Topic: very interesting article

[Elet ET]

read it:
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1914857-4,00.html


I'd like to here what you guys think...

[Spencer B]

Body composition (weight, fat to lean mass ratio, etc.) is based mostly around diet, not exercise, so I'm not all too surprised with the article. Exercise depending on if it's strength work, metcon etc. increases an individuals health in other ways. Strength training for example, increases bone density, muscle and tendon strength, and strength through a range of motion. All these things are awesome benefits, but more likely than not, you'll gain weight with strength training. Metcon, generally, helps increase agility, speed, endurance, and the efficiency of some energy pathways. (Correct me if I'm wrong about that last one) and can actually be an effective method for weight loss in and of itself, but that's not likely unless, you guessed it, the diet allows for that weight loss.

[Elet ET]

Agreed.
What i found interesting was the approach towards non-sedentary lifestyle, rather than workout blocks, as that is what i attribute my current level of fitness to.(of course, non-sedentary lifestyle+Regular intense exercise sessions=even better)

[tombb]

The article makes two points: 1) it's good to be less sedentary and do things like take the stairs, that point is correct, sure. 2) they claim that exercise at the gym is bad because supposedly people eat more potato chips if they go to the gym, and therefore you can't lose weight that way. That last point is just plain wrong and misleading,

Let me clarify first of all that the idea that exercise won't make you thinner and only diet will is completely false. Increasing exercise can be actually much more effective than just diet at losing fat and staying in shape. Diet restriction has a cap on how many calories you can burn (your base metabolism while starving, which is less than 2000 a day), whereas exercise doesn't (you can burn as much as 600-1000 calories an hour pretty comfortably, on top of your metabolism).

In fact for many people exercise is a much easier and more efficient way to stay in shape or lose excess fat. Clearly you are better-off watching both of them, but in fact controlling your exercise gives you many benefits in making your diet better, healthier and more satisfying.
For example exercise allows you to still lose fat and get healthier while leaving space for some satisfying french fries, icecream and chocolate every day if you want. All you have to do is to make sure you exercise for more calories than whatever extra reward you might want to give yourself if you are trying to lose weight. So for example if you swim for 1hr you can have an icecream snickers bar and a mcdonalds small bag of fries and still have about 500 calories of weight loss.

You can be very unhealthy and fat just by eating salad and sitting on the couch all day, it's a matter of calorie balance. But exercise has many additional advantages to just restricting what you eat.  It actually shifts your metabolism in the right direction, and your body will burn at least however many calories it takes to perform that physical work, whereas you will generally just adapt to food restrictions by lowering your metabolism. Not only but if you exercise a lot you might just feel like getting more sleep (all extra time you won't overeat), whereas if you restrict food a lot you might just end up thinking about food all the times. Sitting on the couch all day might also make you eat just out of boredom whereas any time you spend exercising is probably time you won't spend eating and will mostly feel like drinking water.

Ultimately it depends on personal preferences too. Say that you want to make a 500 calories deficit. Some people might have an easy time just eating 1500 calories a day without any exercise assuming they really burn 2000 calories (their energy level might go down and they might end up burning less calories than normal after a while for example). Others might prefer to be able to have a less restrictive diet and burn even 1000 or 2000 extra calories a day at the gym and eat a nicer more complete diet with all the psychological benefits of allowing occasionally more delicious foods they enjoy knowing they are still doing what is best for their body (plus all the extra health benefits that come with exercise).

[Steven Low]

Read this:

http://eshlow.blogspot.com/2009/05/relationship-between-diet-and-exercise.html

[FastGuppy]

One question about weight and exercise. What type of exercises should one be doing if he is looking to loose weight? Should they avoid the gym?

[Geoffrey Gonzales]

It could depend on your fitness level.
I ride for 6 hours straight, because I am fit enough to do so. About 2,600 Calories are burned.
The most I could eat is ≈1,500 in a meal.
Then later snack 700 Calories. Slumber.

-400 Cal + an increased metabolism after exercise + the use of fat while sleeping.

[Chris Salvato]

use of fat while sleeping?  There is a lot that goes on during sleep...most of which is anabolic...

You are using fat every second of the day as you breathe, also.  Energy sources have only a loose connection with stored energy.

[Geoffrey Gonzales]

My point was there is only so much one can eat.

[Chris Salvato]

My point was there is only so much one can eat.

Still doesn't make sense in context...I think the following link applies better:

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-energy-balance-equation.html

[Steven Low]

One question about weight and exercise. What type of exercises should one be doing if he is looking to loose weight? Should they avoid the gym?

Heavy lifting.

Squats, Deadlift, Oly, etc. upper body barbell work is fine too... bench, press, dips, pullups, rows.

Basically compound movements that use a lot of musculature

[Timothy Chen Allen]

I'm in about the best shape I've ever been in, but I also weigh about as much as I've ever weighed.  My BMI puts me in the overweight category (167 lbs, 5' 8").  Weight doesn't mean that much, but it does make a difference to my knees.  I wish I weighed less, but I don't really see how that's going to happen.

[Chris Salvato]

You can always lose weight...depending on your frame your minimum weight will vary.

You can always get lighter though...maintaining that much muscle may not be possible, though.

[Grayson]

I'm in about the best shape I've ever been in, but I also weigh about as much as I've ever weighed.  My BMI puts me in the overweight category (167 lbs, 5' 8").  Weight doesn't mean that much, but it does make a difference to my knees.  I wish I weighed less, but I don't really see how that's going to happen.

BMI is pretty useless IMO, unless your looking at it with your bf%.