There have been a lot of reports in the last year confirming that contrary to popular belief, exercise doesn’t lead to weight loss . If you want to shed pounds, it all comes down to diet. It’s no surprise that changing your diet can help you lose weight, but for decades, many people believed that exercise was the best pathway to a slimmer, fitter you. Today the New York Times added to the heap of disappointing news that exercise doesn’t aid in weight loss by reporting the results of an exercise and obesity study . The study followed a group of 58 obese individual who underwent three months of supervised aerobic activity but didn’t change their diets at all. And while the group lost an average of seven pounds, many participants barely lost three. I admit that when all of these studies started coming up I was a little shocked. Contrary to popular belief, exercise does not burn fat. To hear what type of exercise may help with weight loss, read more. Another new study reported by the Times gives insight into why this isn’t necessarily the case: yes, exercise does burn calories, but it’s burning carbs, not fat. What that means for some is that the fat stored by the body remains there, even after they pound away an hour on the treadmill. It seems that high-intensity

workouts are fueled by carbs. The article explains: “‘The message of our work is really simple,’ although not agreeable to hear, said Edward Melanson, PhD, the lead author of the study. ‘It all comes down to energy balance,’ or, as you might have guessed, calories in and calories out. People ‘are only burning 200 or 300 calories’ in a typical 30-minute exercise session, Melanson points out. ‘You replace that with one bottle of Gatorade.’” The optimistic news is that fat can be lost, but it’s a matter of how you approach your workout. To maximize fat loss, work out at a lower intensity in your fat-burning zone, which is 60 to 70 percent of your maximum heart rate. For most people this zone falls between 105-134 beats per minute. Melanson’s study also found that once weight is lost from reduced calorie intake, exercise might prevent it from coming back by resetting metabolic pathways that stop the body from wanting to store fat. The research is eye-opening, but should not dissuade any of us from our fitness goals! Keep in mind that the benefits of exercise reach far beyond weight loss – it helps the brain function better, reduces stress, and is important for healthy heart function.

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Why Exercise Won’t Help You Lose Weight . . . Sort Of