Exercise and Being Thin- The Truth Behind Successful Weight Loss - By: Jason Yun

There was recently an article in Time magazine entitled ‘Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin’. Time magazine is a big magazine with quite a few readers. This article pissed off some people.

The author asks makes a number of points throughout his article that I am going to dissect for you.

The points he makes are:

1. Why does he still have belly fat hanging over his belt when he sits down? 2. He’s hungrier on days he exercises then on days he doesn’t. He states exercise makes it harder to lose weight since we are hungrier after we eat. 3. Recommendations of 60-90 minutes of exercise on most days of the week.

1. I exercise all the time and still have belly flab!

Time and time again I say you cannot out exercise bad nutrition. Nutrition is by far the most important aspect when it comes to losing weight. I cannot stress this enough. If you put it in a ratio then nutrition would be around 3/5, rest/recovery 1/5, and exercise 1/5.

But just because exercise is a small ratio doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. I know you can lose weight without exercise. But you are not going to look the way you want to look. You’re going to have excess body fat in places. And it’s very frustrating.

The author though still had excess body fat hanging over his belt and he exercised all the time. That is true. But what type of exercise was he doing? First off he was an aerobic person. Cardio is exercise done repeatedly over and over again without much change in pace or intensity. This kind of exercise is good every once in a while. But it simply will not get the job done.

Cardio or aerobic training is good for increasing your heart’s health, but the benefits for general weight loss pretty much stop there. For one it takes a long time to perform. For one to experience the ‘benefits’ of heart health and fat loss it’s recommended a minimum of 30 minutes and usually more.

Cardio and fat loss is also something that is misunderstood. Granted you do burn fat while you are doing the exercise. But the moment the exercise stops so does the fat burning. You want to be a fat loss-incinerating machine—burning fat all day long, even while you sleep. But you can’t do that with cardio training.

Your muscles also shrink. Think about it. If you’ve been sitting on the couch being lazy and you start an exercise program with cardiovascular-based exercise as your primary mode of exercise then at first your muscles will get bigger. That’s because they haven’t been stressed, so they need to get bigger and stronger to help you start out. But as you keep doing it, your muscles will become used to this stress. Over and over the same thing. So eventually they will get smaller and weaker, but the efficiency to perform your ‘cardio’ of choice will always be increasing. That’s why marathon runners have such small muscles but they are very fast.

Decreasing your muscle size is bad. How bad? About the same as going into a fight with Chuck Norris blindfolded. When you lose muscle, or it decreases in size, your metabolism drops. Many things affect your metabolism but the number one factor is lean muscle tissue. Metabolism can help you burn fat all day long, or it can help you put more fat on. It just depends on if your training to speed it up or slow it down.

If you’re basing your training on slow, steady exercise then excess body fat is something you are going to have to get used to. Simply because you are slowing your metabolism down and the exercise is not intense enough to shape and sculpt your body to look like you want it to.

2. Exercise Makes Me Hungrier.

Exercise does have a tendency to increase your appetite. But who says that the things you need to eat to satisfy that appetite is junk. It doesn’t have to be.

Take a look at how are you eating right now? Do you skip breakfast? Are you a morning workout person—do you not eat anything before your workout? Are you a 3 squares a day kind of person? Do you snack on junk after your workout saying to yourself ‘I’ve earned it!’ If you are then I would say you are in the World of Sucky-Ass Nutrition!

Look, nutrition and exercise are a lifestyle. It’s not something you need to do or think about at certain times of the year or when you have time. You need to make it a priority in your life; it needs to be a lifestyle. Everyday!

Exercise does increase your appetite. And you should be hungry throughout the day. This means you have a fast metabolism. With a fast metabolism you should be getting hungry every 2-4 hours. If your not getting hungry at this time then you have a slow metabolism. In the slow metabolism world you can pretty much kiss your weight loss goals out the door.

Your metabolism is like a muscle. It needs to be trained to be functioning at optimal levels. It burns a certain amount of calories each day for you. So if you under train your metabolism, SORRY—no weight loss for you. If you over eat, SORRY, weight gain for you.

That’s right! You can’t under eat and lose weight. That’s why diets don’t work. You will shut your metabolism down. Once you stop the diet your body will just as fast put the weight back on and usually more. And while your on the diet losing all the weight and muscle your body is working overtime-- health, organs, self, vitality is all deteriorating.

At minimum you should be eating 5 times a day, spread equally throughout the day. Instead of focusing on junk food to fill you up during the day focus on high volume foods. Junk food doesn’t fill you up very well. It’s loaded with either fat, salt, or sugar—3 ingredients that make you crave for more. High volume foods don’t have a lot of calories and fill you up until your next meal. Foods like vegetables, fruit, lean proteins, high fibrous foods will get the job done and lead you to your weight loss success.

3. I Don’t Have Time To Work Out 60-90 Minutes A Day

Well then there is good news for you. You don’t have to. And you shouldn’t be anyway. Not unless you are training for something specific, like a competition or something. But most of the people interested in weight loss are busy adults and not training for a competition.

60-90 minutes is a common cardio routine time limit. Or a bodybuilding split you find in one of those bull filled magazines. I followed these high volume routines for over a decade and it got me nowhere. Girls and guys were the victims of these split routines and time wasting cardio sessions. You know go into the gym train shoulders and chest one day, legs another, back another, and maybe have a special arm day all by itself and then finish off with a session of ‘cardio’ on the treadmill. Those routines are a crock of you know what, and unless you are bodybuilder should not be a consideration for you.

For the general person looking to lose weight it should only be up to 45 minutes. Anything past that and you are pushing it. It can be as little as 20 minutes, too. But I know you are probably thinking ‘how can I get an effective workout in only 20 minutes.

Well, I ain’t talking your useless exercises. I am talking intensity. Hulk Hogan ‘hulking up’ intensity. Intensity is what determines the effectiveness of your workout. Not how long it is. You should not be able to carry on a conversation with the person next to you while your doing the exercise—it should be the last thing on your mind.

What type of exercise does this? Intervals and weight training. Whole body exercises. Strength and conditioning exercises combined into one. Not focusing on one body part at a time.

Why these types of exercises? Because they get the most muscles involved. The more muscles used means you will be burning more calories, you will build more muscle, you will burn more fat. And it will definitely be harder. Harder is what is needed to change your body.

So no more of this 60-90 minute workout crap! That’s daunting for a person to look at. Especially if a person is just starting out. That will lead someone to find an excuse not to do it.

Next week is part 2.

About the Author

Jason Yun, a certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and Sports Nutritionist, is a Columbus fitness bootcamp and weight management teacher. To book him to speak at your local Columbus organization please contact him by email at jyun@yunbootcamps.com or by phone at 614-432-9703. For a free 2-week trial to his Bootcamps go to: http://www.yuntraining.com/columbusbootcamps.html

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