Week 5: Is Exercise The Answer to Weight-loss?

Being Good

I'd love to say I went to the Gym, I have recently been inspired by a blogger who is doing incredibly well. Unfortunately it reminded me of how much more I should be doing, and that just got me depressed and lethargic. Still, realisation doesn't work overnight. I'm not making excuses, I'm just saying I know I have to rethink and redouble my efforts if I am going to get anywhere.

Being Bad

Not much in here I'm afraid. Broke every single rule. I'm not going to get down on myself. The way I figure it, every day I do well, is another day I did well. It just so happens I didn't have many of those days this week.

Is Exercise The Answer?

One of the most perplexing problems in the world of physiology is the way in which our bodies handle exercise. Most of us believe that more exercise means weight loss, but typically life is never that simple. Barry Braun, an associate professor of kinesiology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst wrote;

"Anecdotally, all of us have been cornered by people claiming to have spent hours each week walking, running, stair-stepping, etc., and are displeased with the results on the scale or in the mirror,"

The point he is making is that there are thousands of people across the world who have found that an increase in exercise has not led to a decrease in weight. And that likewise a strong diet can often do the complete opposite of what we hope to achieve, with dieters often putting on even more weight after the diet regime is over.

The problem is the same in both cases. Our bodies don't like change. Yes, the truth of it is our bodies are in actual fact like a grumpy old man nearly getting run over by some youth on a skateboard. Our bodies enjoy change as much as Pat Robertson would enjoy a holiday in Haiti.

When we exercise vigorously, we tend to crave more calories to make up for the energy used. It turns out, even small changes in energy balance can produce rapid changes in certain hormones associated with appetite, particularly acylated ghrelin, which is known to increase the desire for food. This clearly negates the body balance we hoped to change.

I hadn't thought about this until I read it on-line whilst researching exercise, but this is exactly what happened to me a few weeks ago. After a tough bit of cycling and swimming, I felt a combination of both hunger and pride that I had done so well, and rewarded myself with a sandwich bought in the shop just outside the swimming pool. It was only after I had finished it, as I looked at the nutritional information to see I had just eaten 23% of my recommended daily intake that I realised the futility of what I had just done.

In an experiment by the Pennington Biomedical Research Centre, Professor Eric Ravussin created two separate groups, one which would reduce their intake of calories by 25%, the other by only reducing their intake by 12.5%, but also exercising 12.5% more. This exercise equated to nearly an hour a day of moderate to intensive exercise, which is more than most governments suggest we should do. It is also clear that these experimenters have very little to do with their time and should get out more. To their surprise, both groups lost the same amount of weight. There was no need for the dieters to exercise at all!

The trouble is that a lot of this evidence doesn't hold true for all experiments. In one study presented last year at the annual conference of the American College of Sports Medicine, when healthy young men ran for an hour and a half on a treadmill at a fairly high intensity, their blood concentrations of acylated ghrelin actually fell. Exercise blunted their appetites.

Once again, I have found this personally to be true. When I was younger and used to run from 2-3 miles twice a week, I found that I was less interested in food. I have always put this down to a psychological difference. I was literally prouder of my body shape and found it easier to maintain. It could well be however that there is also a physiological difference and that my body was literally reacting to the gentle exercise by blunting my demands for food.

But if exercising gives you an immediate craving for food to replace lost calories, then how come it can also stunt our hunger as shown in the ACSM experiment?

In one representative experiment from last year, 97 slightly overweight women were put on a calorie controlled diet until they lost an average of about 27 pounds each. Some of the women were then assigned to a walking program, some were put on a weight-training regimen and others were assigned no exercise; all returned to their old eating habits.

Those who stuck with either of the exercise programs regained less weight than those who didn’t exercise and, even more striking, did not regain weight around their middles. The women who didn’t exercise regained their weight and preferentially packed on these new pounds around their abdomens. This I think is very good news for any women wishing to lose weight, but are worried about losing breast size. I don't know why I mention this at this stage. I just felt it was important to say.

The inference being that exercise may be the way we keep weight off, rather than the process in which we lose weight. And that vigorous exercise may make no difference whatsoever as your body craves more calories to replace the energy you have used up. It could be that too much exercise is as useless for weight-loss as too little.

For a study published last summer, scientists at the University of Colorado at Denver fattened a group of male rats. The animals already had an inbred propensity to gain weight and, thanks to a high-fat diet laid out for them, they fulfilled that genetic destiny. After 16 weeks of eating as much as they wanted and lolling around in their cages, all were rotund. The scientists then switched them to a calorie-controlled, low-fat diet. This brought down their weight by an average of 14%.



Afterward the animals were put on a weight-maintenance diet. At the same time, half of them were required to run on a treadmill for about 30 minutes most days. The other half remained sedentary. For eight weeks, the rats were kept at their lower weights in order to establish a new base-line weight.

Then the fun began. For the final eight weeks of the experiment, the rats were allowed to relapse, to eat as much food as they wanted. I personally picture the ratty equivalent of a young child in a restaurant looking wide-eyed at the dessert trolley.

The rats that had not been running on the treadmill fell upon the food eagerly. Most regained the weight they lost and then some. but the exercising rats metabolized calories differently. They tended to burn fat immediately after their meals, while the sedentary rats’ bodies preferentially burned carbohydrates and sent the fat off to be stored in fat cells.

The running rats’ bodies, meanwhile, also produced signals suggesting that they were satiated and didn’t need more kibble. Although the treadmill exercisers regained some weight, their relapses were not as extreme. Running had remade the rats’ bodies so that they ate less.

The other rats were often found in the corner of the cage spaced out in a sugar high. They were fat, but very very happy.

Now here's the point about all this research. According to our friend Professor Braun, who could possibly be my new hero;

“Emerging evidence suggests that ­unlike bouts of moderate-vigorous activity, low-intensity ambulation, standing, etc., may contribute to daily energy expenditure without triggering the caloric compensation effect,”

Isn't that fantastic!

In a completed but unpublished study conducted in his energy-metabolism lab...I love this guy, he's like a crazy science dude with mad hair and tri-focal lenses screaming at the lightning storm above... Braun and his colleagues had a group of volunteers spend an entire day sitting. If they needed to visit the bathroom or any other location, they spun over in a wheelchair.

How mad is that!

Meanwhile, in a second session, the same volunteers stood all day, “not doing anything in particular,” Braun says, “just standing.” The difference in energy expenditure was remarkable, representing “hundreds of calories,” Braun says, but with no increase among the upright in their blood levels of ghrelin or other appetite hormones. Standing, for both men and women, burned multiple calories but did not ignite hunger.

So at long last we finally come to the conclusion that the scientifically proven best method of losing weight is by a closely followed calorie controlled diet, combined with low impact exercise such as going for a walk or even "standing all day". I have no idea if any of this is true, it seems to me the best thing is to exercise as much as you can and just be aware that your body isn't in charge of you. Having said that, this isn't my first time trying to lose weight, so maybe I should listen to the people who have done the research.

Either way, I think I will do a lot more standing from now on.

My Fat Truth

I am 5'5'' and weigh nearly 19st (266 lbs). I am 39 years old with a life expectancy of 55. I am morbidly obese, and have been since I was 20.

I am plenty of other things too, I am a particularly good loser for example. I can juggle with three balls. I am good at recognising bits of music, especially from the 80's. This blog however is about Me and my relationship to FAT.

I know there are many people out there who would probably look at me in disgust. Who would suggest I am wasting my opportunities. Who think I am a failure. In time I intend to really get to grips with what they have to say. I actively encourage your comments. I would be surprised if there is anything I haven't already heard, but please go ahead. Make me your vent if you will. Right now though I want to make my admissions.

There are many reasons for my weight. Literally hundreds that I have come up with in my time on this earth. So lets just go through a few of them.

First my brother is six years older than I am. He was athletic also, loved playing football, joined the CCF at a young age. He walked the ten-tours across Dartmoor three times. When we were growing up there was no chance I would ever beat him at anything sporty, or even in fighting. As a competitive soul I recognised I could only get my revenge by winding him up to the extent where he would get into trouble. It didn't require me to be healthy. If anything, it helped to have people look at my chubby little face in sympathy.

This is not why I am fat, but it's a good excuse.



I was never very good at sports. From a very young age I knew I was not the kind of guy that would be a good runner. My run looked funny. I had bad balance. I was clumsy.When we played games I was picked last, which in turn made me feel bad. I eventually chose to reduce my activity to a minimum, only sticking to the things I really enjoyed doing. Until even that stopped when I left school.

My mother didn't speak good english, and I didn't have many friends. I spent a lot of time on my own in my room. I became a commentator of my own imaginary games, just like every young boy did. I was not a rebel and never pushed going out to other boys houses. My mother was a little distrustful of people anyway, and I hated the idea of having to explain a tight curfew to critical xenophobic parents. In the end I avoided any friendship outside of school hours and so never got as much playing time as other boys.





My father was away for most of my young life. He used to don his captain's hat and sail off into the oceans for nine months of the year, if not more. He was never there to fight my corner, to teach me how to fish or have a kick-about in the back garden. I never grew up knowing what a man should be able to do, or be inspired by his ability. I never learnt how to saw wood, or lay cement, or even to wash the car right. With no father around to fight with and adventure with, my weight, and my excuses built up.





My mother faced bouts of depression. We had a habit of going to our separate bedrooms. She was a good mother caring for me as best she could, but as soon as I began to show independence and with my brother much older, she knew her role in the front room watching TV with us was over. With no dad there, she slowly withdrew to her bedroom, allowing me the opportunity to sneak down the stairs whenever I wanted to. The poem "Chocolate Cake" springs to mind.

She spent many evenings more alone than I can ever imagine, crying quietly into her pillow. I remember listening and wishing I could do something about it. Some of my favourite moments were when my dad would turn up in the front room with what mother would call "pickings". These small morsels such as cheese and pineapple on sticks, mini-cheese pieces wrapped in parma ham, pickles and crisps would make my mother beam with excitement and my brother and I would sit on the floor and lick our lips like two hungry puppies. When I got older, and when mum was sad, I would try to make things for her so she would be happy again. My relationship with food as a source of happiness was already growing.

She was also a good cook, but coming from a poor background, she instilled into us the commendable ideas of never wasting good food and always clearing the plate. At the same time she wanted us to be happy, and we so enjoyed her food. For a very long time I blamed this one thing alone for my weight problem, and today I still have a real effort when throwing good food away.



I have heard that certain things release endorphins into the brain. These pleasure stimulators flood the brain and encourage you to continue doing something. You often hear of people who regularly exercise getting unhappy or even grumpy because they haven't done their daily run or their weekly gym session. The same is true with food. As we are all different, it is obvious that some people get a big high doing push-ups, whereas I get a big high eating a chicken flavoured crisp sandwich with mayo and pickle.

I always liked cooking. My brother did to. He eventually became a really good chef, for a while. I enjoyed the way that flavours mixed together, but I also liked my cooking to be moist and crunchy. It meant lots of cream and milk, lots of meat. I was never good enough to chef. I was never good enough to do anything in fact. I always almost managed to do things. I was good at maths, but not



the best. I was good at chess but not good enough. I have always been a jack of all trades, including basketball and badminton, but never ever a master. Never ever even to a point where people would say, lets ask Eggy.

It was always depressing and that combined with my conscious lack of friends meant I became a recluse to all intents and purposes. The further away from other kids I got, the less my weight mattered. I found myself protected from the outside world, cuccooned. As my self-esteem drifted, I searched for more cerebral attachments, with older friends that could be trusted. I began to reject people my age, most importantly girls. I am not gay, but I never faced the kind of scrutiny other boys went through. Weight was never an issue.



When I finally did encounter girls, I was a young man and could easily see that the aesthetically pleasing girls were also the most obnoxious. The quiet shy lilies were far more graceful and dazzling, appreciative and interesting. They also tended to be girls with similar stories to me. My attraction to larger girls had begun.





As you can see, throughout my life there were many different reasons why I was a fat child and why I became a fat man. All of them had a part to play I am sure, but if there is one thing I am going to do with this blog, it is to accept I am the real reason for my weight. The difficulties I face every single day may be described by things that have happened in my past, but they do not excuse it.

I am morbidly obese. And it is all my fault.