You've probably thought that exercising can justify eating badly, but it turns that's false. A new study shows that exercising may be the reason we are not losing weight and even gaining it in some circumstances. The reason is quite simple and it will shock you to know how something we thought was helping us lose the bulge can actually be counterproductive!
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It turns out, __people overestimate the amount of calories they burn and then gorge on excess calories__after exercising. Despite our attempts to have an active lifestyle, the latest report says that it doesn't change the fact that we are STILL obese.
According to the U.K.'s Daily Mail, exercise physiologist Dr. Joseph Donnelly claims that people are misusing the guidelines for exercise which were never intended to manage weight. In fact, he says that they our government's guidelines were NEVER intended for weight loss. It is recommended that we exercise 20 minutes a day, and in order to lose weight we have to work out 250 to 300 minutes a week. Dr. Donnelly knocks that theory and says that instead that's the MINIMUM unless you're after weight maintenance.
Spokesperson for the American Council of Exercise, Jonathan Ross told the site the problem with our perception of exercise is completely misguided. He said, "We put exercise in a box and once that exercise box is filled in we don't do much the rest of the day." Therefore a healthy diet plus an active lifestyle are more wholesome than slacking on one or the other.
Exercise Physiology professor, Dr. Michele Olson also supports these claims and says everyone should be exercising to begin with, but it is difficult to lose weight just through exercise. She explained that one pound of fat contains 3,500 calories and it takes a lot more exercise than you think to burn off fat to lose weight. She elaborated that a 26 mile run only burns 2,600 calories which is nowhere close to burning off that single pound of fat. Can you imagine that!?
If you're guilty of thinking you can gorge on that cupcake before exercising, you can throw that idea away because it cancels out the work you put in. I'm guilty of rationalizing that if I eat a plate of fries, that it was okay because I could burn it off later. It's unfortunate that that's not how a "healthy" lifestyle works since in the end it does nothing. It's best to eat as well as possible daily and get some exercise in, but if you think you can burn off two slices of pizza during an hour workout … well, you're only fooling yourself.
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