Do you recall seeing commercials or reading magazine advertisements where exercise gadgets and specialized exercise programs promise great weight loss results? Well if you haven’t, let me tell you weight loss exercise products are big business for ex-celebrities in the entertainment and sports industries. Remember the thigh and abs flex products that promoted inches will melt away around these areas while leading you to believe this would be the result of the entire body! After all, the models used in the sales pitch appear to be perfectly lean specimens.
Look around your house and count how many unused exercise gadgets, exercise equipment and books you have lying dormant in your home. Why do these products lay around the home collecting dust? And if these products did not work for you why did you not return the product? Most of these exercise weight loss products guarantee great results by your favorite celebrity. You were lead to believe if you follow the typical 4-12 week exercise product program you would see great results, well did you? It is also interesting to note most guarantees have a 30-90 (4-12 weeks) day satisfaction return policy, no questions asked. If the product didn’t produce the results was it because they actually didn’t work, or that you didn’t give an honest effort, or would it have mattered whether you used the product or not? Regardless, the product is sitting in your home now dormant.
Could it be you blame your lack of motivation to use the product and ran out the warranty? Maybe you used the product as instructed without great, or no results, but in fact gained more weight. Possibly the relatively small dollar amount of the purchase didn’t seem worth the effort to send it back. In each example, many of you disregarded the warranty.
In any case, most of us have been conditioned to believe exercise is the key to great weight loss success. Product sales pitches that use the science of exercise as a weight loss product concept have been misleading consumers desperate to lose weight for years. Yet those that are desperate want to believe the hype because they believe this premise is based on hard scientific fact! Many marketers and your favorite celebs take full advantage of desperate and emotional overweight people that are not educated well in exercise science benefits and weight loss principles applied to various metabolisms!
Yes, exercise science is a real undergraduate degree program offered in many universities, also known as exercise physiology. I have a B.S. degree in this discipline, so this is true, this discipline exists if you’d never heard of it before.
Now back to the dilemma at hand for customers interested in a quick fix weight loss program. These marketers are smart. They know how to slant the rhetoric leading you to believe they actually care about you. Remember, many of your celebs are banking on this pitch to make them more money as well! Weight loss through exercise alone could not be further from the truth! Instead exercise is an important component of natural weight loss, but not the only component behind healthy and sustaining weight loss results.
What do the marketers know about sales, physiology and psychology that most of us do not think about? They know how to target an audience and that the younger demographic will have a weight loss result that can be further promoted to increase future sales. They know this is so because if a younger demographic with fast metabolisms actually works any type of exercise product program a good majority of these people will have some kind of significant weight loss result. I know, you’re thinking, the story line is “Exercise for weight loss is a myth? And how does this relate to what I’m presenting?” You’ll soon have the full story.
Haven’t you noticed the before and after shots on the product weight loss infomercials? Most of these people appear to be between the ages of 18-35 years of age. And as science has proven in many controlled studies, the human metabolisms before the age of 35 are pretty responsive to increased activity. It is apparent that weight loss results within “any age” demographic seem to have a lot to do with the psychology of weight loss desire then does the use of any singular, or combination of exercise product(s). Desire to lose weight within any age range is mostly to do about motivating the psychological desire to lose weight. So what motivates one to lose weight? E.g., the dating scene, interview for job, want youthful look back, vanity, overall good health, you name it there are many reasons to motivate a person to lose weight. But nevertheless, there’s always a motive behind wanting to lose the weight. And in understanding this, specific groups can be targeted by marketers.
In other words, if you have motivation and desire to lose weight, you may be more prone to reduce weight through a combination of lifestyle changes and habits. Some changes, or a combination of lifestyle changes may incorporate, nutritional diet changes, smoking-alcohol cessation, shift to healthier environmental-social influences-activities, exercise aerobic-anaerobic activity changes (type, frequency, duration, intensity). The sum of the total changes typically has a greater calorie burn response leading to weight loss. The sum of these total lifestyle changes will also improve the fit-healthy aspect of being.
On the flip side, science has proven exercise makes people hungrier. And because of this compensation effect, what leaves the body must eventually be replaced to maintain body comfort equilibrium. For most of us over 35, this is our will power weakness defeating our motivation to lose weight, or making weight loss goals more challenging as we age. This is because the sacrifice of feeling hunger to achieve weight loss results becomes much more difficult on the psyches will power with age.
For those that maintain great results for a life time after being overweight, or experienced a period(s) of obesity may have sacrificed some part of their overall health to obtain the results. What do I mean by this statement? Whenever the body is stressed beyond a comfort level to achieve quick weight loss results; it’s not the maintenance of maintaining the weight loss results once the desired weight is achieved. It’s the initial stress on mind-body that can create internal metabolic (homeostatic balance) harm while achieving quick weight loss results “too often.”
With continued quick result diet stress the body typically loses weight in an unhealthy manner that can and does lead to illness and disease. I know all of you have heard of yo-yo dieting and the ill-effects of practicing such weight loss practices. The goal here is not to discuss poor dieting practices, but instead attempt to help the consumer understand; exercise alone, regardless of exercise equipment, product or technique does not have a significant impact on your weight loss goals because of the “compensation effect” (calories burnt demand to be replaced). Even if you are an aerobic junky, you must look at your entire lifestyle habitual picture. The picture of your lean weight loss results mix should be balanced considering your age, genetics, lifestyle habits, motivations, goals and behaviors.
This is not to state that exercise products don’t promote any positive health benefits. In fact, we know that exercise lowers risks for many types of diseases, especially within the cardiovascular system, prevention of diabetes and cancer. Exercise is also excellent for body toning, strength, and muscular endurance, postural alignment which contributes to overall good health and pain alleviation. Whatever your experience with exercise weight loss products the reason you accumulate these things… Most likely you believe they will either work again, or when you’re ready to use them the weight loss results will be achieved as promised through proper use of the product.
The marketers understand there will be a small percentage of you that will try the program and turn the product back within the guarantee time. However, this means nothing to them. The discipline of sending back a product before the warranty expires is very small regardless of customer dissatisfaction. After all, most of you have been conditioned to believe exercise is necessary to lose weight. They also know you don’t blame your favorite celebrity because you admire them and they look fantastic. The pitch people continue to mislead exercise science principles as a weight loss solution by promoting exercise products through professionally paid spokespersons. So your lack of weight loss results during use of a weight loss exercise product must be solely due to your inability to exercise exactly as your favorite celebrity or intended use of product. Wrong!
To add insult to injury, those selling the exercise products are banking on most of you never understanding the calorie compensation effect on weight control and will power. This way you’ll continue to purchase the latest hype exercise products from your favorite celebrity in hopes that something may work for you down the road. One thing is for sure, you will keep them fat and happy rolling in dough. The cycle continues on. Amazing!
Although your favorite guru-celeb may be the picture of health, they make a lot of money selling you products you believe will have positive results for you. At least you believe this because you trust what they say to be true, or you most likely would not buy the exercise products. Regardless of exercise equipment product(s) that guarantees weight loss benefits… The odds are stacked against significant weight loss results. This is because exercises alone will most likely result in weight gain! Now science supports the fact that exercise can add on the pounds if other considerations are not modified within healthy living as we age. Let’s look at a significant study that specifically addresses the compensation effect on body after exercise and what this really means for your weight loss program.
“45 million Americans now belong to health clubs, up from 23 million in 1993. We spend some $19 billion a year on gym memberships. One major study illustrates – The Minnesota Heart Survey found more of us say we exercise. From 1980 to 2000, 47% of respondents exercised regularly and then these figures increased to 57%, ending the 20 year survey. Even with 45 million people today using fitness centers obesity figures increased during this period. The Federal government’s definition of obesity classifies 1/3 of all Americans as obese. Those that participated in the survey admitted after they exercise, their hungrier and eat more. This is not to discount the notion that those who may not participate in gym activities may weigh more otherwise.”
“In general, for weight loss, exercise is pretty useless,” says Eric Ravussin, chair in diabetes and metabolism at Louisiana State University, a prominent exercise researcher. Although exercise does burn calories, it also makes us hungrier. “Exercise, in other words, isn’t necessarily helping us lose weight. It may even be making it harder.” “The compensation Problem – The PLoS (Public Library of Science) published a remarkable study supervised by a colleague of Ravussin’s Dr. Timothy Church. Four groups totaling 464 overweight women who didn’t regularly exercise were selected for this study. Women in 3 of the groups worked with a personal trainer for 6 months; Group 1 exercised – 72 minutes/wk, Group 2 exercised- 136 minutes/wk and Group 3 exercised – 194 minutes/week. Although the study did not specify the exercise routines, one gets the notion exercises were balanced between aerobic and anaerobic activity with a personal assigned trainer.”
“The women in the 4th cluster did not change their lifestyle activities, but did fill out a monthly health questionnaire. The results were surprising. All groups of women lost weight, even the control group. It is most likely the control group through the use of monthly questionnaires learned more about their health and thereby modified their diets by eating fewer donuts, muffins, Starbucks coffee, for example. Some of the women in each group actually gained weight, some up to 10 pounds. Church calls this the compensation effect. Whether exercise made them hungry, or they wanted to reward themselves… Most of the women who exercised ate more than they did before they started the experiment!”
“This is an important study because our government’s medical organizations since the 60’s tell us to exercise if we want weight loss. Including in 2007, the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association issued new guidelines stating that “to lose weight…60 to 90 minutes of physical activity may be necessary. That recommendation covers most days of the week.”
“It’s true that within the study most participants were able to trim their waistline by only about an inch. The other interesting aspect, even so, they lost no more overall body fat than the control group. Church asks the control group other questions to further understand this phenomenon. He finds within each group the women are rewarding themselves with Starbucks coffee and muffins for example. Well, after you add these calories to calories burnt, you get a wash in weight loss benefits.” Another good example, a bottle of Gatorade electrolyte drink, 20oz bottle has 130 calories. You can drink this in a matter of seconds if you’re really thirsty. If your aerobics activity is treadmill walking for 15 minutes this is probably a wash from net calorie expenditure.”
“Steven Gortmaker, heads Harvard’s Prevention Research Center on Nutrition and Physical Activity, he studies child obesity. Since its proven exercise makes you hungry, one must ask a question regarding our kids and fast food places. He is suspicious of playgrounds at fast-food restaurants. The contention is, if a kid plays 30 minutes, it may be enough to stimulate hunger where the child instead of consuming 500 calories, instead consumes 1000.” In 30 minutes of play, for example, the child may have only expended 200 calories to play, creating a net 800 calorie gain!”
“Church states, we all need to move toward proper weight control, but stressing and depleting the body’s muscles in short bursts using stressful exercise is not necessarily the best way to loss body weight. Also the brain may feel greater entitlement to eat fast foods after we’ve exerted most of our high intensity energy at the gym. Instead, energy would have been better served by increasing daily activities like walking, healthy food shopping, preparing wholesome meals, gardening, a balanced mix using gym activities, walking, biking, etc.”
Quote excerpts posted above, Published by Time Magazine, August 17, 2009, “Why Exercise Won’t Make you Thin,” by John Cloud. Posts have been modified by the author within quotes to quickly make points in support of this article.
True aerobic activity is a low intensity, time consuming type of training (E.g., walking, jogging, bicycling, etc.) that burns mostly fat cells-triglycerides using slow twitch muscle activity exercise. Anaerobic training (E.g., sprinting, high intensity run, weight training and high intensity aerobics, long jump, pole vaulting, etc.) are exercise activities that use more fast twitch muscle fibers which require quick spurts of energy to move the body with high intensity mostly burn other energy fuel sources (glucose, glycogen and creatine phosphate)… Fat as a fuel source during high intensity work cannot provide energy fast enough to feed the body during high intensity type physical activity events. Body fat then is mostly by-passed as the primary fuel source.
Anaerobic activity also increases muscle mass which is heavier by volume than fat. Muscle mass increases will also tip the scales heavier if sculpting body fat does not occur. The perfect workout concept for sculpting and weight loss requires customized fitness training programs relative to body type, age, medical history, body type, fitness, weight loss and lifestyle activity goals. Within a customized weight loss program one must not forget diet, exercise for fitness and pain (mind, body and spirit-soul) management considerations (covered in proceeding chapters). However, due to the compensation effect (calorie burned vs. mind over compensation effect) on will power to reduce calories at the table makes no guarantee weight loss goals will be met and weight gain may be likely.
Muscle is important for many health reasons and also requires more calories to maintain development and growth. This means a dense body muscle mass will burn more calories daily while working. The muscle bound metabolism will tell the mind that the body is hungry especially after training. The will power to ignore the brains signal to nourish the working muscles requirement is a great mind over matter challenge especially after 35 years of age. One thing I can assure you… To not remain active with some form of low intensity activity exercise as you age opposed to becoming a couch potato is a grave mistake!
To defeat compensation effect on will power requires a balanced fit-healthy plan if you want to sustain a healthy weight loss goal for life.
Does exercise to reduce body weight on its own work, or is this line of thinking a myth? You decide after reading a follow up article in the Mirror Athlete repository. “Science Proves Exercise Alone May Promote Weight Gain.”
Author: Marc T. Woodard, MBA, BS Exercise Science, USA Medical Services Officer, CPT, RET. 2009 Copyright, All rights reserved. Mirror Athlete Enterprises Publishing @: www.mirrorathlete.com, Sign up for your free eNewsletter.
