Fat-Loss Freakonomics: Exercise Less, Lose More. Whaaaa…? Danish Study Discovers The Secret

Oh God, This Sounds Like An Infomercial.:
We’ve told you before that for fat loss or weight loss Nutrition is king.

We’ve also told you that the slow-carb diets are the ones that pay the greatest returns over time, too.

And we’ve also recruited cast-iron triathletes and anorexic movie-stars to help convince you that you cannot out-exercise bad nutrition.

Well, the Danes came up with a neat footer to the one that says you can exercise too much,

And somehow, it says you may need less exercise than you ever thought…

Exercise Vs. Metabolism For Fat Loss: FIGHT!

So our odd-but-happy friends in extreme northern Europe decided to test Exercise vs. Metabolism with a normal diet. And they put 64 chubby-yet-healthy people through an exercise program with nutrition-monitoring to see how much weight & fat they lost.

-But with one interesting catch: There were no restrictions other than strict reporting & doing the exercise. Because they wanted the most real-life data they could get.

And this interesting article by New York Magazine might give you a hint where we’re going…

So after the study time, our wacky friends found out something interesting.

 
The Biggest Loser:
Both groups lost weight and fat.

They lost The Same amount of weight and fat.

But that’s more than a little weird,

Because one group did 2x the exercise! -60 minutes/day instead of just 30!

-BOOM!

 
Whaaaaat? -Wait, It Gets Better, And Weirder:
Ok, it gets even a little better.

Because I just told a couple of fibs up there.

The actual, even weirder truth is a bit more like this:

1) The moderate-exercise group that did 30 minutes/day actually lost more weight than the 60 minute group.

1.9 pounds more. Or relative to the heavies, almost 1/3 more. 7.9lbs vs. 6.0lbs.[make this less confusing. which is it? lost or gained?]

2) The moderate-exercise group actually lost more fat than the high-exercise group.

-By about .5lbs, or 6% more.
 

The Freaky Fat-Loss Bonus Of Moderate Exercise:

3) The moderate-exercise group actually burned more calories in a day. 550 vs. 470 on average! -???!?!!??

-This is particularly-surprising, because by exercise-alone, the 30 minute group was supposed to burn 300/day and the 60 minute group 600/day.

-And that’s a difference of +83% for the moderates, and -20% burned for the heavies. Both of these figures were WILDLY unexpected.

4) It’s even more interesting because the Resting Metabolism of the 60 minute group went up after exercise. -Even higher than researchers had guessed.

5) The moderates were 2x as likely to hit their target exercise amounts and had less variation in performance.

BONUS POINTS:!
6) Contrary to most weight-loss equations that say for every pound you lose it’s 70% Fat, 30% Muscle, Both groups lost almost exclusively Fat.

Exercise appeared to conserve lean muscle mass.


So What’s Happening Here?:
A few ways to explain the changes are as-follows:

1) The 60 minute group actually gained a little weight in the form of muscle-mass.

2) The 60 minutes of exercise probably took too much energy out of the second group. They may have ended up drained instead of energized.

2a) The 60 minute group did much less of what’s called NEATs, or moving around during the rest of your day after exercise. So they lose out on the standard, after-gym calorie-burning most people do.

3) Since nobody’s diet was restricted, and nutrition-reporting is notoriously-difficult, the heavies probably just ate more to compensate.


Not Perfectly Clear, But Still Freaky-Great News For Most People:
Now perhaps there are several nits to pick, including the unrestricted diet and long-term muscle-building ones.

-But either way, for a study that tests the way most people are likely to act and also proves how much you need to do for the most likely results,

This is still an amazing and counter-intuitive result!

It’s also particularly-relevant for those of us who eat and react more like normal people & don’t control our diets as strictly as a professional athlete.

I guess both Goldilocks and Dr. Mike Evans are right again; even for something like fat loss!

Check out the rest of the details at the Links:


Photo Credits:
Jerry The Minion Says What? Meme, from the movie “Despicable Me”, by Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud, Chris Meledandri, John Cohen, Janet Healy, Cinco Paul, Ken Daurio, Sergio Pablos, Illumination Entertainment, and Universal Pictures


Links:
• Source: U. Copenhagen
• via: ScienceNordic
• More Coverage: Telegraph UK
• Source Study: APS | APS-Full [PDF]