What I've been Telling People For 15 Years

It's not what you put out, it's what you put in.

Thanks Gary!

And what Taubes leaves out of this fine article is the fact that you have to subtract the amount of calories you'd burn anyway from the total burned doing exercise simply doing nothing.

EXAMPLE:

1 hour treadmill run = ~300 calories burned.

1 hour sitting on rump = ~100 calories burned.

300-100 = 200 additional calories burned (mainly from sugar not stored body fat).

3,500 calories in a pound of fat.

3,500 -:- 200 = 17.5 days it would take you exercising to lose one pound of fat.

200 calories is a half of a banana and a small glass of skim milk.

Oh - and as you get more fit the amount of calories burned for that same hour goes down as heart rate doesn't go up as much and the entire hour is just easier. Easier efforts burn less calories than harder efforts for the same time frame.

So now you have to run longer or faster or both.

Where is that orthopedic doctor's phone number?

Comments

[Griff]

Fred,
Back in the ancient 1970's, I worked in contruction, roughnecked and laid pipe in the oil fields, worked in a sawmill, etc. The "crossfit" folks would swoon. I was surrounded by guys who worked brutally hard for hours everyday and most of them were fat. Some were skinny, but most were overweight. In the sawmill we sorted and stacked plywood and assorted lumber by hand all day into neat big stacks. Most new guys only lasted a week or so. I stuck it out for 4 months. I was one of 3 non-Navajos on the shift. Every one of those guys were fat, a couple probably clinically obese, yet they worked like mules. At lunch and breaks, these guys ate the same as me. Most were teetotalers, so no beer. Looking back, I don't see how I ever bought the idea that exercise will make you lean.
And "functional" exercise, that's a whole 'nuther subject.
Griff

[Tom Traynor]

I have my training studio WITHIN a typical health club. Outside of my window is the cardio equipment. I use this as a sales tool to show clients and potential clients the failed experiment: Outside are dozens of Humans trying to be gerbils, doing low-intensity, steady state "cardio". They are weak, fat--and getting fatter. They are wasting their lives. They are wasting valuable lean muscle mass. They are the definition of insane: "Doing the same thing over and over expecting a different outcome". I tell my clients (many who have curtailed or eliminated "cardio"--and are thrilled with the results of high-intensity strength training): "I am only one man. I cannot save the world." Just STOP the insanity!!

[Ryan]

Fred,

What is the correlation between HR and energy expenditure? It would seem that this may be an indirect measure of less muscle fiber recruitment to produce the same effort, and therefore less need for oxygen. Can you elaborate?

[Eugene Thong]

You burn fewer calories the fitter you get because:

1) Your muscles are stronger, so each individual movement becomes easier to perform.

2) Neurological adaptations occur. This is a high-falutin' way of saying your body increases the efficiency with which it performs repeated movement. The more a movement is repeated, the more efficient (read: energy-saving) the body will become at performing that movement.

[AJC]

Fred, one thing that has always puzzled me, why do you burn fewer calories when you get more fit? Is it because you are actually getting more lean? Even if it is because you get more lean, why does it happen?