I was skimming through my Google Alerts today and came across this blog, "The Examining Room of Dr. Charles."
The entry that caught my attention is about Dr. Charles' theory that exercise might not necessarily be effective in weight loss. Here is his evidence:
"A recent study, published this year by PLos One, looked at 464 overweight women, and divided them into four groups. Women in three of the four groups were asked to work out with a personal trainer for 72 minutes, 136 minutes, and 194 minutes per week, respectively, for six months. Women in the fourth group acted as a control and were told to maintain their usual routines. All the women were asked not to change their dietary habits.
You would expect that the group exercising for 194 minutes per week lost the most weight, right? Here’s a table of results, with 4, 8, and 12 KKW groupings reflecting the increasing energy expended by the three exercising groups.
All the groups lost weight that was statistically significant from their baseline – that’s the good news – but the absolute amount was only 2-5 pounds. Unfortunately for the American Heart Association and College of Sports Medicine, there were no significant differences between groups in terms of amount of weight lost, including the control group that didn’t increase exercise at all (P>0.05 for all between-group comparisons)."
Dr. Charles also notes that those who did exercise experienced hunger and fatigue. He also explains our obsession with exercise to a $20 billion industry and their good advertising that convinces us that we need to work out.
Dr. Charles did not take into account what these people were eating, though he did say they were not encouraged to diet.
Hmm, you mean you can't lose a bunch of weight if you eat Big Macs and french fries EVEN THOUGH you're working out? YOU'RE KIDDING!
I am willing to bet you that if the exercise group had also changed their diets to include healthier options, they would have lost much more significant weight. Why do I think that? Because I've done it! I'm working on doing it again.
I wish just eating healthy was the ticket, because I will be the first to admit that going to the gym is not something I generally enjoy doing until I'm in the swing of it. But eating healthy and exercising seem to go together like my left and right shoe, so for now, I think I'll try them both, despite this article.
For the entire blog, click here: http://www.theexaminingroom.com/2009/08/exercise-and-weight-loss/