Should we exercise?
As our society becomes more sedentary and allows technology the licence to relieve us of the burden of light activity, we become estranged from some of the basic joys of life. Walking is increasingly foreign to the upwardly mobile human being. Who has time for enjoyable activity in this busy life? I see often now during my trivia quiz training (The Chase) that treadmills are being treated as a new invention. Listen to voice-over guy softly caress your wallet out: "The secret is in the one measly horse power, and in the non disclosure of cost".
It's still free to go outside isn't it?
How can you justify the time taken to amble around, often to accomplish a complete circuit, effectively going nowhere? As science has shown over and over, we really need a policy for regular exercise, because as I am about to show you, there's no sense in avoiding it. So what are the consequences of exercise?
Gary Taubes writes a compelling argument in his book Why we get fat and what to do about it. He delves into the assertion of the scientific canon that strongly suggests exercise causes the heavy to lose weight, and the lean to stay lean. Strangely, the evidence isn't there. What science has been able to establish is that in populations that have successfully lost weight, exercise played no part in maintenance of that loss. This is rather shocking to the person who has grown up under the assumption that exercise will cause weight loss. What is interesting is that multinational food producers peddling nutritional trash use the energy in, energy out mantra to justify their particular product in the context of a healthy "balanced" diet.
A study that surveyed 13,000 runners found that those who run the most weighed the least, but they all put on weight every year, even high volume runners. The researchers, clearly shocked by their findings went on to advocate yearly increases in running distance to maintain weight which, applied over years, would see the casual runner having to eventually run five half marathons a week. Robert Lustig in his book Fat Chance points out that when you exercise you build muscle, which increases weight.
"Good for your health but doesn't reduce your weight."