A large number of weight loss studies have come up with a somewhat disappointing result – pure exercise to lose weight is unreliable!

Metabolic research coordinated by many countries around the world has at least partially answered the reason why exercise cannot lose weight – after exercise, the body will reduce calorie consumption, making the effect of exercise only 70% of the expected!

It is difficult to lose weight by exercising alone

Clinical nutritionists have long discovered that it is almost impossible to lose weight through exercise intervention alone without controlling diet, and the weight loss results of exercise intervention are always smaller than expected.

A comprehensive study of 23 exercise-based weight loss studies found that the actual weight lost through exercise was much smaller than expected, whether in people with basic obesity or normal weight. When you first start exercising, the energy gap can reach 500kcal per day by increasing exercise. However, after 1 year of exercise to lose weight, the energy gap caused by exercise is completely compensated. In other words, exercise has no further effect on weight loss.

Another review of 22 clinical studies on weight loss over 1 year found that, compared with exercise alone and diet alone, diet alone was more effective than exercise in both weight loss and fat loss, and diet alone was more effective in weight loss than exercise alone. You can lose 3kg more weight, of which 2.2kg more fat loss.

But why is this so? Why do clinical studies of weight loss through exercise alone fail so often, and why is it so difficult for us to lose weight through exercise in real life?

The actual calories burned by exercise are not as many as your watch shows

Experiments have confirmed that when more energy is consumed by increasing exercise, the human body will compensate by reducing caloric consumption in a resting state and reducing non-exercise caloric consumption. The result is that after exercising for some time, the daily caloric consumption and caloric intake Balance is reached again.
For example, if the amount of exercise in mice is gradually increased, the caloric consumption will increase initially, but soon the caloric consumption and caloric intake will reach a balance again. Even if the amount of exercise is increased, it will not cause a larger energy gap.

When we engage in a sport for some time, our body will consume energy more efficiently, just like learning to swim. When you first learn to swim, you will feel that every movement is very strenuous and you need to overcome a lot of resistance. Swim for a moment or two. You will be out of breath after 100 meters, but as the practice time increases, you will find ways to overcome the resistance, and the movements will become more efficient and coherent. After you become familiar with the swimming style, you will not feel particularly tired after swimming a thousand meters.

After exercise, the body will use various methods to reduce the energy gap caused by exercise, allowing calorie consumption and calorie intake to reach a stable state again. It can be said to be a kind of inertia or inertia. To overcome this “inertia”, you may need to constantly change the way of exercise, or modify the intensity of exercise to achieve the most effective and sustained weight loss.

Up to 30% off on exercise calorie consumption

The latest metabolic research published in the sub-journal of “Cell” included metabolic data from 1,754 adults from multiple centers around the world. The results showed that as activity-related caloric consumption increases, the basal metabolic rate will decrease.

That is to say while increasing exercise consumption, the body will reduce caloric consumption through other methods so that the total caloric consumption is similar to that without exercise.

This study collected data from adults who lived a normal life and did not diet to lose weight or train extensively like athletes. Metabolic data are measured using the most accurate isotope double-labeled water method.

Conclusion: It was found that the relationship between exercise caloric consumption and basal metabolic rate is different from what we thought before. It is not a simple superposition relationship but they affect each other. When exercise caloric consumption increases, the basal metabolic rate decreases. The specific value is that every 100kcal consumed during exercise will cause the basal metabolism to decrease by 28kcal, so it is equivalent to a net consumption of only 72kcal. Exercise can only consume 30% of calories.

This is easy to understand. Conserving energy is a prerequisite for survival and reproduction for all living things. Most animals and early humans live in an environment where energy resources are scarce. Food is very precious, so as activities increase, caloric consumption increases. It is beneficial to evolution to reduce other caloric consumption to conserve energy. However, this regulatory mechanism can no longer bring benefits in a modern society with excess calories and insufficient exercise. Instead, it will lead to obesity, and the effect of exercise on weight loss will not be as good as expected.

And, even more frustratingly, this 30% discount is just average. The compensatory decrease in basal metabolism will be more obvious in some groups. This study found that people with high basal body fat content consume less net calories during exercise. People with a BMI in the 90th percentile have lower basal metabolism after exercise. The rate will drop by 49.2%, which means that a fat person who exercises 100kcal can only consume about 50kcal, half of which is in vain.

Therefore, if you want to lose weight, the amount of exercise required is more than what we calculated. If you want to lose 70kcal, you need to consume 100kcal through exercise first. This is different from the common weight loss model of simple addition. For people with basic obesity, to consume the same amount of calories, they need to exercise twice as much.

Is exercise no longer necessary to lose weight?

This series of research results all show that exercise does not allow us to “eat casually”, and the effect of exercise on calorie consumption is smaller than we previously expected. But it is undeniable that in all these studies, exercise does increase caloric expenditure, but the extent and duration are different from what we imagined.

More importantly, exercise can reduce body fat and increase lean body mass, which has a positive effect on long-term weight control. Because basal metabolic rate increases as muscle mass increases, having more muscle means it will be easier to control your weight later on. Therefore, exercise is an effective way to maintain weight loss results.

• Compared with only controlling diet, controlling diet + exercise has a better weight loss effect, with an average weight loss of 1.4kg, and more fat loss, with an average weight loss of 1.65kg.
• Compared with exercise alone, diet + exercise can lead to more weight loss, with an average weight loss of 4.13kg and an average fat loss of 3.6kg.
• Comparing exercise alone and diet alone, diet control is more effective than exercise for both weight loss and fat loss.
• A study comparing the weight loss of different exercise levels based on reducing caloric consumption: no exercise, moderate-intensity exercise (walking 10,000 steps a day), and high-intensity exercise (running at a 6-minute pace three times a week) found that the high-intensity exercise group The greater the fat loss, the better the muscle retention.

In addition, in addition to weight, more studies have confirmed that exercise has a positive significance for cardiovascular health and overall human health.

Weight itself is not what we pursue, health is. Exercise, which has great health benefits, certainly needs a place in our lives. Just blindly follow the trend and dance to the latest weight loss exercise, and then eat snacks while watching the live broadcast. There is no need.