THINKING EXERCISE AFFECTS WEIGHT LOSS, IS ONLY DISTRACTING YOU

BY: FITZ-GEORGE RATTRAY

If I only had a dollar for every time I heard… “I don’t know what happened this week, I went to the gym 5 days this week”, or,  “I worked out so hard this week, I thought I’d lose more” … I would chose a solid investment portfolio and I could retire.

This is the old, counterproductive ancient belief, that working out harder will make me lose more fat. The only thing you will lose in the long run is focus on what is important, which is putting energy into changing your old damaging eating habituations for an intelligent, moderate, balanced, planned, committed, healthy lifestyle. 

Exercise has a myriad of undisputable, proven wellness benefits. InteKai has its own five fitness essentials:

  • Walking
  • Progressive resistance weight training
  • Cardiovascular activity
  • Stretching
  • Balance and Coordination/agility

If you live a normal lifespan you will pay a price if you consistently omit any one of these activities from your weekly schedule. They are that important.  But when it comes to weight management none of these will help you as much as people believe.

Of course, if you are a muscular, high performance competitive athlete and exercise intensely for 4 to 5 hours per day, 5-6 days per week, your level of caloric consumption will make a dent in your fat stores, assuming you are not severely overeating. BUT, nothing will completely negate the need for proper nutrition. If nutrition is not properly managed even competitive athletes are susceptible to high cholesterol, strokes, heart disease, inflammation, cancer, neurological and autoimmune illnesses.  Proper nutrition is king.

Of course the rest of society, the people who are not or cannot exercise 30 hours per week do not have the luxury of IMAGINING that exercise will make a significant dent in your weight maintenance and fat loss goals.

WHY DOESN’T EXERCISE PLAY A SIGNIFICANT ROLE

You may have heard some numbers being thrown around, nutrition is 80%, exercise is 20% or nutrition is 90%, exercise is 10%, and saying such as “you can’t out train a bad diet”. 

Sadly most people hear but still don’t understand, holding unto the belief that exercise plays a larger role, distracting themselves form the importance of excellent nutrition.

The reality is simply a matter of arithmetic, biological adaptation and metabolism.

Here are the headlines:

  • Most activities, moderate to vigorous exercise activities metabolizes – 220 to 350 calories per hour
  • The most competitive high intensity sports activities metabolizes – 500 to 600 calories per hour
  • When you have become more proficient at these activities you will become more efficient as you body adapts to your routine.  That is, you will be able to do more while consuming less energy.
  • Over time caloric consumption in exercise can drop by as much as 25% – reducing your caloric usage to as low as:
    • 165 to 263 calories per hour for moderate to vigorous exercise
    • 375 to 450 calories per hour for high intensity sports    

Now it is becoming obvious why after six months of exercise and initial five to ten pound loss your weight is not budging.

WHAT DO THOSE CALORIES MEAN IN TERMS OF FAT AND FOODS?  

One pound of stored fat is about 3,500 calories worth of fat, marring some advanced physiology, to lose a pound of fat you must ingest 3,500 calories less than you “burn”. 

  • For the average person exercising away 3,500 calories (one pound of fat) will require 17 ½ hours of exercise
  • One weeks exercise may result in less than 4 ounces, OUNCES or fat loss. That is not even a quarter pound.
  • To lose 1 pound of fat the average person who exercise an hour per day, 4 days per week, will have to exercise unfailingly for one month and a day
  • After a week of exercise the following WILL REPLACE ANY FAT LOST (and don’t say you don’t eat these things, they are just examples, other foods are similar of more in calories)
    • 2 Table spoons of salad dressing
    • 1 cup of coleslaw 4 days per week
    • 1 grilled chicken Caesar salad
    • 1 taco salad
    • 1 large banana per day
    • 48 ounces of soda
    • 48 ounces of unsweetened orange juice
    • And I could go on.

In other words, to lose a pound of fat per month with nutritional management all you have to do is reduce your intake by:

  • 8 tablespoons LESS of salad dressing per month
  • cutting out coleslaw
  • or eliminating/reducing any food or additive of equal caloric content etc.

In the 1970s and 1980s the fast food and sugar industries shifting the blame for obesity away from themselves to the people, saying that they are not the problem, the people are too lazy and exercise will solve the problem.

Stop believing this nonsense, this fallacy is distracting millions from focusing on the details of their nutrition, leaving it open for consumers to ignore labels, facts, advice and stay entrenched in their habituations.

Exercise for all the right reasons, for health, mobility, strength, cardio vascular health and more, but NOT for fat loss.  Stop thinking, I should have lost more weight, I exercised so hard this week, learn to focus on your nutrition and augment your total wellness with exercise.