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.

Week 2: The Horror of the Gym

Being Good:

Down the Gym for nearly an hour. That was cycling (on the broken bike thing) for 30 mins with two minutes at a steady pace followed by 30 secs going flat-out, and also a whopping 10 mins on the horrible walky thing that makes me feel like I have skis, and will soon lay down on the snow to shoot at targets, and in the pool for an hour also, 50 widths of the pool with 4 breast strokes to one front crawl. I find I get a little dizzy after the one front crawl, so the next breaststroke width is normally a slow one. Not so good, but it's Easter weekend, and I miss my girl.

Being Bad:

Like I said, it's easter weekend, so I did very well to stay away from chocolate, well almost staying away from chocolate. One packet of chocky-bickies over easter is pretty good in my books. Unfortunately I made it up with a selection of lemony cakes. Not clever. The worst truth though is that I really failed in the "eating last thing at night" department. I failed pretty miserably in fact. That has to become my third target to reach from now on. So no chocolate, no sandwiches (oops, had two this week, not clever) and no eating after say 11pm. I sleep somewhere between 2am-4am so 11pm should do me fine.

The Horror of the Gym

This week I once again found the gym empty, which is a very good thing as it allows me to gasp for breath like a true fatty. Sometimes it is so hard to get breath that I have to stop before I even get sweating. A very disappointing aspect. If anyone has ideas on that then please let me know. I started off by killing myself on the walky thing for as long as I could without collapsing, and then after a good 5 minutes of OMG my heart has stopped... breathe.... BREATHE...  I jumped on the cycle.

A guy joined me shortly after that, and started to do the rowing boat thing, but the machine wasn't up to much so he jumped on the dreaded walker. We started a conversation. Oh how I wish I could have a conversation on that thing. I had enough trouble having a conversation on the broken bike without sounding like a set of bagpipes with extra holes. He told me about how he had broken his leg and how he had let himself go a bit.

I ought to point out the guy was a man-mountain, and would probably stop a tank if he were so inclined. I actually hate being in the same room with these guys, for two reasons. Firstly because they can't help but being intimidating, and I'm a short fat english guy who gets intimidated by 12yr old skateboarders, and secondly the simile I used last week about my fat feeling like a life jacket around me, well these guys have the same problem. They have trouble clapping and touching their feet and stuff, not because they are fat but because they're all muscle.

Now some may say that my problem is my own choice. That may be true, but it doesn't feel like a choice. I don't feel like each and every time I am making a decision to be fat. It always feels like a series of compromises, and I like compromise, but these guys really really really don't need to be like that. Their choice is far more clear. Or is it.

After all when I get bored I think of food. I can only guess that when these guys get bored they think of working out. Except that I don't think that's what happens. To be seriously built up, you need to put hours of work into it, hours of work means a specific choice to stop doing one thing you enjoy and to go to the gym. I am wondering to myself how bad their self-conscious issues really are. I am also now wondering that society should really start to consider both my problem and his in the same light.

Anyhow, he seemed very nice, bearing in mind he was a man-mountain, and told me about his "slow" recovery. My slow recovery from a torn Achilles is still going on after I heard the horrible bubble-wrap pop in August. His broken leg happened just 6 weeks ago and he was working out on it already. Quite honestly, with that many sinews of muscle, does he really need a bone there, or is it just overkill?

When he started to ask about me I began to feel increasingly uncomfortable. Yes, i'm overweight, and yes I have taken on the responsibility for my weight, so then admitting it without going through the tirade of different excuses I have lined up was quite hard to do. Particularly so, as I am not that bothered by my body shape itself. The truth is that I don't really care what other people think of me (except my girl of course), but I just want to have more breath and run. Anyhow he continued to probe and I eventually opened up. It was at that point that I remembered why I hate going to gyms.

He began, perfectly innocently, to tell me about his regime of eating small amounts during the day, about how he works out as often as he can, and goes for fast walks... la-de-da. I began to feel more and more like a failure at how remarkable his dietary and work-out plan was compared to my "let's go down the gym once a week and try not to eat chocolate" plan. When he started to give me recipies on cucumber smoothies I knew I had slipped into my own private hell. I am sure this is why people wear headphones in the gym, it's not to listen to music, it's to avoid the "we know how you should be doing it" brigade.

For the next 20 minutes he went on and on about how he "changed" from a butterfly into the grotesque caterpillar figure in front of me, until once I had completed my 30 mins on the bike. Then he insisted I go on the walker again. Now as I said, I am easily intimidated, and this guy could have picked me up and placed me on the thing without breaking a sweat, so after a good 10 minutes of very animated and enthusiastic jostling, I went across to the demon device like a man awaiting the hangman's noose. With his encouragement, I completed another 7 minutes and came close to another heart-attack.

http://www.annekeckler.com/gym-etiquette/">

(I learnt that its good to ping, so here's Anne. She has some nice ideas about Gym etiquette. Take note of Number 6, and I'm sorry Anne, but I still don't know the difference between 1 and 2)

http://perpetualfatty.com/?p=56

I know you might read this as a good thing, another 7 minutes, but think about the humiliation of it. Think about what that would have done to me, or anyone, if it was done in the company of people you see about town, or your neighbours perhaps. I am a cabbie. I pick random people up all the time. Psychologically, it's a horrible thought that I might be reminded of this by some drunk loud-mouthed stranger trying to impress his girl in the back of my car.

Try to imagine me coming up to you in a pub and yelling at the top of my voice about how drunk you were in my cab last week, and is this really the guy you were talking about? He seems alright to me.

If I wasn't so committed to doing something about my weight, I would not bother going back there at all. In fact I have chosen not to go back there this week for exactly that reason, which is why I only went once this week instead of the two times from last week. I know the meat-man wont be there next week. It's a holiday camp and he left yesterday.

Please, I beg of you, if you see a fatty in your local gym, don't encourage us. If you feel the need to talk to us, then keep it light and not about what we "could be doing". You don't know us, you may never know us. If we ask for your help then fine, but stick to what we ask of you and don't tell us where we are going wrong. I know I could have asked Meat-Man if he knew how the bike works, but he would have only set it on its hardest setting and told me I had to push myself through the pain barrier.



I don't need him, I don't want him.

I just wanted a little private space to sweat buckets and wheeze like a dying haggis playing bagpipes.

Week 1: Life in Blogland

Week 1

Being Good;

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="196" caption="I came, I saw, I died"][/caption]

I went swimming twice this week, the first time achieving 30 widths of the pool (4 breast-stroke to 1 front crawl). The second time I completed 40 widths (same ratio) and also spent an hour in a blissfully empty gym cycling. I believed I had done very well until I realised that the entire hour I was cycling a flat. The machine was broken and so couldn't do hills. To compensate I jumped in the walker and nearly died after one minute. Clearly there is a long way to go.

Being Bad;

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="209" caption="Devils Food"][/caption]

I failed on both my tasks this week. I had a bought sandwich, almost without thinking of it. On the day of the marvelous exercise too. It was raining, and I only went in to the shop for a drink. I have also eaten chocolate. To my shame I have twice been caught out by the advertising campaign for Cream Eggs. They may be gone in a couple of weeks, but I say good riddance to them. They also happened to be on special offer so both times I bought two. I had hoped this would be cathartic. Long way to go for that too I see.

So no progress this week, and plenty to do next week. I swear that time is my biggest enemy. Either I have too much time, in which case I get bored and eat, or I don't have enough time, in which case I don't go to the pool.

Life in Blogland

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="210" caption="No messages... again"][/caption]

I started this separate blog thinking that my attempts at changing into a thinner happier person would be of interest to a different set of people. And much to my great disappointment I have had a grand and impressive total of just two views in a week. It saddens me because whenever you start one of these you have this picture in your head of being read by hundreds of supporting fatties trying to gain inspiration from your ordeal. You also imagine being read by thin people who wander across your site by accident and find themselves drawn into your life through a passionate heartfelt story and a strong persuasive narrative. Imaginings, however, are just that. My egotistical dreams are in fact the dreams of an untalented, unremarkable and very ordinary individual who for just one moment felt the fluttering feather of optimism waft nonchalantly under his narcissistic nose.

The truth as any average blogger knows is that no-one will read my musings. Well I say no-one, but what I mean is that no-one other than a few very close loved ones whom I will tell personally that is. Although even that is not totally true either.

The fact is that there is a trick to blogging. To get readers, not only do you have to say something funny or fascinating, not only do you have to get lucky and get on the front page of the WordPress dashboard, but you also have to scout around for similar articles from other prospective writers and leave them comments.  Something I had been doing quite innocently when my simple blog was on MySpace but since I have been here, I must not have done enough.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="135" caption="Vitriolic Commenters"][/caption]

WordPress has a habit however of polarizing writers and placing commenters them into two camps. You are either pro the writer and what they stand for, or you are against the writer. If you are against the writer, you will be lambasted by other commenters with long vitriolic statements arguing that you are being thoughtless, unappreciative and what the hell are you doing reading this blog anyway. The fact that you merely stumbled across it by accident and it provoked you to comment (surely a good thing even if the commentary is negative) doesn't matter. If you don't agree then butt out, except don't butt out completely because my comments tally has risen from 40 to 150 in just one week.

If however you do agree, and are lucky enough to have said something suitably supportive and witty, then you get the "Thanks for your comment, Hope you continue reading" return, and you also may be honoured with a returning visit, and perhaps, please God for everything that is good in heaven, a reciprocal comment!

All that however is just as a preface for the fact that I have been reading blogs this week. Blogs specifically about fat and fatness.

I had intended this to be my very own personal journey, and I still intend it to be exactly that, but I have realised there is so much more to talk about.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="386" caption="American Beauty"][/caption]

Firstly, Fat Acceptance. This is a stunning movement and I can't deny that I was gob smacked when I discovered it floating about in the electronic ethers. As a random reader you may not entirely understand the full meaning of fat appreciation. Indeed I suspected it was merely thinking that fat isn't the disgusting and immoral, repugnant stereotype of lard arse laziness we are lead to believe it is by the world of fashion magazines, health clubs and dietary product manufacturers, but now I realise it means so much more.

http://pinstripebindi.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/these-are-both-the-dumbest-and-the-most-offensive-ads-ive-ever-seen-kudos-jerkface-yogurt-company/">

Now I want to tell you that I personally find larger women more attractive. I like that body shape for many reasons, such as younger puffier looking faces, curvier bodies, and more coy and empathetic characters. Yes, I appreciate this is a stereotype too, but the truth is that we are guided by what we enjoy visually first and foremost, before we get the opportunity to interact properly with a prospective partner.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="218" caption="Exercise is tiring!"][/caption]

However, I have never ever pretended that these, in my humble opinion, sexier women are healthier than their thinner counterparts like some of the Fat Acceptancists do. To me it seems absolutely obvious that we are not supposed to have the kinds of excess of weight that I myself carry. I have always felt like a thin guy wearing a life vest, and whilst I am comfortable with this, I am also aware that without the vest on, I could run faster for longer and keep up with my fiancée's kids better, not be so out of breath-taking the shopping up the stairs and so on.

I have read argument after argument about how fat may protect you from certain diseases, giving you a bigger and therefore stronger heart etc, but despite all these wonderfully scientific ideas, I couldn't get past the blatantly obvious fact that fat... is fat. It is unnecessary excess, that we keep and store for an emergency, although god knows what emergency I am storing for, because I suspect I could last longer than a camel in a desert!

Now I'm all for promoting fatness as a lifestyle choice, I'm even prepared to give the "big-boned" brigade a little rope, and I am very happy to see more images of fat people on TV and in magazines, especially with an ever-growing population of fatties and a child eating disorder problem. I personally wouldn't buy from an online shop unless it has suitably sized models showing off its clothes. Lets not kid ourselves however, lets appreciate that we may be happy being who we are, but we are not how we should ideally be, and we really shouldn't be going around saying we're healthy. I know that this is not the position of some of the Fat Acceptancists, but there were enough out there for me to feel justified in commenting.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="167" caption="Doctors being rude"][/caption]

The issue of whether our fatness matters, whether personal obesity is a societal "problem" or not, is up for very strong debate. For my part I see my potential for healthcare issues as being no more serious than other people for drinking, smoking, skiing, or doing the hundreds of other stupid things people do. I pay my taxes and so therefore deserve to be medically treated based on my personal choices. I can't abide the doctors and nurses who refuse to treat someone because of their weight. Who are they to pass judgement on me or others. What difference does it make to their day if they are dealing with me or someone else. They still get paid the same.

In the words of Nelson, before he lost his arm probably, "STFU and get on with it me-laddo!".

There are far more patients in hospital because of drinking related issues than there are fatties, but you don't hear ER doctors screaming I don't want to treat him because he'll only be down the pub next week.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="281" caption="It's their choice"][/caption]

The issue as to whether I am healthy however, is not in question. I am not, just like the skateboarder who is likely to break a bone, I am more likely to suffer from heart disease or asthma or one of the many things that fat people suffer from.

I was also surprised at the amount of failed attempts people have made to do exactly what I am trying to do. I have heard the phrase food addiction be used often by these bloggers in an attempt to confront their own personal demons. I commend them all for trying, but worry that food addiction, whilst it is something I can very much relate too, isn't another way to blame something else rather than facing our problems. Perhaps not, after all at places like Alcoholics Anonymous, don't they suggest you admit your addiction first and foremost.

I did come across one site however.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="353" caption="Simply beautiful "][/caption]

http://adipositivity.my-expressions.com/index.html

A simple site worthy of note I felt. There are a few sites doing something similar, I understand, but this was the one I came across. It promotes fatties in all their glory, and shows how sexy the female form really is. It's not pornographic in any way, but it is quite simply elegant and very sexy. I encourage you to look and hopefully it will provoke you positively as it did me.