When the general public thinks about losing weight, the idea of putting in time on the treadmill is usually conjured up. In most people's minds, you're not really trying unless you are going to the gym and spending an hour getting sweaty on a human hamster wheel for multiple days a week. But is it enough to make up for overdoing it at a holiday dinner? Or that extra slice of pizza? Is it even necessary? This part will look at what's more important: diet or exercise, and whether all exercises are equal. Part 1: Beware of fad diets. Part 2: Don't focus on losing weight. Focus on losing fat. Part 3: You can't exercise your way out of a bad diet. Part 4: Stop obsessing over calorie counts. Part 5: Don't diet in a straight line. The impact of exerciseI remember riding a subway train in New York City a few years ago. As with many other metro systems around the world, their subway cars carry advertisements inside. I remember this one ad in particular, which I managed to find again on the internet. Here it is: Keep this ad in mind next time you’re tempted with a slice of cake and think you can easily burn it off in the gym. Yes, you can burn it off, but wouldn't it be easier to just not eat the slice of cake than to spend an hour on the treadmill? Here is a link to a popular table with various activities and how many calories they burn. Keep in mind that there's only so much exercise you can do. Exercising for three hours straight every day may not even be possible if you are busy with other things like work. Not to mention you'll eventually burn out doing that. And the more you do the same exercise, the more efficient your body gets at doing it. After a while, it no longer burns the same calories it used to. This is why you still see fat manual laborers. So at some point, no amount of gym work can undo a loss of control in your diet. People are bad at estimating how much they burn anyway. A study was done where 16 normal weight individuals were asked to estimate how many calories they burned at an exercise session and then eat the equivalent at a buffet. They ended up overestimating how much they burned by 3-4 times and underestimating how much they ate by 2-3 times.[1] The point here is that most of your results will be based on how you manage your diet and not how much you exercise. If you still want to exercise (especially with aerobic exercise like cardio), do it because you like to, not because you think you need to in order to lose weight. Based on my own experience, the only ‘required’ exercise I would recommend you do is anaerobic exercise (like weightlifting, body weight training, or sprinting) twice a week or so, so that you maintain your muscle during your caloric deficit. In fact, if you could only do either weightlifting or cardio while trying to lose weight, I would choose weightlifting. In one study, a group that dieted and did cardio was compared to a group that dieted and lifted weights. The group that did cardio lost weight, but ended up losing muscle along with it. Although the group that lifted weights didn't lose as much weight, they managed to keep their muscle.[2] In Part 2 of this series, I wrote about how important it is to hold on to your muscle when you try to lose weight. I remember one time when I tried to lose weight. I was also training for a race... so I stopped lifting weights and focused on running instead. I lost weight. A few years later I regained it (my own fault) and decided to try to lose it again. This time I lifted weights and didn't do any running at all (besides sprinting). I returned to about the same weight I was the first time I dieted. I was amazed at how much leaner I was compared to last time. I could see my abs this time, but not back then. In summary...
Frequently asked questions: I posted this same exact question in Part 2, but since it's really important, I will reiterate it here. Q: I am a woman and I'm worried that lifting weights will make me big and muscular. A: You shouldn't be ... because it's impossible ... especially when you're in a caloric deficit. Weight training can't even make guys 'jacked', with all their testosterone and hormonal advantages when it comes to this stuff. The 'huge' guys you see in the gym are not big because of weight training. They're big because either God made them like that (look at their parents if you don't believe me) or because they took performance enhancing drugs. Weight training is only a small piece to the puzzle, actually. Don't believe all the hype from the fitness industry about people getting big. There is a lot of money to be made in selling gym memberships and useless supplements to unsuspecting beginners. However your results will never be as dramatic as they claim. If they were, 80% of people who join a gym wouldn't quit within five months.[3] Why would you quit if you can gain 30 lbs of muscle in three months like they say you can? You'll make some gains, just nowhere near what you'd think. Worrying about getting big and muscular because of weight training is like being a minimum wage fast food worker and turning down an extra shift because you don't think you can handle being a millionaire. So if diet is more important, it means you really need to pay close attention to those calories, right? Click on the link to continue with Part 4. Part 1: Beware of fad diets. Part 2: Don't focus on losing weight. Focus on losing fat. Part 3: You can't exercise your way out of a bad diet. Part 4: Stop obsessing over calorie counts. Part 5: Don't diet in a straight line. Thank you and God bless. References
Image credits
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
September 2016
Categories |