Experts say exercising won’t make you thin
As summer is approaching, most of us are checking out how our body’s look in the mirror—and probably wishing we could lose a pound or two. If you’ve decided that you need to take up running or hit the gym in order to get that beach body you’ve dreamed of, you might want to make a different change instead.
Professor Herman Pontzer, a professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at Duke University, North Carolina says that you burn the same amount of calories every day regardless of what your activity level is.
If you’ve ever watched the calories go up as you sweat it out on a treadmill, you’re probably shaking your head at this right now. How can you burn calories exercising, but not burn more than you did sitting at a desk? To make this claim, Professor Pontzer spent ten years studying a hunter-gatherer tribe in Tanzania, and comparing them to people who live a western lifestyle.
He found that while people who are exercising hard every day do spend more calories on exercise, they spend fewer calories in other areas, such as immune function, to balance it out. The result is that a man sitting at a desk in an office burns the exact same number of calories as a hunter-gatherer out exercising for miles every day in search of food.
What does this mean for dieters?
If you’re looking to lose weight, diet should be your primary focus. Weight gain comes from consuming more calories than your body can burn in a day. Since exercising doesn’t appear to burn more calories, that means restricting calories is your best bet to lose weight.
Professor Pontzer warns that the real danger from foods is from highly processed foods. These foods trick the brain into thinking they haven’t had enough, since our brains are not adapted to this much flavor in our diet. We think we’re not satisfied and we need more, even though the body has long since filled up.
Fresh, healthy foods help your body realize when it is full or has gotten the nutrients it is looking for. This means those fresh salads brimming with vegetables may not be as appealing as a potato chip, but they’ll do a better job of fueling your body and helping you to lose some weight.
So, can you skip the exercise?
Since exercise does absolutely nothing for weight loss, according to Professor Pontzer anyway, does that mean you can put down the weights forever? Not so fast. While exercise may not be the ticket to your slim and trim new figure, it is important for your health in other respects.
Exercise can boost your mood, improve body positivity, and improve heart and cardiovascular health. Weight training also has significant benefits, including avoiding bone loss and injury as people age.
The moral of the story? You still need to exercise in order to have the best possible health, but for the purpose of losing weight a fresh, healthy diet should be your main focus.