Why do we get fat

Chapter 10 Exercise to lose weight, does it really work? (3)
Another well-known study examining the effects of physical activity on weight loss was published in 1989 by a team of Danish researchers.The Danes trained sedentary subjects to run marathons.After training for 18 months and actually running marathons, the 18 men in the program lost an average of 2.5 kilograms of body fat.As for the nine female experimenters, the Danish researchers pointed out that "no changes in body composition were observed." In the same year, Xavier Pi-Sunyer, director of the Center for Obesity Research at St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital in New York, reviewed Existing research that proves the concept of "more exercise can reduce weight", his conclusion is the same as that of a Finnish researcher in 9: "After exercise, the weight and body fat of obese people can be reduced, some can be increased, and some can even lose weight. There has been no change, all of these situations have occurred before."

The reason we believe so deeply in the belief that "more exercise will make you lose weight, and you won't eat more to compensate" is that health journalists believe it, and the articles they publish in the media are widely read, while the actual research literature is unavailable. People care about it.

For example, in 1977, when the wave of exercise and weight loss was blowing out, the National Institutes of Health hosted the Second Conference on Obesity and Weight Control.The conclusion of the experts at the meeting was that the importance of exercise in weight control is not as high as imagined.This is because an increase in energy expenditure caused by exercise is also likely to lead to an increase in food intake.We cannot predict whether increased calorie consumption will be offset by greater food intake.

That same year, The New York Times reported that "there is now strong evidence that regular exercise—as long as it's continued uninterrupted—does produce significant and lasting weight loss." The evidence is that "moderate exercise can slightly suppress appetite" proved by Gene Mayer through "sophisticated and rigorous experiments", and nothing more.

By 1983, Jane Brodi, a health reporter for Time Magazine, began writing about ways in the newspaper that "exercise is the key to successful weight loss."

In 1989, the same year that Pi Sanye published a pessimistic paper on the view that exercise can reduce weight, Newsweek declared to the public that exercise was the "essential factor" in any weight loss program.Now, in the rare event that exercise alone doesn't shed enough weight, "you also have to make sure you don't overeat," according to Time Magazine.

Why do obesity researchers and public health authorities draw different conclusions from the same story?The famous author Umberto Eco offers a possible answer in his novel "Foucault's Pendulum": "I believe you can grasp this. Now, get into the habit of pretending to believe and develop There is no difference between the habit of believing."

From the late 20s to the present, the main factor that drives us to believe in the idea that exercise can maintain and lose weight seems to be the researchers' own desire: They want it to be true, and they are reluctant to publicly admit that the opposite is actually the case.However, it is inevitable that the public will be "disinterested" in exploring real experimental evidence.As Meier's former student Judith Stern wrote in 70, it is "short-sighted" to claim that exercise is ineffective for weight loss because it ignores the contribution of exercise to obesity prevention and weight maintenance.Of course, the latter has never been well proven.

Even in the scientific discussion of exercise to lose weight, philosophical views have begun to dominate.But in any case, these arguments just can't explain the simple principle of "increase in exercise and increase in appetite".The idea of ​​exploring the relationship between appetite and exercise was discarded.Doctors, researchers, exercise physiologists, and even personal trainers at gyms have all come to think of hunger as something left on their minds—surely it's a matter of weak "willpower" rather than the body's need to restore expended energy natural result.

For the researchers themselves, no matter what the evidence actually proves, they can always find a way to write their articles and reviews so that they can continue to promote the exercise weight loss argument.A common approach is to only discuss those conclusions that support the conclusion that how much physical activity and energy expenditure determines how fat we are, and simply ignore the evidence that can refute this idea, even if the latter is numerous.It remains so until now.

For example, Danish researchers lost 2.5 kilograms of body fat in men who tried to convert sedentary subjects into marathon runners, according to two experts who wrote The Obesity Handbook.They use this as a reason to exercise, but ignore the fact that the women in the Danish experiment didn't lose weight at all.Other experts have begun to argue that we can lose weight through anaerobic exercise such as weightlifting or resistance training, rather than aerobic exercise such as running, which is purely for increasing calorie burn.The idea is that through anaerobic exercise we gain muscle, lose fat, and so on and so on, so that we get healthier even if our weight stays the same.Because muscle has a more active metabolism and burns more calories than fat, gaining muscle helps maintain weight without regaining weight.

Of course, these experts ignored those specific figures because they were too insignificant.If we could actually replace 2.5 kg of fat with 2.5 kg of muscle, that would be a remarkable achievement for most adults.

Before concluding my critique of the exercise and weight loss narrative, I would like to briefly refer you to the guidelines published by the American College of Cardiology and the American College of Sports Medicine in August 2007: "It is reasonable to assume that relatively high daily energy People with low energy expenditure were less likely to gain weight than those with low energy expenditure." These leading experts also wrote: "To date, the data supporting this hypothesis are not particularly convincing."

Hinted at by the idea that we can lose weight through exercise, pundits are reluctant to speak out.They sneaked in a conditional word "so far".In doing so, they can open the door to possibility.Maybe one day, someone will be able to scientifically prove that the innermost hopes of the experts are indeed reality.

However, I also want to tell you that the idea of ​​"getting fat because of sitting for a long time, as long as you increase energy consumption, you will lose weight or prevent further obesity" has appeared at least a century ago.Carl von Noorden, one of Europe's most influential authorities on obesity and diabetes, made this point as far back as 1907.In fact, we can go back to the 19s, when an obese Englishman, William Banting, talked about his experience of repeated weight loss failures in his best-selling book "Letters on Obesity".Banting wrote that a doctor friend of his advised him to "get more physical work" to lose weight.So Banting “spent hours every morning” rowing.His muscles got stronger, but the appetite that came with it forced me to eat and drink, which resulted in weight gain."In the end, my lovely old friend suggested that I give up exercising," Banting said.

Experts at the American College of Cardiology and the American College of Sports Medicine might think that if we try harder to study the relationship between exercise and weight loss, we can finally confirm that von Norden, Banting's doctor friend, and the researchers of these 100 years , doctors, and sports fans have argued since then to be correct.Anyway, exercise can lose weight.

The history of science offers another possibility.Science tells us that if people have been thinking about an idea for more than 100 years, tested it for decades, and still cannot get convincing evidence to prove that it is correct, then this idea may be wrong.We can't say 100% that it's wrong because science has no absolutes.But let's just say that now is a great time to prove that it's just as simple and wrong as that.

If you now believe me when I say that reducing calorie intake cannot lose weight, and increasing calorie consumption cannot maintain weight loss, we should fully reflect and get the truth.

(End of this chapter)