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Eating More Does Not Cause Long-Term Fat Gain
UncategorizedEating more low-quality food causes us to gain body fat. But that does not mean eating more food produces the same result. Interestingly enough, eating more high-quality food has been clinically proven to cause body fat to be burned. The research on this topic comes from all over:
How are these results possible? Research reveals two main reasons: First, a calorie is not a calorie. Second, an unclogged fat metabolism system burns excess calories instead of storing them. The next section will cover why a calorie isnot a calorie, so let’s turn first to how unclogging enables our body to burn—instead of store—excess calories.
In a Mayo Clinic study, researchers fed people 1,000 extra calories per day for eight weeks. A thousand extra calories per day for eight weeks totals 56,000 extra calories. Everyone gained sixteen pounds—56,000 calories worth—of body fat, right?
Nope.
Nobody gained sixteen pounds. The most anyone gained was a little over half that. The least anyone gained was basically nothing—less than a pound. How could that be true? People are eating 56,000 extra calories and gaining basically no body fat? How can 56,000 extra calories add up to nothing?
That’s because extra calories don’t have to turn into body fat. They could turn into heat. They could be burned off automatically. Researcher D.M. Lyon in the medical journal QJM reported: “Food in excess of immediate requirements…can easily be disposed of, being burnt up and dissipated as heat. Did this capacity not exist, obesity would be almost universal.”
Eating more and gaining less is possible because an unclogged metabolism has all sorts of underappreciated ways to process excess calories other than storing them as body fat. In the Mayo Clinic study, researchers measured three of them:
So how did some people ate 56,000 extra calories and gain essentially nothing? Instead of storing the excess calories as body fat, their unclogged metabolisms automatically increased the base amount of calories they burned.
On the surface this study seems shocking, but we have all seen examples of “eat more, burn more” in our day-to-day lives. Think about naturally thin people you know who eat a lot, exercise a little, and stay slim. They eat more and burn more. Just as eating less causes the fat metabolism system to slow down, eating more causes an unclogged metabolism to speed up.
The key to long-term fat loss isn’t eating less or exercising more. It’s getting our metabolism to burn rather than to store excess calories.
Study Shows Losing Weight via the Traditional Approach is Harder than Quitting Smoking
UncategorizedSome people are able to lose weight and keep it off by eating less and exercising more. A lot more people are not. The last forty years of fat-loss data reveal that the traditional approach can work—just not very often. Studies show that eating less and exercising more does not keep body fat off long-term 95% of the time. To put this 95% failure rate into perspective, quitting smoking cold turkey has a 94.5% failure rate. In other words, more people are able to quit smoking cold turkey than are able to keep body fat off using the traditional approach.
If eating less and exercising more works for you long-term, excellent. If not, science shows there is another—more effective—approach: Eat more. Exercise Less. Smarter.
Even better, research shows that this alternative approach is more effective at facilitating long-term fat loss and robust health. For example, researchers at Skidmore College compared a traditional “eat less, exercise more—harder” program against an “eat more, exercise less—smarter” program. Let’s call the groups in the study the Harder Group and the Smarter Group.
The Harder Group ate the traditional diet of 60% carbohydrates, 15% protein, and 25% fat while doing low-quality cardiovascular exercise for forty minutes per day, six days per week. Low-quality cardiovascular exercise refers to exercises like walking, biking, and jogging, which must be done for hours to impact our health and weight. The Smarter Group ate a higher-quality diet* of 40% carbohydrate, 40% protein, and 20% fat while exercising only 60% as much, but with higher-quality**. The study lasted for 12 weeks and included 34 women and 29 men between the ages of 20 and 60.
At the end of the study, the Harder Group “successfully” ate less and exercised eighteen hours more than the Smarter Group. After examining the results though, the researchers concluded:
Less academically speaking, eating more and exercising less—smarter—was more effective than the traditional approach. Here’s the data:
Combine the increased effectiveness of eating more and exercising less—smarter—with avoiding hunger or spending hours in the gym, and this smarter scientific approach may be just what the doctor ordered for the other 95% of us.
Next week we’ll start to explore the science of why eating less and exercising more fails to burn fat long term 95% of the time.
yes you can
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Jogging causes more harm than good?
Get EccentricHow’s that possible? How can jogging hurt more than half the people who do it?
Every mile we run, our feet hit the ground about 900 times. Let’s say you weigh 150lbs. That means for every mile you run, you are smashing 135,000 pounds of force against your joints, ligaments, and everything else you’ll need for the rest of your life. That like dropping 37 Toyota Camry’s on your joints, ligaments, and all that other goodness.
Jogging causes more harm: What are the benefits?
That’s why jogging hurts more than half the folks who do it.
It’s not about exercising more. It’s about exercising less, smarter.
Sampling of Sources
exercise less for a healthier heart?
Get EccentricIn the last post I mentioned how SANE amounts to eating more and exercising less—smarter—and hinted that we eat more—smarter—by increasing the quality of our calories. Before we get into what determines the quality of calories, let’s touch on the exercise less—smarter—bit.
We exercise less–smarter–much like we eat more–smarter…focusing on quality instead of quantity. We do less, but more intense, exercise.
Oh no! But what about our hearts?! Don’t we have to exercise a lot to boots our heart health? According to folks who make more money the more we exercise: Yes. According to studies: No.
The “more exercise = more heart health” myth comes from studies showing long bouts of cardio boosting our VO2 max. Our VO2 max is, “…an expression of the functional health of the combined cardiovascular, pulmonary, and skeletal muscle systems.” A higher VO2 max generally indicates a healthier heart. So the more exercise the healthier our heart, right? Not so much.
While lots of low quality (aka low intensity) exercise does increase our VO2 max, researchers have repeatedly revealed a little high quality (aka high intensity) exercise, “…is significantly more effective…in improving VO2 max.” Do we need to exercise to help our hearts? Yes. Do we need to exercise a lot to help our hearts? No. Does more exercise help our hearts more? Not if it comes at the expense of exercise quality.
For example, researcher Helgerud found that less, but higher quality, exercise improved VO2 max more than the same amount of work (i.e. same number of calories burnt) via moderate or low quality exercise. In Helgerud’s words:
Researcher Tyldum went a step further. Tyldum divided folks into three groups and fed them all artery stressing meals. The differences between the groups was that one didn’t exercise, another did moderate quality exercise, and the last one did high quality exercise. While the two groups who exercised burnt the exact same number of calories, the high quality group got double the heart health benefits in half the time. Twice the heart health benefits for half the cost. Not too shabby. The researcher concluded:
One more for today. Harvard researcher Tanasescu published a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association which followed 44,452 folks over ten years. Across the 44,452 folks the quality of exercise correlated with a reduced risk of dying from coronary heart disease independent of the quantity of exercise performed. Tanasescu put it like this:
Excess fat and related health problems aren’t quantity problems. They are quality problems. It’s not about eating less, and this is just the tip of the iceberg showing it’s not about exercising more. It’s about using our brains instead of brute force. It’s about eating more and exercising less, smarter.
Sampling of sources
Gluten-Free Living with FOX New’s Clayton Morris
Motivationeat less, exercise more is worse than wrong
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if you are facing the right direction, just…
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