Exercise not likely to rev up your metabolism

Right and wrong.

First note the response of the experts to what Fitness Watch readers have been told all along:

"Experts ‘flabbergasted’"

These experts are morons to be flabbergasted and are likely flabby flabbergasted experts, to boot.

In any event...

"Start exercising and you’ll become a round-the-clock, fat-burning machine, right? That’s long been a commonly held belief among exercisers and fitness experts alike. But a new report finds that, sadly, it’s not very likely."

This is correct.

Here is where they start to approach trouble.

"In the new report, published in the journal Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews, Melanson and colleagues discuss research to date on the issue of burning fat during and after exercise. The authors conclude that while people do burn more fat when they are exercising than when they are not, they have no greater ability to burn fat over the next 24 hours than on days when they are couch potatoes."

Research has shown that one does burn more fat, the so-called "afterburn," following INTENSE training and usually with weights, not aerobic exercise.

Even aerobic training at a relatively high intensity (you cannot train as intensely aerobically as you can anaerobically) does not come close to the anaerobic afterburn.

Here is how they did the study:

"In their own research, Melanson and his team studied moderately active people who, on separate days, performed low-intensity or high-intensity cycling, or no structured exercise at all. They repeated their experiment with endurance athletes (competitive runners and triathletes), while comparing sedentary obese people with sedentary lean people, and then again while comparing older men with younger men.

None of these studies, which involved a total of 65 exercisers whose dietary intake was closely controlled, showed that people burned substantially more fat in the 24 hours after they exercised than on days when they didn’t exercise. Melanson says other experts in his field have been 'flabbergasted' by the results."

No need to flabbered or gasted.

This result was 100% predictable from prior studies and has been known for years. (see here, here, here and here.)

"'Bottom line is that we once thought that exercise would burn calories, especially fat calories, for a long period after a bout of exercise,' says exercise physiologist Gerald Endress, fitness director for the Duke University Diet and Fitness Center who was not involved in the research. 'This does not seem to be the case.'”

Wrong, friend-o.

You just did the wrong type of training.

Because you did not read-up on your literature first.

And wasted everybody's time. And resources.

This is correct:

"While it’s true that a pound of muscle burns more calories than a pound of fat — about seven to 10 calories a day versus two calories — most people don’t put on enough muscle to make much of a difference, Endress says."

To put on muscle, you have to train properly and in a particular manner. Otherwise, it ain't never gonna happen.

And Fitness Watch readers have been made aware of this, too. Year, after year, after year.

"...it’s harder to lose weight with exercise than diet.' That’s not surprising when you consider that it might take an hour to burn 400 calories but just five minutes to consume them."

Which is why Fitness Watch readers have been warned that exercise is a very inefficient way to lose weight.

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