Exercising for at least 1 hour for weight loss/maintenance

Stoshew71

Hi. I was watching the following video for understanding some studies for lactate. It's a long video and very detailed and very technical. I only wanted to focus on a few minutes of the video. I heard many knowledgable people on these forums that say exercise is for health but only calorie deficit for weight loss. While in general I agree with this, I think what this guy says is pretty interesting.

Warning, very technical discussion in terms of the level of understanding with chemistry and biology and biophysics. The portion of the video I wanted to focus on was between 19:20 and 23:00. The report he referenced seems to be this one:

http://www.nap.edu/read/10490/chapter/1

In the video, Dr. George Brooks is claiming that the average person needs at least an hour of activity each day to maintain healthy body weight. More important if you are trying to lose weight in my opinion. So he would be suggesting that maybe diet (calorie deficit) alone is not enough.
Everyone else's opinions?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lThFQM503EU

jemhh

Just after the 21:30 mark, he clarifies that the 60 minutes isn't running on the treadmill type of activity. It includes walking across campus between classes, etc. So it includes a lot of the activities that are not counted as exercise but are more what you'd include in your lifestyle (i.e., sedentary, lightly active, etc.) setting here on MFP.

bwogilvie

What he says is that an hour a day of moderate physical activity—walking, taking the stairs, standing, going to the bus stop, etc.—is required for people to balance their energy intake, based on doubly labeled water studies (the gold standard for determining energy intake and expenditure, short of continuous observation and calorimetry). In other words, Dr. Brooks claims that if you look at what people eat, they will need about an hour of moderate exercise to balance their calorie intake.

But that's based on a population that presumably doesn't count calories. We've known for a long time that most Americans gradually gain weight as they age, based on longitudinal studies, but that certain behaviors are correlated with less weight gain. This is a good review article. Interestingly, though, Mozaffarian et al. found no correlation between total exercise amount and weight gain or loss (the abstract is incorrect); what they did find is that increasing exercise was correlated with less weight gain, but of course there's a limit to how much you can increase.

Stoshew71

bwogilvie wrote: »

What he says is that an hour a day of moderate physical activity—walking, taking the stairs, standing, going to the bus stop, etc.—is required for people to balance their energy intake, based on doubly labeled water studies (the gold standard for determining energy intake and expenditure, short of continuous observation and calorimetry). In other words, Dr. Brooks claims that if you look at what people eat, they will need about an hour of moderate exercise to balance their calorie intake.

But that's based on a population that presumably doesn't count calories. We've known for a long time that most Americans gradually gain weight as they age, based on longitudinal studies, but that certain behaviors are correlated with less weight gain. This is a good review article. Interestingly, though, Mozaffarian et al. found no correlation between total exercise amount and weight gain or loss (the abstract is incorrect); what they did find is that increasing exercise was correlated with less weight gain, but of course there's a limit to how much you can increase.

Thanks for this explanation. This makes a lot sense the way you put it.

needtolosethatweight26

From what I know and what I have been through, at least for my body, exercise is necessary for losing weight.

mwyvr

Thanks for the video link Stan; very interesting overall.

mom3over40

I believe he said that people used to just look at people's diet, they are the first to look at also what activities people do and look at their total energy expenditures. And that 30 minutes of activities a day you get protection for cardiovascular health etc but 1 hour of activities will help with weight control, because of the higher expenditures from 30 minutes more of activities. It seems to me that his focus is more on how the 1 hour activities benefit overall health (lower cancer risks etc) than on weight control.

Putting aside the overall health benefit of exercising, I personally think that to lose weight based on diet alone is to fight a losing battle. With the decreasing muscle mass as we age, our caloric need will keep decreasing and I supposed there is a limit to how little we can eat. I run, so that I have more quota to eat

Stoshew71

mom3over40 wrote: »

I believe he said that people used to just look at people's diet, they are the first to look at also what activities people do and look at their total energy expenditures. And that 30 minutes of activities a day you get protection for cardiovascular health etc but 1 hour of activities will help with weight control, because of the higher expenditures from 30 minutes more of activities. It seems to me that his focus is more on how the 1 hour activities benefit overall health (lower cancer risks etc) than on weight control.

Putting aside the overall health benefit of exercising, I personally think that to lose weight based on diet alone is to fight a losing battle. With the decreasing muscle mass as we age, our caloric need will keep decreasing and I supposed there is a limit to how little we can eat. I run, so that I have more quota to eat

Yes, I get this idea as well.