My Response to “Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin”
Okay folks, here comes a classic Jamie Sulc (pronounced Schultz) rant! Be warned - I pull no punches with this one.
So, I get an email from my wife last Friday and all it said was “read this” with a link to this Time Magazine article by John Cloud entitled “Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin.” As soon as I clicked the link and read the title I thought to myself “Aww sh*t, this is probably going to piss me off!”
And guess what? It did. I’ll be honest, this is one of the most absurd articles I have ever read. Now, Mr. Cloud does make some valid points and while it’s hard to argue with academia’s imperical data, in my opinion, the article is mostly a load of horse manure.
Make sure you read the article and the selected passages before reading my thoughts!
Passage #1
The basic problem is that while it’s true that exercise burns calories and that you must burn calories to lose weight, exercise has another effect: it can stimulate hunger. That causes us to eat more, which in turn can negate the weight-loss benefits we just accrued. Exercise, in other words, isn’t necessarily helping us lose weight. It may even be making it harder.
Passage #2
All this helps explain why our herculean exercise over the past 30 years — all the personal trainers, StairMasters and VersaClimbers; all the Pilates classes and yoga retreats and fat camps — hasn’t made us thinner. After we exercise, we often crave sugary calories like those in muffins or in “sports” drinks like Gatorade. A standard 20-oz. bottle of Gatorade contains 130 calories. If you’re hot and thirsty after a 20-minute run in summer heat, it’s easy to guzzle that bottle in 20 seconds, in which case the caloric expenditure and the caloric intake are probably a wash. From a weight-loss perspective, you would have been better off sitting on the sofa knitting.
Passage # 3
In 2000 the journal Psychological Bulletin published a paper by psychologists Mark Muraven and Roy Baumeister in which they observed that self-control is like a muscle: it weakens each day after you use it. If you force yourself to jog for an hour, your self-regulatory capacity is proportionately enfeebled. Rather than lunching on a salad, you’ll be more likely to opt for pizza.
Passage #4
In short, it’s what you eat, not how hard you try to work it off, that matters more in losing weight. You should exercise to improve your health, but be warned: fiery spurts of vigorous exercise could lead to weight gain. I love how exercise makes me feel, but tomorrow I might skip the VersaClimber — and skip the blueberry bar that is my usual postexercise reward.
Excuses, excuses. This article rains excuses. Even with the evidence as to why most people don’t drop the pounds and body fat they want with exercises in the article, it’s still somehow the exercise making us too hungry to lose any weight.
Another thing I like is the assertion that your will power is affected by exercise. I guess the brain releases some french fry craving chemical causing you to run for the boarder right after you leave the gym?
All the hard training in world does not mean sh#t if you go right to Starbucks and get a double iced mocha double whipped caramel chocolate latte or you go to Wendy’s and get a double cheeseburger and biggie fries.
WTF do people expect? If you are trying to lose weight and drop some body fat, you cannot eat like a freakin’ slob. If your will power is so weak that you cannot sacrifice your evening Ding Dong or hostess cupcake I have a little hint for you…
It’s not the exercise dumbass, IT’S YOU!
STOP making excuses and make a commitment to a goal.
STOP training like a candy ass!
STOP putting junk into your body!
I’m sick and tired of the bitching and moaning about not losing any weight or not getting stronger. When I was 19, I weighed 260 lbs. I was training like a beast and was strong as hell, but I ate pizza every night. I suppose all that heavy lifting made me fat?
I stopped making excuses for all the crap going into my body and made a change. After I dropped the weight I wanted to get strong again so I made another committment to another goal, worked harder, and got stronger. And guess what, I’m stronger and lean.
The common denominator here is you get out what you put into something. Stop making excuses, forget the rules, train hard, and eat right!
Jamie Sulc…OUT!
AMEN, Jamie! I have withheld from talking about this article, which has been a bit difficult b/c everyone keeps asking for my thoughts on it. All I gotta say is I couldn’t have said it better! This article does nothing but perpetuate society’s need for an easy way out. It’s aggravating (obviously)! Life is obviously about balance, and the author makes a completely one-sided claim that does nothing but promote imbalance. People need to be less extreme and learn to achieve balance in their lives…wow…the world would be a much better place IF that ever happened!
Keep up the good work!
Sarah
Hey Jamie,
Actually, I kind of agree with this guy. You know I have run two marathons, am training for a third and worked my ass off with you and NEVER lost a pound. It is 90% about the diet – which you kind of state in your rant. Exercise is necessary for my well-being and is also necessary for me NOT weighing 400 pounds. However, my cholesterol is still 215 and I am still working on the 20 pound weightloss goal to run Chicago. And I don\’t eat pizza. I don\’t eat donuts. I think he is trying to point out that there is no magic bullet. That if people want to actually lose weight – the old fashioned counting calories is still the answer. No body wants to hear it!!!! Great debate – keep going!!!
Sarah V,
He does make some valid points but the argument that people don’t lose weight with exercise because it makes them too hungry or diminishes their will power is ludicrous to me.
You’re right there is no magic bullet. Weight loss does come down to calories in vs. calories out.
I just think you always have a choice. You don’t go out for a run and then eat McDonald’s. You do it the right way. And you’re right it is harder for some folks. I feel for the folks that are doing everything right and have a hard time meeting their goals.
But, I don’t have any sympathy for the person that supposedly works their tails or on the recumbent bike and ad/abductor machine and then goes and grabs a Chic-Fil-A milkshake as a reward.
Great debate. I love this stuff!