Why Does Exercise Sometimes Not Help Weight Loss?

There’s no doubt that exercise burns calories. So why has study after study found such modest average weight loss even after subjects follow relatively vigorous, well-designed exercise programs?

The usual answer is that you unwittingly eat more to compensate for your workout. That’s partly true, but it skims over a vital detail: Few of us are “average.” Break down the study results, and you find that exercise is highly effective at melting off pounds for some people, and ineffective for others. Scientists are now teasing out the factors that explain these different responses – and poking holes in weight-loss plans that promise one-size-fits-all success.

Why Exercise Changes sometimes Fail

“There’s currently a strong interest in identifying ‘behavioural phenotypes’ within the obese population so that treatments can be more specifically targeted,” says Graham Finlayson, a biological psychologist at the University of Leeds. “This is the case for exercise, food, diet, pharmacologic and surgical approaches.”

Exercise and Weight Loss

The wide variability in response to exercise is shown clearly in the results of a 12-week program of supervised exercise, published in a review co-authored by Dr. Finlayson in the British Journal of Sports Medicine last month. Although the intensity and duration of each workout was the same for all 58 subjects, some lost more than 10 kilograms while others actually gained a small amount of weight – opposite extremes from the average loss of 3.2 kilograms.

I myself think that there is a correlation between food and exercise that is very tight. I have gone through changes where I am very physically active and I eat to compensate for the calorie loss. Keeping a very disciplined eating schedule to conteract any problems with metabolism and Leptin depletion are essential.

Dr. Finlayson and his colleagues suggest a long list of possible reasons for the variation. There are physiological possibilities, like the rate at which food leaves your gut; the production of appetite hormones like leptin and ghrelin; and the extent to which your body relies on fat versus carbohydrate for energy. All of these are affected by exercise and could influence appetite and food intake, though the evidence remains contradictory.

More info at Globe and Mail

So what have you found in the past. Does your increased workouts help or hinder weight loss. Remember there are a lot of exercise newbies reading this, what would you suggest to them? Recent Tags: foods to increase metabolism, high metabolism boosting foods

Why Does Exercise Sometimes Not Help Weight Loss?

High Fructose Corn Syrup Makes You Dumb?

I heard this story on the news this morning and it makes a bit of sense to me, even if I am not a rat. High Fructose Corn Syrup is pretty bad for you anyway and this study seems to show that.

A new UCLA rat study is the first to show how a diet steadily high in fructose slows the brain, hampering memory and learning — and how omega-3 fatty acids can counteract the disruption. The peer-reviewed _Journal of Physiology_ publishes the findings in its May 15 edition.

“Our findings illustrate that what you eat affects how you think,” said Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, a professor of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a professor of integrative biology and physiology in the UCLA College of Letters and Science. “Eating a high-fructose diet over the long term alters your brain’s ability to learn and remember information. But adding omega-3 fatty acids to your meals can help minimize the damage.”

While earlier research has revealed how fructose harms the body through its role in diabetes, obesity and fatty liver, this study is the first to uncover how the sweetener influences the brain.

Results of the High Fructose Corn Syrup Rat Study

Even Coke contains _high fructose corn syrup_

The UCLA team zeroed in on high fructose corn syrup, an inexpensive liquid six times sweeter than cane sugar, that is commonly added to processed foods, including soft drinks, condiments, applesauce and baby food. The average American consumes more than 40 pounds of high-fructose corn syrup per year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “We’re not talking about naturally occurring fructose in fruits, which also contain important antioxidants,” explained Gomez-Pinilla, who is also a member of UCLA’s Brain Research Institute and Brain Injury Research Center. “We’re concerned about high-fructose corn syrup that is added to manufactured food products as a sweetener and preservative.”

So looking at this study is just another nail in the coffin for high fructose corn syrup which is really a terrible sweetener however cheap it is to produce. The best way to avoid HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) is to avoid pop and sodas and sweetened juices as well as any foods that are highly processed. Remember that because this substance is so sweet and cheap it is a very easy and cheap way to sweeten foods instead of using regular sugar. Also there are studies that show that HFCS will also help cause diabetes and this was one of the real starting points where some scientists say that the obesity issues in the US were caused by. Recent Tags: metabolism boosting foods

High Fructose Corn Syrup Makes You Dumb?

Time Magazine Breastfeeding Cover

So what do you think? Are you shocked? This cover of Time magazine is sparking support and outrage all over the country and I guess for good reason. Everyone is a fan of breastfeeding until kids get a bit too old for their comfort.

Why is Breastfeeding Important?

Well first of all lets get to the root of the issue here. I have never seen a case where any study has said anything bad about the effect of breastfeeding on kids or their parents. Not only is breast milk very healthy for babies but it also helps to create that bond between mother and child helping them to protect the baby and to help the mother in the nourishing as well as weight loss aspects of child rearing.

No child can live for any length of time without some kind of milk product and the fact is that the American Academy of Pediatrics says babies should be breastfed exclusively for the first 6 months. Beyond that, the American Academy of Pediatrics encourages breastfeeding until at least 12 months, and longer if both the mother and baby are willing.

Breastfeeding a four year old?

So the real shocking part of this whole story seems to be the picture itself, although I think that breastfeeding just kind of makes a lot of people feel uncomfortable. The woman on the Time Magazine breastfeeding cover is Jamie Lynne Grumet and she is actually standing in defiance while nursing her 3 year old (maybe 4 year old) son standing on this stool.

According to a poll this week 73% of the people who saw the cover felt uncomfortable with it. I am not one of these people. I saw the cover, was initially shocked at the pose, but them looked inside myself to see what was really wrong. My daughter was breastfed until 6 months, my sone was never breastfed, I have no issues with nudity, so the only thing that I think caused me to recoil initially was my own sense of self values in the media. I am sure Time magazine knows this as well.

This is a very important issue I think. Women are encouraged to breastfeed, but never in public, and then expected to stop at 6 months. What is they decide to go longer? Not going to hurt the kid, not going to hurt me. This has to be looked at as a civil right for women, no need for us non-women, non-breast feeders, to be judgemental of how someone wants to wean or not wean their child from the boob.

In the end I think this is just one more way that we need to look at ourselves and decide where our sense of morality is and why. Good for you Jamie Lynne Grumet

Time Magazine Breastfeeding Cover