EUGENIZATION.

Every once in awhile, if you consume enough media, you’ll come across a real gem of an article.

Gary Taubes writes about how exercise doesn’t make you thinner - and how that myth came to be:

“The Scientist and the Stairmaster”

Ahh…the sweet taste of vindication. His insight might be old-hat if you’re already familiar with the research, but Mr. Taubes truly puts it all together in a well-written, straightforward manner. A summary of his key points:

• The research supporting the idea that exercising more (i.e., “doing more cardio”) results in greater weight loss simply doesn’t exist. Upping your treadmill time from 30 to 60 minutes won’t change a thing on your waistline - but controlling calorie intake and insulin levels will.

• We believe more exercise will help us lose more weight because of cultural hypnosis and the seminal work of Dr. Jean Mayer, not because the science actually says so.

• Lots of vigorous exercise makes you hungrier, so you eat more (and offset the calories you burned via exercising). Lesser amounts and intensities of exercise don’t burn enough calories to make it worthwhile (sounds familiar).

This article gives a prime example of the bias with which much of our fitness, health, and nutritional information is filtered through, and why it’s dangerous to accept “official guidelines” and “the latest scientific news” at face value. Even researchers who should know better act upon faith instead of science:

Steve Blair, for instance, a University of South Carolina exercise scientist and a co-author of the AHA-ACSM guidelines, says he was “short, fat, and bald” when he started running in his thirties and he is short, fatter, and balder now, at age 68. In the intervening years, he estimates, he has run close to 80,000 miles and gained about 30 pounds.

When I asked Blair whether he thought he might be leaner had he run even more, he had to think about it. “I don’t see how I could have been more active,” he said. “Thirty years ago, I was running 50 miles a week. I had no time to do more. But if I could have gone out over the last couple of decades for two to three hours a day, maybe I would not have gained this weight.” (emphasis mine)

WOW. Not only is Dr. Blair ignoring the findings in the AHA-ACSM report (which he co-authored), he is willing to discount his own personal experience. Now that’s what you can call a real “faith-based initiative.”

(BTW, in case you didn’t know who Dr. Blair is, he is a renowned researcher and “guru” of exercise science. The mere mention of his name elicits oohs and aahs from exercise physiology departments in colleges and universities all across the country. He’s probably best known for the ACLS (Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study), which is probably the largest study aside from Framingham that looks at how lifestyle factors like smoking and exercise affect mortality. Just in case the other 349 studies he published or co-authored caught your eye as well.)

Just goes to show you - you are your own best council. Take what you read with a grain of salt (Celtic Sea Salt, preferably), even the stuff you read on this blog. Don’t stop at the headlines, look deeper. Check the actual research, the actual science, and see what it says. The answers may surprise you.

The moral of the story: Don’t look to exercise as a panacea for your fat loss woes. Without proper nutritional habits, you’ll be getting nowhere fast with regards to fat loss (although exercise will make you feel better, sleep better, live longer, etc.).

Sorry, you can’t outrun a crappy diet.