Does Anyone Else Hate Stories Like This? - Personal Trainer Community - Forum

[muscletrainerdh-NSCA CPT]

These "Anti-guru's" are really doing our industry a disservice.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24843493/from/ET/

I know they are "speaking at" the general population who wants to see a smaller number on the scale but to tell them "Cardio is Best" is ridiculous.

[KPG]

I going to agree with you. What a load of crapola! But, the worst part is people in general buy this ignorance because of the alphabet soup at the end of their names. I did notice that it was an article from Allure. Allure, if your not familiar with it is a magazine aimed at 20-something women. Maybe they should have placed the article next to one about anorexia, that's a fat loss plan, right? Ahhh!!!

[kettlebell king]

to be honest yes I am sick of them! I think articles like this one are very destructive to national health as a whole as it just gives those who are unsure about training another excuse not to start. If exercise has very little impact on an individuals weight please tell me how one of my recent clients lost 3 stone in 4 months through exercise alone without any dietry adjustments- :roll:

[newguy]

and he is the director of what at the university of what? So much for promoting exercise. I don't believe this. How the hell are you going to burn calories if you want to lose weight. Yes, it is not easy, but it is our job to motivate and encourage people that it is quite possible and obviously some people don't even need our help.

[Christina]

I am confused why some of you would disagree with the nutrition part. Even Alwyn Cosgrove emphasizes that proper nutrition is number one AND number two when it comes to weight loss. Please be specific! (I did not read the entire article so maybe I'm missing something!)

Christina

[muscletrainerdh-NSCA CPT]

What I don't like about the nutrition part is that they automatically assume everyone is eating too much.

But what really is happening is people realize they are fat and then they think if they cut their calories by 500 to 1000 each day they'll lose weight.
So they eat fewer meals. They eat maybe once or twice a day and that is what is slowing their metabolism down and causing them NOT TO LOSE WEIGHT.

I'm 100% sure Alwyn doesn't promote 1000 calorie deficits through diet alone nor eating fewer meals.

I agree with the eat more "whole Foods" and less processed sugars and flours part.

But I also think you need both a sensible meal plan and exercise plan to make the weight loss stick.

[kettlebell king]

Obviously I do think nutrition has to be combined with exercise to give a hollistic aproach however I think articles like this cause crash and yo yo dieting - to coin some phrases- in some individuals.It also doesn't high light the need for strength training during dieting to prevent and maintain muscle mass. Not only that, it fails to recognise that if calories are drastically reduced muscle can be lost nearly at the same rate as fat and so slowing down the m.b and making the individuals body weight indeed go down but the body fat composition rise. Establishing a average daily calorific intake over 7 days then reducing that total by 10% is a far better way of weight loss with minimum muscle loss.

[megfit]

Hi all,

Ok, I read the whole article and there are a few things to comment on. Sure, I could have a lot of fun picking things here and there to comment on, but honestly, I don't have the time (I SHOULD be studying for my accounting final, whoopee).

First of all, I think it's OUR job to educate the people we come into contact with. That's our best defense to any information/mis-information/skewed information that people read. And, Lord knows; there's TONS of mis-information out there.
But, when you take this article as a whole, I don't think this is mis-information. These are all people who specialize in what they do, and are sharing what they see and what perspectives they have formed along the way.

As I read this, I instantly thought of the National Weight Control Registry (sorry to our non-US members!). I won't assume you all know about this, so here is the link: http://www.nwcr.ws/
What I like about the NWCR is they use the members of the Registry to research what REALLY works, and here is what they've learned through the years:
** It doesn't matter how people initially lose weight as much as what they do to MAINTAIN that weight.
** Regular exercise IS important.
** A diet low in fat and moderate in calories is important.

I'm sure there are other important things, but these are the three things that are in my head (without reviewing the site).

What's my point? My point is, yes, there may be truth to the fact that if a person can just change their diet initially (usually cut out the junk), they will successfully lose some weight. THEN they can start using exercise as a means to lose on an ongoing basis. We, as trainers, generally want clients to do both. However, also keep in mind that if you have a client who has a great amount of weight to lose, chances are they will be more motivated, and see greater results, if they make dietary changes long before their exercise is real effective. They have a lot of physiological adjusting to do before much is happening visibly, so in the meantime they need to feel they are doing something that they SEE is making a difference.

Yes, most people do need to cut down their calories. I'll talk about the other side in a minute, but you can just look around and see that people are NOT starving. This does not mean they are adequately NOURISHED, they just aren't starving. I don't believe that a diet of Egg McNothin' and diet coke and whatever else is a healthy, nourishing diet. But they are taking in too many of the wrong type of calories and not doing anything physical. Add in a few things talked about in the article, about stress and lack of adequate sleep, and you pretty much have people who are overweight, undernourished and at huge risks for disease and death.

However, there is a population of people who are NOT eating enough in order to adequately burn body fat. However, I don't believe this is the population that these interviewed people are addressing. I doubt if Duke gets people who only have 50# to lose. These are the centers that get the people who have HUNDREDS of pounds to lose.

This could be a never-ending topic to address, but my main point is that this isn't necessarily a bad article. There are tons of them like this out there. I again go back to the National Weight Control Registry, because I feel that really tells things like they are.

Margie

[Christina]

I tend to agree with Margie. I guess the way I look at this article is the experts that were interviewed were sharing the conclusions they have drawn after studying THOUSANDS of obese individuals. These people work for some of the most respected universities in the U.S. and their job is to study weight loss. I would venture to say that they aren't trying to mislead anyone. As fitness professionals we tend to get wrapped up in the whole weight loss thing and we forget the many other benefits of exercise.

BrianB - You have shared with us that you've lost a significant amount of weight. How did you do it? How have you kept it off?


Christina

[BrianB]

I tend to agree with Margie. I guess the way I look at this article is the experts that were interviewed were sharing the conclusions they have drawn after studying THOUSANDS of obese individuals. These people work for some of the most respected universities in the U.S. and their job is to study weight loss. I would venture to say that they aren't trying to mislead anyone. As fitness professionals we tend to get wrapped up in the whole weight loss thing and we forget the many other benefits of exercise.

BrianB - You have shared with us that you've lost a significant amount of weight. How did you do it? How have you kept it off?


Christina

I may not be a fair comparison, but I lost about 170 someodd pounds with absolutely no exercise at all. I did not have gastric bypass, but I did do a medically supervised VLCD (Very Low Calorie Diet). I have to admit that when I first read the post and scanned the article I didn't see anything in the article to take exception with.

I'm definitely in the "exercise has very little to do with weight loss" camp. This position comes both from my own experience, as well as from the results of just about every credible study ever done on the topic. Resistance training during dieting will help reduce the amount of lean tissue loss during caloric restriction, but will not eliminate it. Anybody who tells you that their program will let you build muscle while eating a caloric deficit is either a liar or simply mis-informed as such is metabolically impossible.

For morbidly obese folks doing a medically supervised VLCD I would actually argue against doing any exercise other than some general resistance training to help shorten the muscle fibers as they rapidly lose intramuscular fat (which will leave the muscles overly long making them seem to be weak when in fact they are just too long). I wouldn't recommend any cardio as the VLCD leaves no glycogen to support sustained rapid energy consuming activities.

For folks doing the traditional "diet and exercise" route, then I agree 100% with the "500 to 1000 calorie per day deficit" with half the deficit coming from caloric restriction and half coming from increased activity (such as cardio). Toss in resistance training to help reduce (but not eliminate) lean tissue loss, and you've got a well rounded program.

There is no credible study that I'm aware of that even suggests that meaningful, lasting weight loss is possible with exercise alone.

All of that said, I think that exercise and resistance training are excellent tools for "weight management" (keeping it off) as they tend to moderate hunger and give you enough metabolic help to tolerate a little indiscretion with food here and there. The problem with exercise is if folks take it up with the mindset of "doing it to lose weight", and plan to quit upon reaching their goal weight (because they hate it), then when they do quit, from personal experience, their hunger (which was moderated by the exercise before) will come back on strong. Now they have a double whammy because they a) can't eat as much as they could when exercising because their daily energy expenditure is lower, and b) they are hungrier and want to eat even more.

I prefer to say "if you want to exercise because you like it and plan to do it for the rest of your life, then you should, otherwise, you should find life activities to increase your daily energy expenditure". In my case I never exercised while losing the weight, but once I was "to goal" I wanted to make something else out of my new smaller body and started exercising. I find (now) that I like exercising whereas before I hated it. Now I go because I'm trying to accomplish something, not because I feel like I have to.

I kinda rambled around here and there. Hopefully something in all that made some sort of sense. I've experienced so much on this topic that I could (and perhaps should) write a book on the topic, so when answering seemingly simple questions I tend to have a flood of about 1000 things I want to say, and end up picking and choosing a handful which may or may not even make any sense together.

I know you asked for my two cents, and I probably gave 5 cents worth -- but there it is. Just my opinion. What the heck do I know? :roll: