I have been thinking about exercise, as it is easier than doing it. One of my basic beliefs is that exercise is detrimental to weight loss and causes well intentioned people intent on losing weight to abandon their diets and remain fat.
Let me first say that exercise is without doubt the number one thing you can do to improve your health – even above weight loss. Recent studies show that a fat person that is physically active lives as long as a thin person that is physically active, and longer than thin people that are physically inactive. So mine is not an anti-exercise rant. And, yes, you can exercise on your fast days (unless you want to do 50 consecutive 100 meter dashes).
Mine is a comment on expectations. For as long as I can remember (and I’m old with a good memory), we have been told (even by our doctors) that to lose weight we must combine diet and exercise. There is an entire industry of health clubs, personal trainers and exercise equipment makers pounding in the message that if you just use our services and equipment, you can lose weight. Yet we seem to have an obesity epidemic.
So let’s get real.
A pound equals about 3500 calories. To burn 3500 calories, and without eating one extra calorie as a result of the exercise, an average fat person needs to walk about 25 miles at about 3 MPH. Or run 18 miles doing 9 minute miles. I do not know too many average fat people that have the time or ability or willingness to devote that kind of effort to lose one pound (just think if they want to lose two). Put a more realistic way, I would have to walk 2500 miles, or run 1800, to hit my weight loss goal. Let’s face it, people have been taught and believe that by beginning to exercise at whatever level they will lose weight. They have been taught that by people that should, or do, know better.
In addition, when you start exercising after not exercising for awhile (years?), your muscles are damaged and rebuilt (that is how you ‘grow muscle’). This process requires that your muscles retain water to repair and grow themselves (sorry for being so unscientific). That means you gain water weight as a result of exercise.
Finally, when you exercise you become hungry (just like you become thirsty – although you get thirsty before you get hungry). When you layer hunger from the calorie restriction of the diet on top of hunger resulting from exercise, you are really hungry and your body is constantly reminding you that you really must eat. It requires a real mental effort to resist that demand to pick up and eat that (whatever).
So, you go on 5:2 and begin to exercise. You exercise like heck. Your 5:2 way of eating is a slow weight loss process – perhaps a pound a week. Your exercise really isn’t burning enough calories to make much of a difference to your weight loss. You hop on the scale after a great week of fasting like it says you should and exercising more than you have in years. You expect to be down at least 3 or 4 pounds, if not more.
But because of slow weight (fat) loss from 5:2 combined with water retention from exercise, you don’t lose anything and maybe gain. And you are really hungry. Second week, the same, and you are really, really hungry. Third week, the same, or maybe down a pound if you are lucky, and you are starving.
So clearly this 5:2 does not work (only one pound after three weeks of pain and suffering), and you are almost dying from starvation and tired of fighting the hunger, and say what is the use, and quit.
If you must exercise, at least don’t blame your slow or nonexistent weight loss on 5:2, and quit! Your exercise is helping you become more healthy, and 5:2 is helping you lose fat weight. You just have to be patient and wait for the slow acting 5:2 to overwhelm the effects of your exercise!
KEEP GOING!
9:15 am
5 Feb 14