Question 2
The article does not discuss the specifics of each study they reviewed; however why do you think that those participants in the exercise alone group did not experience any significant weight loss?
posted by Steph @ 4:41 PM
12 comments
12 Comments:
Calories in = calories out. This is the equation for weight maintenance. If you want to lose weight, calories in must be less than calories out. The participants who were given only exercise advice were increasing their calorie output, but there were no tips or suggestions given to help them adjust their calorie input. Exercise can also stimulate the appetite, which could actually cause the participants to consume more calories, essentially canceling out the calories they burned through exercise. The approach to weight loss has to touch on both sides of that equation. Calories out must be increased with additional exercise and activity, but the calories in also have to be controlled to see real weight loss results.
This is probably due to the fact that you can only burn off “x” amount of calories through exercise alone. Unless you are able to work out intensely for several hours a day, it’s much more difficult to burn off calories exclusively through exercise than it is to cut out unnecessary calories from the diet alone or in combination with exercise.
Some people underestimate how much they have eaten and over estimate how many calories they have burned. People think that they almost have a “free” pass to eat more because they have worked out. For some, it is difficult to burn off what they have eaten when they are not balancing the calories in with calories out. Exercising is great for weightloss success when it is combined with moderation and balance eating. On a day that a person knows they are going to eat more (holidays), then exercise is their back up plan to balance the extra intake of food.
Mostly likely, those in the exercise group did not make any changes to their diet. Due to the fact that more energy is expended during exercise, participants were probably eating more to compensate for the hunger they feel after increasing their amount of exercise. Without a diet plan, the exercise group may feel they have 'free reign' over their food chopices, which may have caused them to make bad food choices.
Vanessa,
You made an excellent point about burning calories. Patients will definitely need to reduce calories in their diet rather than solely relying on burning excess calories through exercise.
I know for me, exercise can sometimes induce a healthy appetite. After a long, hard workout some may experience an increase in appetite. It is also possible that after working out it is easier to justify eating an extra slice of cake with the rational "I just burned a ton of calories." This kind of thinking could be detrimental to the weight loss process.
I believe that those subjects that were in the exercise group alone did not show such extensive weight loss because many times people think it is okay to eat more because they can "burn it off later." When exercising/workingout, some people may think that they develop an increased appetite. Most of the time, it is psychological because they know that they burned so many calories and this leads them to believe that they are able to make up for those calories. Instead of letting those calories be dust in the wind, they decide to splurge on one small cookie because what can it hurt since I workedout today!
Lauren- your mention of the “rationale” to eat more calories is very true for a lot of people who work out. It would be very easy to overeat after exercising both from feeling hungrier, and also because many people tell themselves that they “deserve” a treat, possibly to the tune of several hundred calories.
I tend to agree with a lot of what others have said. It is often the case that when people exercise more they justify the added calorie intake. And it is easy to overdo the calories we consume since we often "treat" ourselves post workout to those high calorie, fat dense foods that we would normally avoid if we hadn't exercised. So this combination could result in weight management but not in weight loss.
I totally agree with everything that the others have said here. It is very easy to think that when you exercise more you should be justified in consuming more calories. And you often overestimate how much more you can have. So it is easy to see why exercise in the absence of diet advice would not result in a significant weight loss.
Hi Karlie,
I truly believe this post work out "rationale" inhibits many to lose weight when not implementing a diet regimen as well. I also agree with what you stated about exercise stimulating the appetite. This clearly shows why it is so important to have a combination of healthy eating and exercise when attempting to lose weight.
Lauren,
I like how you mentioned that after a workout you tend to be more hungry. This is probably true for many people and could be an extremely important clue as to why the just exercise group did not experience as much weight loss. Like you stated...they think it is okay to have that extra slice of cake b/c they just burned it off. This kind of rational is not going to take the weight off because they are probably just eating the extra calories they burned off!
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