Training and Weight Loss
 

Recently there was an article in the New York Times referencing this study ( https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...60982221011209 ). https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/22/w...-calories.html is the NYT article (hidden behind a paywall). In summary the study concluded that, on average, when adults burn an additional X number of calories due to extra activity, about 28% of that extra calorie burn is compensated for by reductions in the calorie consumption of other ongoing metabolic activities. From what I can tell 'serious exercise' (90 minute bike ride at tempo, for example) was not really what they were studying here. This was more like a mile or two walk.

I recall from WAY back in my serious (2500 mile per year) running days in the late 70's/early 80's, the belief was that serious exercise (IIRC, longer than 30 minutes of 'real running') burned not only the 100'ish calories per mile, but your metabolism stayed higher than normal and burned even more extra calories post-run (over/above the 100 calories per mile that you burned running).

I have tons of experience using tons of exercise to lose/maintain my weight and tons of experience in failing to maintain my weight without tons of exercise. I know exactly how it works for me - it takes a lots of exercise and it works (for me). So this just an interesting discussion from my perspective.

But is anyone aware of more recent than 1980'ish data indicating that 'serious exercise' (let's call it more 45 minutes or more of riding at tempo) has this effect of burning more than just the calories burned during the exercise?

dave

yes, that sounds familiar (from 2009-2010), increasing your metabolism, will burn calories & reduce weight, even during non-exercise time periods. I'm afraid I don't remember how one can elevate their metabolism

Thanks for the response. It seems reasonable (to me) that both perspectives could be correct.

It seems reasonable that 'extra' activity requiring additional food (short supply and hard to get for our ancestors) generating a compensating metabolic response reducing total energy consumption would be a evolutionary advantage. It also seems reasonable that levels of activity that generate a training response (which would include a rebuilding of spent body resources) would cause an increase in metabolism immediately after exercise (that might not show up in cases of lower levels of 'extra activity').

dave

I remember now. increased muscle mass increases metabolism. all that muscle burns calories even while you sleep. so the objective is to increase muscle mass. weight training is a good way to build that, especially in some areas. for a long time I used a 5x5 routine. where I used the heaviest weight I could manage for a set of 5. I have several moves, maybe 10? I did a set of 5 of each, 5 times. hence the 5x5. curls, pull-ups, pushups, lat pulls etc etc. the heaviest weight I could handle for a set of 5. so when I was done I did 25 pull-ups, curls, inclined bench presses, or raised leg pushups, & other machines. there were some exceptions on the machines, where a weight so heavy as to do only 5 would be weirdly awkward & also I've had knee surgery so certain moves were limited to a lighter weight & higher reps. but the major large muscle groups got the 5x5 more precisely. with 2 days of rest in between for maximum muscle growth. muscles grows during rest periods. so only 2 weight training sessions per week. other days had swimming, running & cycling

fine tune nutrition. limiting the junk, just don't buy it. stay out of the kitchen when you get home, or at least after dinner if you eat dinner at home. if you don't bring the junk into the house, you can't eat it at the house

but I wanted to reply again & mention that building muscle mass has 2-fold benefits, the muscle for one & the increased metabolism & calorie burn for two

thank you for helping me remember. I hope to get there again. right now I'm just happy to be back at the gym. but I've lost my glutes. too bad cuz that's a big muscle mass that can help provide metabolic benefits as I tried to explain. I have just lunchtime weight training & I need to increase my reps, right now I'm doing a 15 x 2 meaning 15 movements at each of 10 stations, twice around (way different than a 5x5)

but rule #1 is do no harm right? one can build on a routine and crank it up a notch here & there, but only if one stays healthy

I think my best training comes in January & February & if I can get past the holidays w/o caving to temptation, I will be in good shape heading toward Spring . sorry for the ramble

I'm on my phone and not my PC so I don't have access to the link but I've read several studies where participants burned excess Calories outside of just the time spent exercising.

I think the other thing that triggers metabolism is eating. not necessarily a "meal" (or junk) but like a small mid-day snack of a hard boiled egg & apple, for example. whereas fasting slows the metabolism. I agree, one must control the overall calorie intake for weight loss. but we can't fear food, as evil as it may seem sometimes hehe

one way to do this is to cut a lunch sandwich in half. eat 1/2 at lunchtime & eat 1/2 in the afternoon. so one isn't consuming more calories, rather you're spreading them out, keeping the metabolism triggered. at least that's what I remember reading

I've become such an afternoon apple eater that my wife started buying them by the case from our local food coop. That got expensive, so I've cut down a bit. But yes, I totally agree. Small portions, 6 times/day is the usual recipe.

Lots of factors enter in when a goal is weight loss. At age 50 I was 6'2 and 360 lbs. 16 months later I weighed 180lbs. I had never cycled before age 50 and got to around 100 miles a week by the time I dropped all the weight. 3 years later I still weigh 180 and cycle 3-5 days a week on average. I lost the weight by going very low carb and very radical about it, but I had to get radical to have such a radical change in weight. Different weight loss strategies can work. Diet is paramount though in any plan. While I would definitely recommend exercise, I believe diet will be vastly more important. It's just too easy to justify a treat when we can tell ourselves that we earned it. Too much indulgence like that and you might as well have not exercised at all. That's not even considering how well our bodies will do on poor fuel.

The best weight loss strategy is to study health and nutrition until you think about food in terms of what your body needs rather than what sounds good or what you are in the mood for. When you start thinking that way, you will figure out a diet that works for you.

love this, thank you for sharing. I had a whole bagel this morning & I've felt it all day ;-(

I have a lot of experience in successfully losing weight with both running and cycling (along with experience gaining weight when those activities stop). A daily 500 calorie deficit is (IMHO) kind of a reasonable goal for slow/steady weight loss. The typical person can probably burn this with an hour of cycling after his/her cycling fitness is established (and some folks can and do go a good bit above that). So if you DO NOT increase your calorie intake, that would probably do it. Note that this is EVERY DAY, so if you take regular off days (as would most folks) your 'on days' have to be more than that hour. A casual 45 minutes 3 days a week is not going to do a whole lot - it takes a serious amount of time and effort. The average human will probably find diet to be a better path.

Note also that just in this thread there is discussion of there 'science says' that the net result of 500 calories burned in exercise will result in less than 500 calories total burned, and studies that indicate that it will result in more than 500 calories burned.

dave

Dave - your experience re hunger when losing weight. Good thing? Bad thing? I've had periods where it seemed like hunger was necessary, but maybe it's not? No hunger is certainly emotionally easier.

CFB, in my experience without lots of serious exercise I will gain weight UNLESS I am periodically hungry. Once I get my daily calorie burn up into the 1000+ calorie range, I can pretty much avoid that and will lose weight mostly by just avoiding binge events.

dave

:) Uh-huh! I much prefer experimental evidence to conjecture. Now we need another experimenter to replicate your results. . . I don't count: though I think I'm the same my results are not as consistent, and well, I never rode off 1000 kcal. every day.

FWIW, maybe 15 years ago I was visiting back home (Missouri) and ran across a childhood friend that I had not seen since high school. He was an exceptional athlete (and a relatively big guy) who always played primarily the traditional sports of baseball, basketball, and football (he played NCAA Div II football as a lineman - back in the 1970 timeframe when lineman did not have to weigh 300+ pounds).

He was quite trim by his standards from back in his high school days and I learned that he was a serious triathlete. I asked him how he got into triathlon and he said "I don't like being fat and I like to eat". Triathlon training did it for him - so a second hand example of sorts.

dave

IMHO this is a good recipe for weight gain. A direct opposite of this, an eating regime with bigger portions but less frequent food intake, e.g. breakfast and late lunch *only*, which leads to somewhat longer period between the last food intake one day and first next day, seems to work way, way better. Definitely for me personally but many people report the same.

My experience is that hunger is a driver which can cause excess calorie intake. The less one eats at each meal, the more easily one's hunger is satisfied. My experience is that otherwise it's otherwise. It seems like small meals "shrink the stomach."

I discovered recently that my protein intake has been too low for a long time, so my current meal plan includes a good bit of whey protein. I split it into 30g servings because I'm trying to increase strength and at the same time lose a good bit of fat and a little weight. Protein also decreases hunger.

After my usual small breakfast, I have 30g whey. I'll start getting hungry ~11:00 and I'll have a tall glass of my BCCA and electrolyte drink, mango flavored Xtend. I'll have some sort of a one-sandwich-sized lunch and another 30g whey. In the late afternoon, I'll get hungry again, so I'll have an apple and another glass of Xtend. Then a small dinner with another 30g whey, and then another 30g whey at bed time. That's not exactly a 6-meal plan, but sort of. I'm slowly but steadily losing weight while my impedance scale says my fat percentage is going down and my muscle percentage is going up. I've been doing a bike or run or bike + gym workout 6 days/week usually before dinner.

Going back to the OP, as far as I can determine and after reading quite a few studies, it seems that resting muscle burns 6 kcal/lb. while fat burns 2 kcal/lb. So if you lose 3 lbs of fat and gain 1 lb. of muscle, you come out even. In any case, it's so little as not to matter. What does matter is how much work (kJ) you can do per hour. That's the real fat burner. The more muscle you have, the more calories you can and hopefully will burn in exercise. Hopefully and being cyclists or runners, as we gain muscle and lose fat the further and harder we can go and the easier it will be to keep our fat percentage under control.

100% agreed, this is indeed true.
Hmm, no. It causes the state in which hunger is never properly satisfied, you end up eating frequently trying to catch up with it and tend to overeat as a result. It may sound strange but diet with longer intervals (something like 16:8 diet, sometimes called intermittent fasting) does not cause hunger at all, actually it suppresses it. Supposedly it is especially good for persons with type 2 diabetes as it apparently helps to control blood sugar and reduces insulin resistance. You need to have a significant amount of fat and protein in your food in order for this to work properly, carbs burn way too fast (and cause hunger).

Long runs develop endurance, but again, if we balance our diet, watch the calories and keep a balance between proteins and carbohydrates. But do not forget that some proteins and carbohydrates take a long time to break down the same casein or cereals and pasta from hard varieties. If you load up on fast carbs, they give you energy, but hunger sets in quickly. In terms of calorie consumption, I've noticed while riding that I spend the most calories on my mountain bike and preferably outdoors, such as in nature or I can go somewhere with friends. I hope my observation or advice will be helpful.

All very good points. Hunger is usually felt when blood sugar levels drop below a certain level. Easily absorbed foods high on the glycemic scale will get into the blood faster but also cause an insulin spike necessary to keep blood sugar from going too high. The insulin spike drives blood sugar lower than optimal and hunger is triggered again. If you consume lower glycemic slower absorbing foods the up and down blood sugar levels won't be such a wild roller coaster ride.

Our bodies are designed to operate optimally even if we don't eat every few hours. After a time of very low carbs you enter into ketosis and switch to fat burning rather than sugar burning. It takes about 3 months but the body's cells will actually change to more efficiently burn fat if low carb continues. Just think what would have happened to primitivize man if after 24 hours without a meal we simply didn't have enough energy to hunt and kill. Actually, if you get into a state of ketosis and have fat to burn, and your system is optimized to ketosis, you can perform at a higher level. It's a survival trigger to give a hunter an edge to have the mental and physical strength continue a hunt even after an extended period of fasting.

Th

Not my experience at all. You've tried it for a few months? I've been doing this for years. I can easily drop or gain weight as I choose, by slightly varying meal size. Right now I'm losing .2-.4 lbs./day, no hunger. 149.4 this morning. Time for my morning run. I'll have 30g whey when I get back.

fwiw I was 218 lbs this morning. haven't been under 224 lbs for a cpl years. such a small loss but it feels enormous. aside from the weight however, is a more pronounced improvement w/ my physique. both metrics are motivating

Just as another data point. I find that calorie intake (or diet if you prefer) has more effect on my weight than exercise. I go through phases of low and high volume training throughout the year and my weight stays exactly the same, or tends to creep upward unless I consciously manage my calorie intake by monitoring exactly what I eat (using MyFitnessPal to track calories). By deliberately running a small calorie deficit I can consistently lose weight regardless of my exercise volume. But I do find it easier when my exercise volume is higher simply because it means I can eat more for the same calorie deficit.

The exercise/weight management equation is complex and different for everybody. Without addressing any of the points already raised in this thread, let me add two from my own experience.

I tend to be a snacker. There are several triggers that will cause me to snack. On a day when I have done strenuous exercise, there are FEWER of those triggers. I've got my endorphin rush and that affects my moods - positively. Yes, my food intake increases in other ways when I exercise in that way (for example, it's only then when I'll eat a large breakfast), but I'll eat better and caloric intake can go down.

Regular exercise may not affect my weight so much, but when I'm consistently doing significant distance, I lose weight. If I'm sustaining 1000-1200 miles/month, including a fast century pretty much every Saturday and hard fast rides one or two other days of the week - as happens from May-August when I'm not dealing with injuries or when life is getting in the way - I'm going to lose weight. There's no way that the "extra caloric intake" keeps pace with that regimen - at least for me. Of course, I don't do this to lose weight, but it's a positive byproduct.

Yeah it's pretty much the same for me. My appetite doesn't tend to increase in proportion to my exercise volume. But I still lose weight more consistently if I manage my calorie intake. Otherwise it's a bit random how my weight might fluctuate. Luckily my weight always stays within in a healthy range, but sometimes I want to get down to a specific lower weight - like for a big mountain fondo event. That's when I start calorie counting, to make sure I hit my target weight in time.