We can't outrun our forks...
AleciaG724
Posts: 705 Member
US News
Yoni Freedhoff, Health Weight loss
Among the most commonly held misconceptions about obesity, perhaps none does more harm than the notion that exercise is responsible for the lion's share of weight management. Sure, it's true that exercise does burn calories, and yes, if you burn more calories you ought to lose weight. But unfortunately, it's just not that simple.
To put exercise into some perspective, to lose a pound of weight each week would require roughly a marathon of effort each and every week, as the calories burned running those 26.2 miles would likely be in the neighborhood of a pound's worth. Of course, it would also necessitate that not once did you "eat because you exercised" - neither as an indulgence to reward yourself for all that running, nor as a consequence to any running-induced hunger. Seems to me that'd be pretty unlikely.
Looking at real-world studies of exercise and its impact on weight, the results are underwhelming to say the least. Take this 2007 study published in the journal Obesity. Researchers instructed 196 men and women to exercise an hour a day, six days a week, for a year! And researchers weren't just telling people to exercise, they were supervising them and instructing them as well.
Compliance was incredible - only seven study dropouts - and over the course of the year, men averaged 6.16 hours of weekly exercise, and women, 4.9 hours. So did the 320 hours of exercise for the men and the 254 hours for the women lead to weight loss? Yes, but probably less than you might have guessed. Men lost, on average, 3.5 pounds, and women, 2.6. That translates to 91.5 hours of exercise per pound lost.
Now, to be very clear, there is likely nothing better for your health than exercise - truly nothing. There's no pill you can take and no food you can include or avoid that will give you the health benefits of regular exercise. I exercise regularly, and I strongly encourage all of my patients to do so as well. But I also tell them that they can't outrun their forks.
The notion that moving more will translate to weight loss is a dangerous one. For individuals, it may effectively discourage exercise when results aren't seen on scales. For the media and entertainment industries, it often leads to the perpetuation of the "people-with-obesity-are-just-lazy" stereotype. For the food industry, it allows an embrace of exercise by means of sponsorship and marketing, which, in turn, helps companies deflect product blame and forestall industry-unfriendly legislation.
And for public policy makers, it makes it challenging to make the case for interventions that increase exercise, as inevitably the outcome hoped for is weight loss, and when outcomes are poor, it becomes more difficult to make the case that the intervention is worthwhile (like P.E. or more recess time in schools, for instance).
We need to unhitch exercise from our weight-management wagons. Breaking it down, figure that your diet is responsible for 80 percent of your weight and fitness - unless you're incredibly active, just 20 percent. If weight's your concern you're much more likely to lose it in your kitchen than you are in your gym. But don't forget, if it's health you're after, you need to do both.
Whoever said life was fair?
Hungry for more? Write to eatandrun@usnews.com with your questions, concerns, and feedback.
Yoni Freedhoff, MD, is an assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Ottawa, where he's the founder and medical director of the Bariatric Medical Institute--dedicated to non-surgical weight management since 2004. Dr. Freedhoff sounds off daily on his award-winning blog, Weighty Matters, and you can follow him on Twitter. Dr. Freedhoff's latest book, The Diet Fix: Why Everything You've Been Taught About Dieting is Wrong and the 10-Day Plan to Fix It, will be published by Random House's Crown/Harmony in 2014.
Yoni Freedhoff, Health Weight loss
Among the most commonly held misconceptions about obesity, perhaps none does more harm than the notion that exercise is responsible for the lion's share of weight management. Sure, it's true that exercise does burn calories, and yes, if you burn more calories you ought to lose weight. But unfortunately, it's just not that simple.
To put exercise into some perspective, to lose a pound of weight each week would require roughly a marathon of effort each and every week, as the calories burned running those 26.2 miles would likely be in the neighborhood of a pound's worth. Of course, it would also necessitate that not once did you "eat because you exercised" - neither as an indulgence to reward yourself for all that running, nor as a consequence to any running-induced hunger. Seems to me that'd be pretty unlikely.
Looking at real-world studies of exercise and its impact on weight, the results are underwhelming to say the least. Take this 2007 study published in the journal Obesity. Researchers instructed 196 men and women to exercise an hour a day, six days a week, for a year! And researchers weren't just telling people to exercise, they were supervising them and instructing them as well.
Compliance was incredible - only seven study dropouts - and over the course of the year, men averaged 6.16 hours of weekly exercise, and women, 4.9 hours. So did the 320 hours of exercise for the men and the 254 hours for the women lead to weight loss? Yes, but probably less than you might have guessed. Men lost, on average, 3.5 pounds, and women, 2.6. That translates to 91.5 hours of exercise per pound lost.
Now, to be very clear, there is likely nothing better for your health than exercise - truly nothing. There's no pill you can take and no food you can include or avoid that will give you the health benefits of regular exercise. I exercise regularly, and I strongly encourage all of my patients to do so as well. But I also tell them that they can't outrun their forks.
The notion that moving more will translate to weight loss is a dangerous one. For individuals, it may effectively discourage exercise when results aren't seen on scales. For the media and entertainment industries, it often leads to the perpetuation of the "people-with-obesity-are-just-lazy" stereotype. For the food industry, it allows an embrace of exercise by means of sponsorship and marketing, which, in turn, helps companies deflect product blame and forestall industry-unfriendly legislation.
And for public policy makers, it makes it challenging to make the case for interventions that increase exercise, as inevitably the outcome hoped for is weight loss, and when outcomes are poor, it becomes more difficult to make the case that the intervention is worthwhile (like P.E. or more recess time in schools, for instance).
We need to unhitch exercise from our weight-management wagons. Breaking it down, figure that your diet is responsible for 80 percent of your weight and fitness - unless you're incredibly active, just 20 percent. If weight's your concern you're much more likely to lose it in your kitchen than you are in your gym. But don't forget, if it's health you're after, you need to do both.
Whoever said life was fair?
Hungry for more? Write to eatandrun@usnews.com with your questions, concerns, and feedback.
Yoni Freedhoff, MD, is an assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Ottawa, where he's the founder and medical director of the Bariatric Medical Institute--dedicated to non-surgical weight management since 2004. Dr. Freedhoff sounds off daily on his award-winning blog, Weighty Matters, and you can follow him on Twitter. Dr. Freedhoff's latest book, The Diet Fix: Why Everything You've Been Taught About Dieting is Wrong and the 10-Day Plan to Fix It, will be published by Random House's Crown/Harmony in 2014.
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Replies
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I really like that quote: "we can't outrun our forks". Thanks for sharing this article!0
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I often say...
It's easy to out-eat a good exercise plan, but you can out-lazy a good diet.0 -
I knew this was true!
I tried exercise for YEARS without results because I couldn't get the diet part right. It wasn't until I saw a dietitian and followed her balanced meal plan that I began to successfully lose weight.
What I have found for me is that diet is the key...exercise is the motivator.
Thanks for sharing this valuable information!0 -
Yes, I thought this was interesting. I've seen the same very heavy woman jogging in my neighborhood for 6 years, and honestly she does not appear to have lost a pound. Maybe she is just going for a healthy heart and not weight loss?0
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Discovered this to be true myself. I was working out at the gym and gaining weight because I love to eat. It wasn't until I joined MFP and started logging food that it all clicked.0
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Outrunning your fork is a great visual to keep in mind. Thanks for posting.0
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what an interesting article. Thank you for posting. I do really like the imagery of "Outrunning our forks." People really do eat because they exercised.0
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Sure you can outrun your fork. Provided you know where your fork is and consequently how much further you need to run to be past it. While it is not necessary to exercise in order to lose weight, those of us that like to eat a lot of food can still lose weight by outrunning our forks. Exercise without regard to diet won't necessarily yield weight loss (as many tend to overestimate calories burned and therefore feel they have "earned" more food than they actually have, not to mention they likely underestimate how much food they are eating anyway). In the same respect, changing your diet without regard to calories burned won't necessarily yield weight loss either (changing/reducing caloric intake will only result in weight loss if consuming less than TDEE). Calories in, calories out. If your calories out > calories in, you lose. One must know both sides of that equation in order to lose weight.0
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Certainly can't outrun your fork as an office worker who spends under 3% of the week exercising. Drop in the bucket.0
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Sure you can outrun your fork. Provided you know where your fork is and consequently how much further you need to run to be past it. While it is not necessary to exercise in order to lose weight, those of us that like to eat a lot of food can still lose weight by outrunning our forks. Exercise without regard to diet won't necessarily yield weight loss (as many tend to overestimate calories burned and therefore feel they have "earned" more food than they actually have, not to mention they likely underestimate how much food they are eating anyway). In the same respect, changing your diet without regard to calories burned won't necessarily yield weight loss either (changing/reducing caloric intake will only result in weight loss if consuming less than TDEE). Calories in, calories out. If your calories out > calories in, you lose. One must know both sides of that equation in order to lose weight.
Well put!!0 -
<---- If you load the fork with lots of fruits & veggies, it's much easier to obtain your goals.0
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As our trainer at the gym says "you can't out train a crappy diet"!0
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Sure you can outrun your fork. Provided you know where your fork is and consequently how much further you need to run to be past it. While it is not necessary to exercise in order to lose weight, those of us that like to eat a lot of food can still lose weight by outrunning our forks. Exercise without regard to diet won't necessarily yield weight loss (as many tend to overestimate calories burned and therefore feel they have "earned" more food than they actually have, not to mention they likely underestimate how much food they are eating anyway). In the same respect, changing your diet without regard to calories burned won't necessarily yield weight loss either (changing/reducing caloric intake will only result in weight loss if consuming less than TDEE). Calories in, calories out. If your calories out > calories in, you lose. One must know both sides of that equation in order to lose weight.
As long as you make sure that fork doesn't shovel in more calories than you can run off, you're fine!
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Sure you can outrun your fork. Provided you know where your fork is and consequently how much further you need to run to be past it. While it is not necessary to exercise in order to lose weight, those of us that like to eat a lot of food can still lose weight by outrunning our forks. Exercise without regard to diet won't necessarily yield weight loss (as many tend to overestimate calories burned and therefore feel they have "earned" more food than they actually have, not to mention they likely underestimate how much food they are eating anyway). In the same respect, changing your diet without regard to calories burned won't necessarily yield weight loss either (changing/reducing caloric intake will only result in weight loss if consuming less than TDEE). Calories in, calories out. If your calories out > calories in, you lose. One must know both sides of that equation in order to lose weight.
I absolutely agree with everything you said - especially the last line. I think many people don't know how much they are actually eating (including me for many years).0
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