Why playing sports practically doesn't help you lose weight

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Physical activity is very beneficial for the whole body. But sports won't help you lose weight if you don't change other aspects of your life. The article collects research data on the relationship between sports and weight loss, as well as the opinions of leading scientists in the field of exercise, nutrition and excess weight.

Fitness instructors have echoed what we have all heard for years: redeeming the sin of gluttony is on a treadmill. And that message is being carried by fitness gurus, celebrities, food and beverage companies, health officials and doctors.

With the belief that sports will help you lose weight, gym passes, fitness trackers, sports drinks and workout videos are selling well.

But here's the trouble: this belief is based on false beliefs and misleads us in our struggle with being overweight.

How our body burns calories: is there a difference between an office worker and a wild tribe

Anthropologist Herman Pontzer of Hunter College in New York traveled to Tanzania to study the Hadza, one of the few remaining hunter-gatherer tribes. He expected to see these people as machines for burning calories, because in their lives there is much more physical activity than residents of Western countries.

Most of the time the Hadza men spend chasing and killing animals, as well as climbing trees in search of honey from wild bees. Women gather roots and berries.

Studying the Hadza lifestyle, Pontzer was confident that he would find evidence of the conventional wisdom: obesity has become a global problem from a severe decline in physical activity. Pontzer was convinced that the Hadza burned far more calories per day than the average Westerner.

In 2009 and 2010, researchers traveled across the savannah, stuffing their jeep with computers, liquid nitrogen to freeze urine samples, and respirometers to measure the tribe's energy expenditure.

Scientists have recorded physical activity and energy expenditure in 13 men and 17 women between the ages of 18 and 75, using the tracer method - the most famous way to measure the amount of carbon dioxide we release when we expend energy.

turned out to be amazing: the energy consumption of the Hadza representatives was no more than that of Europeans or Americans. Hunter-gatherers were more physically active and lean, but burned as many calories per day as the average Westerner burns.

Pontzer's research was superficial and unfinished: it involved only 30 people from a small community. But it raised a nagging question: Why did the Hadza, who are constantly on the move, expend the same amount of energy as the lazy Europeans?

Energy (calories) is spent not only on movement, but also on supporting life. Researchers have known this for a long time, but did not consider this fact significant in the context of the global obesity epidemic.

Pontzer suggested that the Hadza use the same amount of energy because their body conserves it for other tasks. Or maybe the Hadza get more rest after physical labor, which helps to reduce overall energy expenditure.

Science is still progressing in this direction, and there are serious implications for our understanding of how strongly energy expenditure is related and the extent to which we can influence it through exercise.

Hermann Pontzer Anthropologist Hadza consume the same amount of energy, but they do not become obese as Westerners. They do not overeat, and therefore do not gain weight.

This fundamental concept is part of a growing pool of evidence to explain a phenomenon that scientists have been observing for years: It is very difficult to lose weight by simply increasing the amount of exercise.

Physical activity is excellent for health

Before we start figuring out why exercise won't help you lose weight, let's be clear: no matter how exercise affects your waist, it heals your body and mind.

The Cochrane community of independent researchers have prepared demonstrating that while physical activity resulted in only modest weight loss, subjects who exercised more without even changing their diet saw health benefits, including lower blood pressure and blood triglyceride levels. Exercise lowers the risk of type 2 diabetes, stroke, and heart attack.

showed that people who play sports have a reduced risk of developing cognitive impairment from Alzheimer's disease or dementia. They also score higher on intelligence tests. If you've already lost weight, exercise, combined with controlling your calorie intake, will help keep your weight down.

Unsupported exercises are practically useless for weight loss

So, the benefits of physical activity are clear and real. But despite the many stories of kilos lost on the treadmill, the evidence says something different.

In 2001, published by the US National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), it is stated that in a short-term experiment lasting about 20 weeks, weight loss was observed, however, in a long-term experiment (more than 26 weeks), there was no connection between the amount of energy burned during exercise, and weight loss.

We have long lived with the idea that the process of losing weight is simple: ate calories - spent calories. In a frequently cited scientist, Max Wishnofsky laid out a rule that many clinics and magazines still use to predict weight loss: a pound of human fat is about 3,500 kcal. That is, if you spend 500 kcal per day through diet and physical activity, then as a result, you will lose about a pound of weight in a week. If you add 500 kcal per day, you will gain half a kilo.

Now researchers consider this rule too simple and speak of human energy balance as a dynamic and adaptive system. When you change something about it, such as cutting down on your daily calorie intake, adding physical activity, it triggers a cascade of changes in your body that affects how many calories you use and ultimately your body weight.

Professor David Allison of the University of Alabama believes that limiting calorie intake works better than increasing physical activity, and cutting calories in combination with exercise will work even better.

Exercise helps you burn only a small fraction of your calories

Grossly underestimated is the fact that exercise burns only a tiny fraction of your total energy expenditure.

Alexxai Kravitz Neuroscientist and obesity researcher at the National Institutes of Health In reality, sports burns about 10-30% of total energy expenditure, depending on the characteristics of the person. The exception is professional athletes, for whom training is work.

Three main areas of energy consumption

• The basic metabolic rate is the energy used to keep the body functioning even when it is at rest.
• Energy used to digest food.
• Energy spent on physical activity.

We cannot control the basal metabolic rate, and this is the most significant energy expenditure.

Alexai Kravitz Neurobiologist and obesity researcher at the National Institutes of Health It is generally accepted that most people have a basal metabolic rate of 60–80% of total energy expenditure.

Digestion of food takes up 10% of the total energy expenditure. The remaining 10-30% is spent on physical activity, where exercise is only part of it.

This is why, unsurprisingly, exercise results in statistically significant but small changes in weight.

Difficulty creating a significant calorie deficit through exercise

Using "", which gives a more realistic weight loss estimate than the old 3,500 calorie rule, obesity mathematician and obesity researcher Kevin Hall has created a model demonstrating that regular exercise is unlikely to result in significant weight loss.

If a man weighing 90 kg runs with average intensity for an hour 4 times a week, using the usual amount of calories, then after 30 days he will lose a little more than 2 kg. And if he eats more or rests more to recover from running, he will lose even less.

So overweight and obese people trying to lose tens of kilograms will take an incredible amount of time, willpower and effort to do it only with exercise.

Physical activity can inhibit weight loss in non-obvious ways

How much we move is related to how much we eat. Undoubtedly, after exercising, we feel so hungry that we can eat more calories than we just burned.

Many people eat more after exercise, either because they think they burned quite a lot of calories, or because they are simply very hungry. We also tend to overestimate the amount of calories burned during exercise.

You can cross out the result of a hard hour workout with just five minutes of snacking after it. One slice of pizza, a cup of mochaccino, or ice cream is an hour of exercise.

There is also that some people "slow down" after training, spending less energy on other activities: they can lie down, take the elevator instead of stairs, or just sit more. These changes are called compensatory behavior and refer to adjustments we make unconsciously to balance the calories we burn.

Exercise Can Cause Physiological Changes To Conserve Energy

Here's another intriguing theory related to how our bodies regulate energy after physical activity. Researchers have discovered a phenomenon called metabolic compensation: when a person expends a lot of energy for physical activity or loses weight, their base metabolic rate decreases.

Lara Dugas Physical Therapy Specialist Your efforts cause physiological changes - compensatory mechanisms that change depending on the level of physical activity.

Our body with all its might resists our attempts to lose weight. This is a well-documented effect, although not required for everyone.

In a 1994 study published in Obesity Research, 7 pairs of young sedentary twins were tested. For 93 days, they worked intensively on exercise bikes for 2 hours almost every day.

During the study, the twins lived in a hospital, where they were monitored around the clock, and nutritionists were vigilant in calculating the calories consumed by the subjects to make sure that their number remained constant.

Despite the transition from a sedentary lifestyle to daily physical activity, the average weight loss of study participants was 5 kg: some lost 1 kg, some lost 8 kg. Participants in the experiment burned 22% fewer calories than they should have predicted before the start of the project.

The researchers explained this by the fact that the subjects' baseline metabolic rates decreased and they spent less energy during the day.

Lara Dugas called this effect "part of the survival mechanism." The body can store energy after exercise to retain stored fat for future energy use. But researchers do not yet know why this happens and how long this effect persists in humans.

David Ellison Professor We can say with confidence that in some circumstances metabolic adaptation occurs, compensatory mechanisms are triggered. But we do not know to what extent compensation is manifested, in what conditions and with whom.

Energy consumption is limited

Another hypothesis that explains why it is difficult to lose weight with exercise alone is that energy expenditure reaches its limit. Proof of this is provided by Pontzer and colleagues in an article published in the magazine in 2016.

For the study, scientists recruited 332 adults from Ghana, South Africa, America, the Seychelles and Jamaica. After observing the participants for 8 days, the researchers collected data on physical activity and energy burned using accelerometers. They divided the subjects into three groups: leading a sedentary lifestyle, moderately active (they go in for sports 2-3 times a week), super active (they exercise almost every day). It is important to note that people were already living in this way at the time of the study, and did not specifically start playing sports.

The difference in calorie expenditure in groups with different physical activity was only 7-9%. Moderately active people burned an average of 200 kcal more every day than those who led a sedentary lifestyle. However, higher energy consumption did not translate into progress.

Hermann Pontzer Anthropologist Adjusted for volume and body composition, total energy expenditure is positively correlated with physical activity, but this ratio was markedly stronger at the lower end of the range of physical activity.

Once you reach a certain level of physical activity, you will stop burning calories at the same rate: the graph of total energy expenditure will be a plateau. This concept of energy expenditure is different from the usual understanding: the more active you are, the more calories you burn per day.

Based on his research, Pontzer proposed a limited energy expenditure model: it shows that the effect of additional physical activity is not linear for the human body. According to evolutionary theory, when food sources were unreliable, the body set a limit for energy expenditure, independent of the amount of physical activity.

Hermann Pontzer Anthropologist The idea is that the body tries to maintain a specific level of energy expenditure no matter how active you become.

At the moment, this hypothesis is an interesting way to explain why going to the gym as the only means of losing weight does not work.

Government and food industry give unscientific advice

Since 1980, the prevalence of overweight has doubled, and according to the World Health Organization, 13% of the world's population is obese. In the United States, about 70% of people are overweight or obese.

Lack of physical activity and too high-calorie food were cited as equivalent causes of this problem. This was argued by researchers, published in the British Medical Journal, saying, "You can't escape a bad diet."

Unfortunately, we are losing the fight with being overweight because we are eating more than ever. But the sports myth is still regularly supported by the food and beverage industry, who may be out of favor with the sale of unhealthy foods.

The Coca-Cola Company has promoted physical activity since the 1920s: "Physical activity is vital to the health and well-being of consumers." And the New York Times recently announced that Coca-Cola is sponsoring obesity research to prove physical inactivity is the cause of the obesity epidemic.

PepsiCo and other companies are also trying to encourage us to exercise more by continuing to use their products.

But this is an inadequate and potentially dangerous approach as it encourages people to ignore or underestimate the impact of calorie intake. Sport is good for your health. But if you are trying to lose weight, then the biggest problem is food.

So what do you do to lose weight?

from the National Weight Control Registry studied and analyzed the characteristics, habits and behavior of adults who have lost at least 13 kg and maintained a new weight for at least a year. Currently, 10,000 people are taking part in the study, who fill out questionnaires annually, describing how they manage to maintain a normal weight.

The researchers found common habits among the participants in the experiment: they weigh themselves at least once a week, limit their calorie intake and food that are too fat, monitor portion sizes, and exercise regularly.

But note: physical activity is used to supplement calorie counting and other behavioral changes. Any reliable weight loss expert will tell you that the best thing to do to lose weight is to limit your calories and focus on a healthier diet.

In general, diet and exercise are more beneficial to overall well-being than reducing calorie intake alone, but only it can. The graph below shows that the group of people who restricted their calorie intake lost weight at almost the same rate as the group who followed the diet and added physical activity.

And if you choose the second option for yourself - diet + sports - be vigilant when counting calories and do not compensate for the energy expended during physical activity with additional portions of food.