Exercise is NOT the Key to Weight Loss
Last week I talked about the many ways exercise is awesome. This week I want to focus on one way it's not. Weight loss. Sorry, but that's the topic of this week's Healthcare Triage.
Last week I talked about the many ways exercise is awesome. This week I want to focus on one way it's not. Weight loss. Sorry, but that's the topic of this week's Healthcare Triage.
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Maybe not THE key, but certainly A key. I recently broke a leg and as a result was non-weight bearing on crutches for about 11 weeks. School required about 2 miles a day on average between the two campuses I am attending. Very happy with the weight I lost doing that.
Walking two miles a day is really only a minuscule energy expenditure. As said in the video, a 30 min jog is about 300-350 calories. That's a higher intensity excercise and for a longer distance than walking two miles (depending on individual speed of course). Not saying walking two miles a day isnt good for you. However, it's just about 220 calories. The cookies I'm eating right now have 137, so could eat 1.5 less and have the same effect.
2 miles a day, minimum, non-weight-bearing on crutches. I lost 14 pounds and wound up with one leg about twice as big as the other. Still working on evening that out.
I'm not sure how much more energy walking with crutches actually uses. With simple walking you'd get about 23 grams of fat per day (39kJ/g and assumed 220kcal for 2 miles of walking).
Let's say you walk 5/7 days a week and maybe 1 mile on the weekend. That gives us 11 miles per week, 121 over the course of 11 weeks. Let's assume you've lost 10 pounds of fat, 4 pounds of muscles, water etc. 10 pounds are ca 4'540g meaning you used about 177'000kJ. That's 1463kJ per mile or 350kcals.
Huh, more than I'd have expected. Although I've probably overestimated the amount of fat you've lost. Anyways, congrats on the weight loss!
Thanks. Doc said crutches burn about 40% more than just walking, and by the end of the third week as I was developing the upper body strength to carry my fat ass around, I got to where I could move pretty fast on the sticks, quite a bit faster than my normal walking pace. I don't think I lost much, if any, muscle mass overall, what I lost in the one leg, I made up for in the other and arms/shoulders.
It was weight I could well afford to lose. =)
Exactly. Sometimes eating junk food, drinking pop or generally eating foods high in sugar content isn't worth it if your goal is to actually loose weight. I would rather avoid having to jog for 2 hours rather than enjoying a pint of Ben & Jerry's rocky road-ish ice cream for instance.
The saying "You can't out-exercise a bad diet." is apt in this case.
This guy makes a lot of sense. Personally I would assign diet about 80% importance vs 20% for exercise.
If you eat below maintenance level calories you will lose weight. Even if all you eat is bread or chocolate, you will still lose weight eating below maintenance. Exercise is a good tool to allow you to eat extra calories during the day while still meeting your weight loss goals or to deepen your daily deficit for accelerated fat loss.
Diet is the biggest part, Unfortunately the Food industry lobbies for Calories in vs Calories out, because eating healthy cuts the bottom line. Michelle Obama actually in her first exercise revamp was on the right track but was paid substantial money to change views on nutrition( knowing or unknowing) and the backers behind it where companies like Kellogs, Coca Cola, and a few other big name food industries. Iv been a personal trainer for 12 years now, and actually was the offsite trainer for Charita Smith who won Extreme make over weight lose edition. The best thing you can do is Exercise and eat healthy. The more Lean Muscle on the body the more calories you burn. If it has more crap on the label then you can read its probably not healthy.