need an hour of vigorous exercise most days of the week. A recent Time magazine cover story drew criticism for suggesting that exercise is pretty much useless when it comes to weight loss – an idea that frustrated many diet experts and personal trainers even as doctors like Lustig admitted it was mostly true.
Few people dispute that exercise is a critical component of healthy living. But how much is needed, and what kind of exercise is best, varies from person to person and depends on what kind of health benefits are being sought.
Exercise for health
Just a ten – or 20-minute walk at a “brisk” pace – think about how fast you’d walk if you were running late to work – can have an immediate effect on how the body processes insulin, which is helpful to people with diabetes. But to see real benefits, diabetics should walk a couple times a day, every day of the week.
On the other hand, people who want to lower their blood pressure or cholesterol levels might be better off with vigorous cardiovascular exercise – a jog on the treadmill, for example – three or four days a week.
And what about weight loss? Exercise is great for maintaining weight, but it isn’t the best way to drop pounds. A person would have to burn off about 3,500 calories to lose just one pound.
“Running a mile is about 150 calories for a guy, so to burn a pound of fat, just with exercise, is almost running a marathon,” said Dr Wayne Smith, co-director of the Medical Weight Management Programme at Kaiser Permanente in San Jose. “Most people aren’t fit enough that they can exercise at a level that will amount to weight loss.”
On top of that, Smith said, while many people overestimate the calories they burn when they exercise, they also underestimate the calories they eat. People often think exercise gives them the freedom to eat what they want, weight-loss experts say. “It’s amazing how many calories are in some foods,” said Dr Karen Earle, medical director of diabetes services at California Pacific Medical Center. “Gatorade, for example, has a tonne of calories, and sometimes people are drinking it while they exercise and then it’s just a wash.”
The long-held belief that weight loss follows exercise would seem to make sense – you eat calories, you burn them, and the more you exercise, the more you burn. But it’s not that simple, doctors say. For starters, not every calorie is created equally – the 150 calories in a banana are more useful to the body, and less likely to add weight, than the 150 calories in an ounce of potato chips. People should be paying more attention to what they put in their mouth than their exercise plan, Lustig said.
Eating right is key
Complicating things, people are built differently. Even in families, two sisters may not metabolise a chocolate chip cookie the same way. Or when it comes to exercise, one sister may lose a few pounds from running regularly for a month, while the other may stay the same weight but lower her blood pressure.
“Exercise is not one of those one-size-fits-all answers,” said Abby King, acting director of the Stanford Prevention Research Center. “For some people, adding exercise is going to be a significant benefit to their weight-loss programme. For others, not so much. Most professionals are in agreement that to get substantial weight loss you need to do the dieting thing, and do that well.”
That doesn’t mean turning to fad diets, which are difficult to maintain. Rather, dieting by restricting calories and eating healthier is the most effective way to lose weight, studies have shown.
Personal trainers will point to clients who have lost weight because they exercised, without changing their diet – but that’s hardly the norm. Weight loss experts note that many people gain muscle by working out, and because muscle is heavier than fat, they may not lose weight but they can drop a pants size or two.
Morgan Hill resident Toby Roodman, 65, knows firsthand how confusing the connection between exercise and weight loss can be. He lost more than 100 pounds in eight months as part of Kaiser’s Medical Weight Management Programme, primarily by changing his diet. He walked almost every day, but exercise wasn’t what made him lose so much weight, he said.
That wasn’t true for the rest of his weight-loss class, he said – almost everyone else added intense exercise to help them drop weight. “I’m not saying health clubs and gyms aren’t beneficial, because they are, absolutely. I’ve seen the results from people in my class,” Roodman said. “But I don’t think one should look to exercise for weight loss.”
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