Does Excercise Make You Lose Weight?

Let's face it: we exercise so we won't get fat. Some of us love it. Granted, we all feel good after the fact, but who has an hour everyday to drive to the gym, sweat, take a shower, dress and then face the day?

And does exercise make you lose weight? In my 50 years of personal experience I would have to say no. It makes me feel better. It can be fun from time to time. But it also makes me hungrier. Worse, it gives me a great excuse to reward myself with certain foods. Is there a better way?

10 years ago I changed the way I eat and that changed my body in exactly the way I had always hoped exercise would change it. I lost 20 pounds. I gained enormous energy; so much energy that I have trouble sleeping longer than 6 hours some nights. And most bizarrely: I gained muscle tone. Wierd but true.

Here's how it works: I eat right and exercise. I eat a vegan/celiac diet. I cheat on 1 meal and 5 snacks per week out of a total of 21 meals and 7 snacks. I walk 20 minutes in the morning.

Here's what I do not do: I don't pay money to exercise - my body weight and the great outdoors provide enough "resistance training" by themselves. I don't go to a class that meets only at certain hours. I can walk at whatever time I wake up in the morning. I don't have appetite increases due to excess lactic acid in sore muscles. I don't reward myself for working out because mentally I have not done anything I didn't want to do. I don't fling my body around for "aerobic activity" which is counter to my personal nature or ability. I do a few push ups now and then when it is cold because I want to. I never worry about my weight or my clothes fitting - I wear the exact same pants I bought 15 years ago. (Fashion be damned!)

"'You just have to understand what exercise can
and cannot do. In general, exercise by itself is pretty useless for weight
loss', says Eric Ravussin, a professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research
Center in Baton Roughe, LA and an expert on weight loss. 'It's especially
useless because people often end up consuming more calories when they
exercise.'"
Dallas Morning News
Sunday 4/27/10

"In a completed but unpublished study conducted
in his energy-metabolism lab, Barry Braun, an associate professor kinesiology at
the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and his colleagues had a group of
volunteers spend and entire day sitting. If they needed to visit the
bathroom or any other location, they spun over in a wheelchair. Meanwhile,
in a second session, the same volunteers stood all day, 'not doing anything in
particular', Braun said, 'just standing.'
The difference in energy expenditure was
remarkable, representing 'hundreds of calories', Braun says. Standing, for
both men and women, burned multiple calories but did not ignite hunger.
One thing is going to become clear in the coming years, Braun says: If you
want to lose weight, you don't necessarily have to go for a long run. Just
get rid of your chair."
American College of Sports
Medicine
newsletter April 2010

If you LOVE spinning or taking your bike for a fast ride around the lake, do it. Do it for the joy, the fun, the mind cleanse, the fresh air. But if going to the gym is as fun as scrubbing tile, don't do it. Go to the kitchen and cook something clean, fresh, whole, savory and yummy!