I was reading an article in the Courier Mail Q Weekend 15,16 May 2010, by Gretchen Reynolds, about the latest on exercise and weight loss.  She quotes Eric Ravusssin, a professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, “In general exercise by itself is pretty useless for weight loss.”

That’s a strong statement and not very encouraging for many of us who persevere with gym programs in an effort to shed weight and become fitter and healthier.   But there’s more.

What goes with that statement is an insight about appetite.   If exercise increases your appetite, and you eat more than previously, then your weight will not go down.  So it is still about consuming fewer calories than you burn up to lose weight.

Science is researching three options for losing weight.  One is to reduce what you eat and drink.  We know about that one.  Another is to exercise more.  Many of us have tried that one too.   And then there is the half and half option, eat a little less and exercise a little more.

Researchers tracked volunteers who either reduced calorie intake by 25%, or reduced calorie intake by 12.5% and increased exercise by 12.5%, to about an hour a day.  Both groups lost weight, around a half kilo per week.  So it looks like less adjustment is needed to your diet if you add or increase exercise at the same time.

But research revealed exercise supports weight loss for some and makes it more difficult for others.  Even though exercise has a positive impact on general health and well-being, it can also trigger an increase in appetite, which doesn’t help on the weight loss side of things.   It doesn’t seem fair, but often for women, when they exercise more, their appetite goes up.  Yet it’s not the same for most men.

With increased exercise researchers found women activate production of more acylated ghrelin, known to increase appetite, plus set off changes to insulin and leptin hormones that affect how their body burns fuel.

When healthy young men exercised for one and half hours a day, their appetite was actually reduced and tests showed that blood concentrations of ghrelin dropped.  Yet when women exercised, this increased their acylated ghrelin if they burned more calories than they had consumed recently.  Their body was driving them to eat more food to replace the extra energy used exercising.  Nature and pre-set programs are involved.   Is there a solution?

It seems the female body is wanting to maintain homeostasis in terms of weight, and that means staying the same weight after exercise as before.  Nature can interpret loss of weight as counter to producing a baby, so steps in to keep weight stable.  So is it possible to burn up more calories and not trigger appetite?

Here’s more news for the exercise brigade.  It seems if you do lose weight by whatever means, then exercise will keep you slimmer, even if you resume previous eating habits.  90 percent of women who shed weight and held the improvement also exercised consistently.   This comes from a study of 34,000 middle-age women followed for over 13 years.

Consistent and regular exercise was the key for long-term maintenance of weight loss.   For women who exercised regularly any weight gain that did occur was distributed more evenly and not just round the middle.  That is important for long-term health as weight gain round the belly is linked with heart disease, diabetes and a host of other health problems.  Non-exercisers, who regain weight after dropping it, put it back primarily on the belly, increasing their health risks

Yet there may be some solutions for women who put on weight when exercising.  Very latest scientific research has found low intensity exercise, even as simple as standing more than sitting, can contribute to increased energy use and support weight loss without triggering hunger signals.  These are the latest findings by Barry Braun, associate professor in the department of kinesiology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Volunteers spent an entire day sitting and another entire day standing.  Just standing produced a remarkable increase of energy use representing “hundreds of calories” without any increase in ghrelin production or other appetite producing hormones according to Braun.

Maybe we need to watch TV standing up, or put the computer on a shelf and stand up to use it instead of sitting for hours.  That would certainly improve circulation, avoid back problems, increase lymphatic clearance of waste products plus a whole lot of other healthy benefits.  It’s worth doing your own experiment to see what it does for you.

So a summary of the latest on exercise and weight loss:
It may be easier to lose weight by reducing intake a little and increasing incidental exercise through the day, like standing more than sitting.   Exercise helps maintain a slimmer you.  Regular exercise seems to remodel metabolic pathways that determine how your body stores and uses fuel so it’s easier to stay slim once you are slim with continuing exercise.

So there are many ideas about how to lose weight and keep it off to be healthy:
– change what and how much you eat
– change when you eat (see previous newsletters)
– improve your digestion (see previous newsletters)
– increase energy expenditure
– increase incidental energy burn
– add specific and regular exercise
Yet the biggest influences to sort out are you attitude, beliefs, motivation and energy blocks.  Lets tackle those another time to complete the holistic view.

Cheers
Anna McRobert
anna@annamcrobert.com