fitness Archives - Page 29 of 30

Why Some People Eat Lots— But Don’t Get Fat

Nancy Clark, RD/3 November 2014/ All MFN blog/

Some of my clients seem jealous of their teammates. “They eat twice as much as I do and they are skinny as a rail. I just smell cookies and I gain weight,” spouted one collegiate runner. She seemed miffed that she couldn’t eat as much as her peers—and she couldn’t understand why. They all ran the same mileage, did the same workouts, and were similar in body size. Life seemed so unfair!

Yes, life is unfair when it comes to weight management. Some people gain (or lose) body fat more easily than others. Unfortunately, fat gain (or loss) is not as mathematical as we would like it to be. That is, if you persistently overeat (or undereat) by 100 calories a day, in theory you will gain (or lose) 10 pounds of body fat a year. But this theory does not hold up in reality. People vary greatly in their susceptibility to gain or lose body fat in response to over- or under-eating.

muesli with fresh fruits as diet food In general, research has suggested when people overeat, about 85% of the excess calories get stored as fat and the rest gets lost as heat. Overfed fat cells grow in size and in number and provide a storehouse of energy. Obese people commonly have enough fat stores to last a year or more; even lean athletes have enough fat stores to fuel a month or more. Fat can be advantageous during a time of severe illness or a famine.

Burning calories

Lets take a closer look at the four primary ways you burn calories:

Basal metabolic rate (BMR): BMR refers to calories burned when you are at rest and unfed, such as upon waking in the morning. Your heart, lungs, liver, and other organs use a fairly consistent amount of energy each day to keep you alive. Some athletes believe they have a slow metabolic rate that causes them to gain weight easily. Not the case. Very few people have a “slow metabolism.”
Thermic effect of food: This refers to the energy needed to digest, absorb and either convert food into fuel for the muscles and organs or store the excess energy as body fat. The thermic effect of food increases ~14% with overfeeding, due to the added energy needed to process the excess food.
Purposeful exercise: This is what you burn during your workouts. This can vary considerably from day to day.
Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT): This refers to activities of daily living (brushing teeth, washing dishes, etc.), fidgeting, energy used to maintain posture when standing and sitting, and spontaneous muscle contractions that occur during the day apart from your purposeful exercise. People with high NEAT spontaneously putter around the house, fidget with pencils, use their hands when talking, and are animated and lively. NEAT is genetic and somewhat predictive of who stays lean throughout their lifespan. People with low NEAT are good at sitting quietly. For example, obese people tend to sit 2.5 hours more a day than their peers and this can save them about 350 calories a day. Are they obese because they sit more? (Or do they sit more because they are obese?) Is NEAT the problem?

What happens with overeating?

To better understand why some people lose or gain weight more easily than others, Dr. James Levine PhD of the Mayo Clinic designed a study to look at the biological mechanisms that hinder fat-gain. Dr. Levine studied 16 non-obese subjects (12 males and 4 females), ranging in age from 25 to 36 years. They volunteered to eat 1,000 excess calories a day (above what they needed to maintain weight) for 8 weeks. The subjects were healthy, did not do purposeful exercise more than twice a week, and maintained a stable weight. Prior to being overfed, the researchers monitored the subjects for two weeks to learn how much food they regularly consumed to maintain their weight.

During the study, the subjects lived at their homes but ate supervised meals at the research center. The food had been carefully prepared and measured in a metabolic kitchen. The weight-gain diet was high in protein (20% of total calories) and fat (40% of calories), and low in carbohydrate (40%). The researchers accounted for almost all of the excess 1,000-calories a day. On average, ~430 of the 1,000 calories were stored and ~530 were dissipated via increased energy expenditure. The researches even measured 3 days of poop before and at the end of the study to be sure the subjects did not excrete calories during overfeeding. Only 38 calories a day got flushed down the toilet during overfeeding — 13 calories more than during normal eating.

healthy diet Depositphotos_6270042_xs Here is the fate of the 1,000 excess calories the subjects ate:

Energy stored as fat ranged from 60-685 calories per day
Energy stored as muscle ranged from 15-80 calories per day
Additional calories burned by organs: about 80, on average
Additional calories used to digest the extra food: about 135, on average
Additional calories burned via NEAT ranged from none to 690.

The researchers used highly accurate methods to measure changes in body fat (DXA). Some of the subjects gained 10 times more fat than others, ranging from 0.8 to 9 lbs (0.36 – 4.23 kg). The overall weight gain ranged from 3 to 12 lbs (1.4 -5.5 kg), some of which was additional muscle. NEAT explained the big variation in weight gain that occurred with the subjects in this overfeeding study. The subjects who were good fidgeters and putterers gained less.

The average increase in NEAT was 336 calories a day, but this actually ranged from burning 98 calories less than baseline to burning 690 calories more than baseline. The subject who burned the most calories strolled around the research facility (or did equivalent movement) about 15 minutes more per hour than the other subjects.

Conclusion

Despite popular belief, the ease of gaining weight is unlikely due to having a “slow metabolism.” Most often, athletes who are easy gainers are mellow, sit calmly, and don’t fidget. This contrasts to teammates that are bouncing around the locker room. If you are the mellow-type, blame your genetics — not a slow metabolism — for your ease of weight gain. And perhaps you can be grateful you can spend less money on food because you don’t eat as much?

References
Levine J, N Eberhardt, M Jensen. Role of Nonexercise Activity Thermogenesis in Resistance to Fat Gain in Humans. Science 283:212-214, 1999.

Levine J, Vander Weg M, Hill J, Klesges R. Non-exercise activity thermogenesis: the crouching tiger hidden dragon of societal weight gain. Arterioscler Thromb 26(4):729-36, 2006.

From The Athlete’s Kitchen; Copyright: Nancy Clark, October 2014

Boston-area sports nutritionist Nancy Clark, MS, RD offers one-on-one consults with both casual and competitive athletes. Her private practice is in Newton, MA (617-795-1875). For information about her Sports Nutrition Guidebook (2014) and food guides for runners, cyclists and soccer players, see www.nancyclarkrd.com. For online education, see www.NutritionSportsExerciseCEUs.com

Breast Cancer and Exercise

Today's Dietitian/5 October 2014/ All MFN blog, Conditions/

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, when pink ribbons remind women to schedule their mammograms and honor those who have died from or survived breast cancer. According to the National Cancer Institute, one in eight American women (12.3%) will develop invasive breast cancer during her lifetime.

When I Learn, I Teach: My Success Story

Kaleb Hill/5 October 2014/ All MFN blog/

After being unemployed for over two years and receiving several reject letters from jobs I applied for, I decided to add volunteer service to my resume. This was some of the most rewarding work I’d done in a long time.

To Eat—or Not to Eat: The Pre-Exercise Question

Nancy Clark, RD/22 September 2014/ All MFN blog/

What should I eat before I exercise?

That’s the question athletes of all ages and abilities most commonly ask when I’m presenting a sports nutrition workshop. While most people expect a simple response, such as “Eat a banana” or “Have a slice of toast,” the answer is actually complex and depends on many factors. After all, we are each an experiment of one.

The following information can help you figure out the best way to fuel your body before you exercise.

Does what you eat within 30 minutes of exercise offer performance benefits?

Your body can actually digest and use the food you eat before you exercise as long as you are exercising at a pace you can maintain for more than 30 minutes. Research also suggests that eating a snack just five minutes before moderate exercise can improve performance compared to exercising on empty. Yet, if you will be doing intense exercise—an erg test, track workout, or heavy weight lifting session, you should experiment to determine the best time to eat. You will likely feel more comfortable allowing two or three hours for your pre-exercise food to digest and empty from the stomach.

Will pre-exercise food cause heartburn or nausea?

While many people can comfortably tolerate pre-exercise food, others experience stomach distress. If the food you eat within the hour pre-exercise “talks back to you,” figure out:

Does the discomfort happen if you allow two or more hours for the pre-exercise food to be digested?
Does the type of food cause the problem? That is, do a few pretzels settle well but a cup of yogurt feels acidic?
Did you eat too much? Would half a bagel with a skimming of peanut butter digest better than the whole bagel?
Are you doing very high intensity work? If so, your stomach will shut down and your body will want to get rid of the contents….

What if I exercise in the early morning, before my stomach is awake?

If you drag yourself out of bed to exercise at early o’thirty, before your body and your mind are fully awake, you might not want to eat much of anything. I know of chocolate-breakfast many rowers, runners, swimmers, and ice hockey players who eat their breakfast the night before. That is, instead of eating a bowl of cereal at 5:30 a.m., they enjoy it at 10:00 pm, before going to bed. This food helps them wake up in the morning with a normal blood glucose (blood sugar) level, and provides energy for an enjoyable and effective workout.

What if pre-exercise food contributes to diarrhea and undesired pit stops?

Food generally takes one or two days to travel through the intestinal tract. Hence, an undesired pit-stop during a long run on Sunday might relate to food that you ate the day or two before. That is, if you ate an unusually large bowl of high-fiber bran cereal on Saturday when carbo-loading for the Sunday long run, you might end up wishing you’d carbo-loaded on low-fiber corn flakes or Rice Chex. Or maybe that bean burrito on Friday night caused the problem? You can try tracking your food and fiber intake, looking for suspicious patterns.

In general, exercise speeds up intestinal motility. With time, most bodies can adjust if you train your intestines to handle pre-exercise food. For example, one runner started by nibbling on one pre-exercise pretzel, and then two, and gradually built up his tolerance to the suggested 100 to 300 calories of carbs consumed within the hour pre-exercise. He enjoyed the benefits of feeling stronger at the end of his runs.

Should I purposefully not eat before I exercise because I want to lose weight while I exercise?

towel, dumbbells, apples and water bottle isolated on white One client reported she didn’t eat before she went to the gym because she was exercising to burn calories. Why would she want to add calories to her diet? Wouldn’t that defeat the main purpose of her workouts?

Think again: If you consume 100 to 300 calories before you workout, you will be able to exercise harder, at higher intensity and burn more calories than if you schlep through the session on fumes, with little enthusiasm or enjoyment. (Plus, you will not be as hungry afterwards and will be able to refrain from over-indulging.) Trust me, the plan to exercise-on-empty is hard to sustain; it is not fun. Just notice the drop-off in attendance at the gym between Jan. 1 and Feb. 1…

Food is fuel. As an athlete or a fitness exerciser, you need to fuel your body appropriately—including pre-exercise. Just as you put gas in your car before you take it for a drive, you want to put fuel in your body before you embark on a busy day. Be as nice to your body as you are to your car, please!

By eating nothing before my morning workout, won’t I burn more fat?

You may have heard you can burn more fat during low-level “fat burning exercise” if you do not eat beforehand. Yes, you might burn more fat than carbohydrates, but burning fat differs from losing body fat. You lose body fat when, at the end of your day, you have created a calorie deficit. That is, you will lose body fat (weight) if you have eaten only 1,800 calories by bedtime, even though you burned off 2,200 calories during the day. By fueling pre-exercise, you can have a better workout—and perhaps burn more calories than if you were to run on fumes.

To lose body fat, I suggest you fuel adequately by day, so you will have energy to enjoy an active lifestyle, and then lose weight at night by eating a lighter dinner. Fueling by day and dieting by night (so you lose weight when you are sleeping), is far preferable to restricting by day only to over-indulge at night due to extreme hunger.

Can training on empty enhance endurance?

Some recent research suggests that highly competitive athletes might be able to enhance their performance if they train under-fueled a few times a week. These depletion workouts can alter muscle metabolism so that the muscles are able to compete better when fully fueled.

If you want to “train low,” be sure to do your important high intensity workouts when you are well fueled. You cannot (enjoyably) exercise hard when you are running on fumes. Your performance will suffer unless you do some high quality hard workouts when you are well fueled.

From The Athlete’s Kitchen; Copyright: Nancy Clark, September 2014

Fit and Strong! Improves Arthritis Symptoms

Today's Geriatric Medicine/8 September 2014/ All MFN blog, business partners, Conditions/

The specialized program, combining structured physical activity with health education to build self-efficacy and effect behavior change, helps to reduce lower extremity joint pain.

Instructor Showing Health Results On Clipboard To Senior Couple

Getting Older, Day by Day: 15 Facts to Retain Youthful Fitness

Nancy Clark, RD/7 July 2014/ All MFN blog/

Like it or not, every one of us is getting older, day by day. As a fitness exerciser or an athlete, you might wonder how aging impacts performance—and what you can do to retain youthful fitness. The following information is gathered from a workshop (www.sportsnutritionworkshop.com) presented by Dr. William Evans, an exercise physiologist and expert on aging, muscles, and protein. The following information can help you chart a healthy course into your future.

Carbs, Protein & Performance

Nancy Clark, RD/30 June 2014/ All MFN blog/

What percentage of my diet should come from carbohydrates? … Should I exercise on empty? … How much protein should I eat after I lift weights? … Is whey the best source of protein?

These are just a few of the questions addressed at the annual meeting of SCAN, the Sports And Cardiovascular Nutritionist’s practice group of the American Dietetic Association (www.SCANdpg.org). Over 400 sports dietitians gather to learn the latest news from prominent sports nutrition researchers. I hope this information will help you choose a winning sports diet.

Carbohydrate Update

Louise Burke, PhD, Director of Sports Nutrition at the Australian Institute of Sport, addressed the following questions:

• What’s the best percentages of carbohydrates, protein, and fat for a sports diet — 40-30-30 or 60-25-15?

meal Neither! A better approach is to define nutrient needs according to body weight. For example, the International Olympic Committee developed these guidelines:
Intensity of exercise gram carb/kg body wt gram carb/lb body wt
Low intensity 3-5 g 1.5-2.5
Moderate (~1 hour/day): 5-7 g 2.3-3.2
Endurance (1-3 hours/d): 6-10 g 2.5-4.5
Extreme (>4-5 hours/d): 8-12 g 3.5-5.5

• How much should I eat during exercise?

During exercise that lasts 1 to 2.5 hours, you want to target 30 to 60 grams of carbohydrate (120 to 240 calories) per hour. That’s about 1 to 2 gels or 16 to 32 ounces of a sports drink per hour (after the first hour, if you ate a pre-exercise meal or snack)

During endurance exercise, 60 to 90 grams of different sources of carbohydrates (such as sports drink, banana, gummy candy) per hour is appropriate, as tolerated. Consuming the higher end of the range (90 g, as compared to 60 g) is associated with greater stamina and endurance.

• How long does it take to refuel from exhaustive exercise?

If you eat a carb-rich sports diet, you can replenish depleted glycogen stores in 24 to 36 hours post-exercise (with no exercise during that time). While it’s important to pay attention to your recovery diet, most athletes do not need to eat immediately after exercise unless they are doing double workouts. (Within an after exercise, yes; immediately, no.)

• What can I do if I cannot tolerate any food during exercise?

Try mouth swishing with a sports drink. This sends a message to the brain that energy is forthcoming and you’ll feel more energetic. Swishing can enhance performance by 2% to 3% if you are exercising on empty and have not eaten pre-exercise—as often happens with morning exercisers. (Swishing seems to be less beneficial after a pre-exercise meal, but more research is needed to verify those findings.)

• Should I train with poorly fueled muscles, as a means to teach my body to burn more fat, so it spares the limited glycogen stores?

Active seniors Training with low glycogen stores (“train low”) drives up the metabolic adaptations to burn more fat. By burning fat instead of glycogen, you’ll spare the limited glycogen stores. Theoretically, this should enhance stamina and endurance because glycogen depletion is associated with fatigue. To date, “training low” has been most effective in research with untrained individuals. Athletes who exercise with depleted glycogen are unable to exercise at high intensity and that may hinder performance.

Training with low glycogen during lower intensity workouts might be one way to stimulate the muscle adaptations to burn more fat (and thus spare the limited glycogen stores). But athletes should do their high intensity workouts when they are fully glycogen-loaded.

Exercise physiologist and researcher John Hawley, PhD of Melbourne, Australia acknowledged that train low/compete high is receiving a lot of attention among serious endurance and ultra-distance athletes. Hawley suggests “train low” should be defined as “train at 50% of resting muscle glycogen, 50% of the time”—and only for selected sessions. Training with low carbohydrate availability can be achieved by exercising with 1) low blood glucose, or 2) low muscle glycogen stores. Both generate adaptations that promote the training response and might be advantageous to competitive endurance athletes. Hawley cautions serious athletes that “training low” compromises training intensity and may lead to inferior performance during an event, particularly if the athlete needs to do a competitive sprint to the finish. That final sprint often determines who wins…

Protein Update

Stuart Phillips, PhD, professor of kinesiology, McMaster University in Ontario, Canada presented an update on protein, answering these questions:

• Do athletes need more protein than non-athletes?

While the recommended protein intake for the average American is 0.4 gram protein per pound body weight (0.8 grm protein per kg), most exercise scientists agree that athletes need a more to optimize muscular development: 0.5 to 0.8 grams protein per pound (1.2 to 1.7 grams of protein per kilogram) body weight per day. However, most young women and men generally consume about 0.55 to 0.65 g protein/lb (1.2 g and 1.4 g protein/kg) body weight per day, respectively. They can appropriately meet their higher need without supplements.

• How much protein do I need after I lift weights?

Consuming 20 grams of protein-rich food (Greek yogurt, tuna sandwich, 16 oz. chocolate milk) after resistance exercise is plenty to optimize the rate of muscle synthesis. Athletes should then continue to eat protein and carbs at meals and snacks throughout the day.

The highest rate of protein synthesis is 3 to 5 hours post-exercise. This raises the question: Should athletes who work out twice a day plan to avoid exercising during that time frame? The “good stuff” (building muscle) happens during rest and recovery and the “bad stuff” (muscle damage) happens during exercise. Remember: rest is an essential part of a strength training program!

• Should I buy whey protein supplements?

Probably not, unless you are a frail, elderly person with a limited food intake. Drinking milk (20% whey, 80% casein) and eating a balanced sports diet with adequate protein from many sources can be as effective as whey supplements. Hard, hard work is the basic trigger for bigger muscles!

Nancy Clark, MS, RD, CSSD (Board Certified Specialist in Sports Dietetics) helps both casual and competitive athletes win with nutrition. Her private practice is in Newton, MA (617-795-1875). Nancy Clark’s Sports Nutrition Guidebook and her food guides for new runners, marathoners offer additional information. They are available at www.nancyclarkrd.com. See also sportsnutritionworkshop.com.

Who Really Ends Up Being The Biggest Loser?

Jaclyn Chadbourne/26 June 2014/ All MFN blog/

After watching some episodes of The Biggest Loser TV show in school recently, my 6th grade son has started talking about how cool it would be if HE could get on the show someday. My son is not obese, is healthy and athletic, and the fact that he thought this crying, screaming, extreme dieting, working-out-six-hours-a-day-until-you-collapse spectacle might be good for him renewed my long-time concerns about the messages this show is sending, not only to impressionable kids but to everyone who wants to lose weight as quickly as possible.

For anyone unfamiliar with the show, it gathers about 16 morbidly obese individuals, divides them into 2 competing teams led by well known personal trainers, then follows their weight loss efforts for 12 weeks. During the 12 weeks, which culminates in 1 winner receiving a large monetary prize, the contestants who lose the least amount of weight are at risk of getting “voted off” the show each week, Survivor style. While the premise of the show is motivating people to lose weight, it is no more than a reality game show at its core and needs to be balanced with some discussion about healthy ways to make positive, lasting lifestyle changes.

exercise-86200_640 Of course, everyone’s diet/fitness level can always use improvements, and there’s no denying that America has a weight problem. Although The Biggest Loser can prompt some good discussions about diet and exercise, it promotes unhealthy, unrealistic methods of weight loss. The contestants’ diets are severely restricted to around 1,200 calories a day. Using this barely minimal caloric intake as fuel, they exercise for 4-6 hours a day until people frequently collapse or get physically sick. Then the trainers scream at them to shake it off, shaming them into believing they can – and should – push through the pain and exhaustion. As if they really wanted to lose weight badly enough, their will power would prevail over their body. Contestants are expected to lose several pounds each week, when a healthy rate is 1-2 pounds a week at the most. If this doesn’t encourage eating disorders, I don’t know what would. Off camera, it’s rumored that contestants will do anything to get the numbers on the scale lower, like dehydrating themselves or using laxatives or other methods to lose weight faster.

The most recent Biggest Loser winner, Rachel Frederickson, ended the show dangerously thin. According to an article on CNN, Frederickson went from 260 pounds to 105 pounds, losing 59.62% of her body weight. At 5 feet, 5 inches tall, that puts her body mass index at 17.5. Anything under 18.5 is considered underweight and can have serious health repercussions.

Even if it was done for the sake of the cash prize, the damage it has done to her body is unmistakable. What’s more, the message this show sends season after season by rewarding someone for losing a lot weight in a very short time using unhealthy methods is disheartening. I’m not sure if The Biggest Loser is the “winner” of the show or the millions of people watching and thinking this represents the gold standard in health and physical fitness.

Jaclyn Chadbourne, MA is a Clinical Exercise Physiologist and Co-Owner of the Medically Oriented Gym (M.O.G.) in South Portland, Maine. With a passion for sustainable healthy living and desire to advocate for patient-centered care, Jaclyn works to help the M.O.G. support community resources for all special populations and to implement and oversee clinical protocols. Read more from the MOG on their website, themoggroup.com/blog

Why Can’t I Simply Lose a Few Pounds? 5 Dieting Myths & Gender Differences

Nancy Clark, RD/23 June 2014/ All MFN blog/

Despite their apparent leanness, too many active people are discontent with their body fat. All too often, I hear seemingly lean athletes express extreme frustration with their inability to lose undesired bumps and bulges:

Am I the only runner who has ever gained weight when training for a marathon???
Why does my husband lose weight when he starts going to the gym and I don’t?
For all the exercise I do, I should be pencil-thin. Why can’t I simply lose a few pounds?

Clearly, weight loss is not simple and often includes debunking a few myths. Perhaps this article will offer some insights that will lead to success with your weight loss efforts.

MYTHS: You must exercise in order to lose body fat.
To lose body fat, you must create a calorie deficit. You can create that deficit by
1) exercising, which improves your overall health and fitness, or
2) eating fewer calories.

Even injured athletes can lose fat, despite a lack of exercise. The complaint, I gained weight when I was injured because I couldn’t exercise” could more correctly be stated, I gained weight because I mindlessly overate for comfort and fun.

muesli with fresh fruits as diet food Adding on exercise does not equate to losing body fat. In a 16-week study, untrained women (ages 18 to 34) built up to 40 minutes of hard cardio or weight lifting three days a week. They were told to not change their diet, and they saw no changes in body fatness.⁽¹⁾ Creating a calorie deficit by eating less food seems to be more effective than simply adding on exercise to try to lose weight.

Athletes who complain they “eat like a bird” but fail to lose body fat may simply be under-reporting their food intake. A survey of female marathoners indicated the fatter runners under-reported their food intake more than the leaner ones. Were they oblivious to how much they actually consumed?⁽²⁾ Or were they too sedentary in the non-exercise hours of their day?

MYTH: If you train for a marathon or triathlon, surely your body fat will melt away.
Wishful thinking. If you are an endurance athlete who complains, For all the exercise I do, I should be pencil-thin, take a look at your 24-hour energy expenditure. Do you put most of your energy into exercising, but then tend to be quite sedentary the rest of the day as you recover from your tough workouts? Male endurance athletes who reported a seemingly low calorie intake did less spontaneous activity than their peers in the non-exercise parts of their day.⁽⁴⁾ You need to keep taking the stairs instead of the elevators, no matter how much you train. Again, you should eat according to your whole day’s activity level, not according to how hard you trained that day.

MYTH: The more you exercise, the more fat you will lose.
Often, the more you exercise, the hungrier you get and 1) the more you will eat, or 2) the more you believe you “deserve” to eat for having survived the killer workout. Unfortunately, rewarding yourself with a 600-calorie cinnamon roll can quickly erase in a few minutes the 600-calorie deficit you generated during your workout.

The effects of exercise on weight loss are complex and unclear—and depend on the 24-hour picture. We know among people (ages 56-78) who participated in a vigorous walking program, their daily energy needs remained about the same despite adding an hour of exercise. How could that be? The participants napped more and were 62% less active the rest of their day.⁽³⁾ Be sure to pay attention to your whole day’s activity level. One hour of exercise does not compensate for a sedentary lifestyle

MYTH: You should exercise six days a week to lose weight.
Research suggests exercising four times a week might be better for weight control than six times a week. A study with sedentary women (ages 60 to 74) who built up to exercising for 40 minutes of cardio and weights suggests those who did four workouts a week burned about 225 additional calories in the other parts of their day because they felt energized. The group that trained six times a week complained the workouts not only took up too much time, but also left them feeling tired and droopy. They burned about 200 fewer calories in the non-exercise parts of their day.⁽⁵⁾ Yes, they were ages 60 to 74, but the info might also relate to you?

MYTH: Couples who exercise together, lose fat together.
Not always. In a 16-month study Senior couple on country bike ride looking at exercise for weight loss, the men lost 11.5 pounds and the women maintained weight, even though they did the same amount of exercise.⁽⁶⁾ In another study, men who did an 18-month marathon training program reported eating about 500 more calories per day and lost about five pounds of fat. The women reported eating only 60 more calories, despite having added on 50 miles per week of running. They lost only two pounds.⁽⁷⁾

What’s going on here? Well, a husband who adds on exercise will lose more weight than his wife if he’s heftier and thereby burns more calories during the same workout. But, speaking in terms of evolution, Nature seems protective of women’s role as child bearer, and wants women to maintain adequate body fat for nourishing healthy babies. Hence, women are more energy efficient. Obesity researchers at NY’s Columbia University suggest a pound of weight loss in men equates to a deficit of about 2,500 calories, while women need a 3,500-calorie deficit.⁽⁸⁾ No wonder women have a tougher time losing weight then do men https://thefitnessequation.com/phentermine-online/….

The bottom line
If you are exercising to lose weight, I encourage you to separate exercise and weight. Yes, you should exercise for health, fitness, stress relief, and most importantly, for enjoyment. (After all, the E in exercise stands for enjoyment!) If you exercise primarily to burn off calories, exercise will become punishment for having excess body fat. You’ll eventually quit exercising—and that’s a bad idea.

Instead of focusing on exercise as the key to fat loss, pay more attention to your calorie intake. Knocking off just 100 calories a day from your evening snacks can theoretically result in 10 pounds a year of fat loss. One less cookie a day seems simpler than hours of sweating…?

Nancy Clark MS RD CSSD (Board Certified Specialist in Sports Dietetics) counsels casual and competitive athletes in her private practice in the Boston-area (617-795-1875). Her Sports Nutrition Guidebook, Food Guide for Marathoners and Cyclist’s Food Guide all offer additional weight management information. The books are available via www.nancyclarkrd.com. See also www.sportsnutritionworkshop.com.

References:

1. Poehlman, E., W. Denino, T. Beckett, K. Kinsman, I. Dionne, R. Dvorak, P. Andes. Effects of endurance and resistance training on total daily energy expenditure in young women: a controlled randomized trial. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 87(3):1004-9, 2002.

2. Edwards, J, A. Lindeman, A. Mikesky, and J. Stager. Energy balance in highly trained female endurance runners. Med Sci Sports Exer 25:1398-404, 1993.

3. Goran, M. and E. Poehlman. Endurance training does not enhance total energy expenditure in healthy elderly persons. Am J Physiol 263:E950-7, 1992.

4. Thompson, J., M. Manore, J. Skinner, E. Ravussin, M. Spraul. Daily energy expenditure in male endurance athletes with differing energy intakes. Med Sci Sports Exerc 27::347-54, 1995.

5. Hunter, G., C. Bickel, G. Fisher, W. Neumeier, J. McCarthy. Combined Aerobic/Strength Training and Energy Expenditure in Older Women. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2013 Jan 30. [Epub ahead of print]

6. Donnelly, E., J. Hill, D. Jacobsen, et al. Effects of a 16-month randomized controlled exercise trial on body weight and composition in young, overweight men and women: the Midwest Exercise Trial. Arch Intern Med 163:1343-50, 2003.

7. Janssen, C., C. Graef, W. Saris. Food intake and body composition in novice athletes during a training period to run a marathon. Int J Sports Med, 10:S17-21,1989.

8. Pietrobelli, A., D. Allison, S. Heshka, et al. Sexual dimorphism in the energy content of weight change. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord 26:1339-48, 2002.