Sep 8: Exercise: what is it good for?

(Absolutely nothing?!)

I've been meaning to write this blog for about a month. Sorry I'm late. Last month, two friends forwarded the same article to me in one day: an opinion piece that ran in Time magazine entitled Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin. One friend (beloved Rusty_grrl) had spotted the article on Bob Harper's Facebook page (he's the crying personal trainer on Biggest Loser). Bob was not pleased:



The article is an interesting read. I can understand why Bob got a little fist-shakey at it; it isn't that the author is saying exercise is useless, but the headline would suggest otherwise. Casual readers who might not read all four pages and/or just skim for details might come away feeling justified for hanging up the sneakers and becoming reacquainted with the custom-made ass groove on their couch.

Compensation without representation (on the scale)
What the article does say is that exercise can give people who are counting their calories and trying to lose weight a false sense of security in terms of ingesting a few extra calories on days they work out. The author refers to it as "the compensation factor". He cites results from a study that showed women who exercised intensely over a six month period did not lose significantly more than a control group who did not exercise (some even gained!):

Whether because exercise made them hungry or because they wanted to reward themselves (or both), most of the women who exercised ate more than they did before they started the experiment. Or they compensated in another way, by moving around a lot less than usual after they got home.

So, any of you relate to this phenomenon? I know I do! For sure there are plenty of times when I allow myself a little something extra, perhaps as a reward for my good behaviour, or maybe because I'm just plain hungry after a workout.

Honey, can you pick up some more self control on your way home?
The other notion that the author puts forward is that self control or will power is finite in people. You only have so much of it to use:

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.

Seriously? Holy geez, all this time I've been hating myself when I should have been hating science! Fucking science! You screwed me over! Well your secret is out now. Nice to have something else to blame for those times when it's gotta be cake.

Let cooler foreheads prevail
The article does go on to say that, of course, there are many benefits to exercise. ("In addition to enhancing heart health and helping prevent disease, exercise improves your mental health and cognitive ability." - I guess Bob didn't make it to page 3.) But the argument for "sweaty, exhausting, hunger-producing bursts of activity" is not as strong as Bob and Jillian would have you believe (if you choose instead to believe this very comforting article, that is). The author believes low-intensity movement, such as a walk - not even a brisk walk, from the sound of it - is just as effective as doing cardio at the gym.

Hmmmm. I don't know guys. First I have to give up aspartame, now I'm expected to give up my sweaty hairshirt of gym torture? It just don't seem right to me.

What do you all think?


PS Personal exercise update: I took the last 3 or 4 weeks pretty easy, since every time I got more intense, my gimpy left calf muscle yelled at me. Also, I read this article and realized I didn't have to. No, no, I kid! I keed! Anyway, recently I have started running again. It's hard to believe how quickly I got out of shape. I've been running at a super-slow pace, and right now am only doing about 2 miles (2.5 including walking warm-down). My heart rate zooms with the intensity of the effort so I don't consider it safe yet to push myself beyond what I'm doing. I'm just glad to be training again.

I don't think I'm gonna be ready in time for the Toronto Island 10k run - it's less than two weeks away. Frowny faces. Instead, I think I will participate in the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup that weekend. Picking up garbage can actually be a decent workout, especially if you don't eat donuts afterward.