The biggest detour to lose weight: exercise to lose weight and heat balance theory

Can exercise lose weight? This is indeed a question worth discussing.

It is believed that exercise can lose weight, which is largely influenced by the "heat balance theory". Heat balance theory holds that: heat intake >; Intake of calories makes people fat; Calorie intake

You can lose weight by taking more calories → you can take more calories by exercising → you can lose weight by exercising. This is the most important logical chain about exercise to lose weight, so before formally discussing the influence of exercise on us, we should first discuss whether the "heat balance theory" can guide weight loss.

Readers who have read our previous articles about dieting (click to review: Can dieting lose weight? ), we should remember that the obesity rate in the United States, which pushed the "heat balance theory" to the peak, is still rising year by year. The failure of the ending cannot be directly used to explain that the "heat balance theory" is wrong. In fact, there are several key problems in using heat balance theory to guide weight loss.

Counting calories: an "impossible task"

Quite a few people who lose weight, including you, must be very familiar with various websites and apps that calculate food calories. The calories of various foods are marked in detail. For example, 100g rice is 1 16 calories, and an apple is 53 calories. ...

The point is, how to calculate the amount of food accurately and conveniently without using professional instruments? How to distinguish between 100g and 120g? Are the calories of big apples the same as those of small apples?

The same is true for sports, although you can find the scale between various sports and calories burned, or there are various sports apps for easy calculation. But everyone's weight, exercise intensity and basal metabolism are different, so it is impossible for you to calculate the calorie consumption value accurately.

If you have tried your best to query and calculate, but the value you get is completely unreliable, is this method still meaningful?

Let's do a simple calculation: suppose your calculated calorie intake is 20% different from the actual one (not too high). When you calculate that the calorie intake is 1600 calories, you have probably consumed more than 1900 calories.

Maybe you will say, or maybe the actual intake is less than I calculated.

For most people who lose weight by counting calories, how to eat more within the upper limit of calorie value is an instinctive reaction. Less than it really is? Almost non-existent.

Of course, some people bought a food scale to accurately calculate calories (we don't mention the inconvenience of weighing every meal and eating out); Some people think that their special sports bracelets, watches and instruments can accurately calculate calorie consumption.

If you can accurately calculate calories, can you use the heat balance theory to guide weight loss?

Different foods with the same calories have different effects.

This is the most absurd point of guiding weight loss through the theory of heat balance.

Do 200 calories of milk and 200 calories of coke have the same effect on weight? Milk will bring more satiety, while cola will make people hungrier, and it is easier to send heat into fat storage.

Even believers in the theory of heat balance have to admit that foods with the same calories have different effects on the body. In recent years, the theory of glycemic index is often mentioned as a supplementary theory of heat balance theory: although some foods have low calories, they have high glycemic index, so even if the calories are low, they should eat less; Although some foods are high in calories, they have low glycemic index, so you can eat more despite the high calories.

When you eat foods with the same calories, some foods will make you thin, while others will make you fat. Calculating calorie values is completely meaningless.

Eating and exercising have become a painful thing.

Eating should make people feel happy, enjoy and relax, and exercise should also bring pleasure to people. But once the heat value is calculated according to the heat balance theory, you can't eat if the heat is too high. If you eat hundreds of calories, you will jog for hours ... eating and exercising instantly become a painful task.

It is only a matter of time before the discordant way to lose weight finally fails. No one can force their psychological and physiological instincts to fight for a long time.

We don't evaluate the right or wrong of heat balance theory, but take heat balance theory as the guiding principle of weight loss, which is meaningless.

In fact, the human body is a very sophisticated system, and it is completely wishful thinking to think that the intake and consumption of calories is a simple problem of adding and subtracting balance.

After talking about using heat balance theory to guide weight loss, let's take a look at what kind of influence exercise will have on the body.

A stronger appetite

There is no doubt that exercise often increases people's appetite, which is determined by our physical instinct.

Jogging for 30 minutes can consume less than 200 calories, while drinking a bottle of sports drink or eating a small bowl of rice after exercise can make up the calories consumed in just a few minutes.

If you refrain from eating more calories after exercise, it is also a disguised diet plan. For the issue of dieting, please refer to our previous article on dieting.

Must maintain high-intensity exercise for a long time.

A study on sports in Britain found that people often unconsciously take a longer rest or reduce their daily activities after exercise.

Our body will spontaneously control itself to ensure that our overall daily calorie consumption remains within a certain range. People who exercise less are more likely to shake their legs or have other involuntary little moves, which is actually a manifestation of the human body's natural control of calorie consumption.

If you want to lose weight by creating calorie difference through exercise, you must ensure high-intensity long-term persistence, which is quite unfriendly to dieters with large weight base. Even dieters with a small weight base cannot exercise for a long time.

In addition, the effect of exercise is not permanent. When you stop exercising, whether the weight loss effect can last needs a big question mark.

A very intuitive example is that many professional athletes who insist on high-intensity exercise all the year round will inevitably gain weight quickly after retirement.

We must mobilize a lot of willpower resources.

It is slow to lose weight only by exercise, and a lot of willpower resources must be mobilized to control it. Anything that requires a lot of willpower for a long time will eventually fail.

Willpower is like the power of our mobile phone, which needs to be charged every day, and the power is fixed between each charging cycle. If we spend most of our electricity on losing weight, we will naturally have less electricity to deal with other daily affairs.

Once we face pressure or complicated situations in life, it is easy to have a shortage of "electricity", and it is more difficult for us to lose weight by eating less and exercising more. There are many studies that show that exercise can hardly help to lose weight.

Some people will say that you can't keep exercising, which means you have no self-discipline and perseverance. Of course, we don't deny that people with strong willpower can keep exercising for a long time, but that is a very small number after all. It is quite unfair to accuse most people of lack of self-discipline and perseverance with a way of losing weight that is only suitable for a few people.

Besides, many people who exercise all the year round do not have stronger willpower. They may have been kidnapped by sports.

Sports addiction, also known as sports obsessive-compulsive disorder. Often ignored by people who exercise all the year round, it has several important characteristics:

It is difficult to get interested in other sports by doing a single rigid exercise all the year round. For example, a runner can keep running rain or shine, but it is difficult for him to play basketball or ride a bike instead of running, even if both are sports.

Exercise has become a compulsive behavior, and once it stops, it will produce mood disorders and anxiety. Many sports addicts, when they are sick or tired, have to force themselves to exercise to relieve their anxiety, even though they know they should not exercise.

Keep increasing the amount of exercise. If the body adapts to the current amount of exercise, sports addicts tend to continue to improve the intensity of exercise until the physiological limit, in order to obtain satisfaction.

Society has praised regular athletes. Once they admit that they may be addicted to sports, the aura of "self-discipline" and "perseverance" disappears, which is also an important reason why many sports addicts deliberately ignore their own problems.

Maybe you will think there is nothing wrong with sports addiction. In fact, excessive exercise can also bring health problems. Take running for example. Running with too high frequency and intensity can easily cause sports injuries to feet and knees.

Of course, not all people who exercise all the year round are sports addicts. Crucially, current research shows that people who are eager to change their body shape through exercise are more likely to suffer from exercise addiction. So when you exercise for the purpose of losing weight, you should pay more attention to this.

Another interesting topic is that apart from gyms, food and beverage manufacturers spare no effort to promote exercise to lose weight.

For example, one of the most famous cola companies in the world has invested a lot of money to support various nutrition institutions, non-governmental organizations and public health-related undertakings around the world to promote "the key to avoiding obesity is exercise", which has also been followed by many other food and beverage manufacturers.

The reason is simple: when you blame obesity on your lack of perseverance to keep exercising, all kinds of processed snacks and sugary drinks are exempted from responsibility.

Of course not.

All the above statements are to show that exercise can hardly help to lose weight, but it can bring us many other benefits. For example, strengthen our cardiopulmonary function, improve immunity or bring us a better sense of energy. Research also shows that exercise can even improve brain function and enhance our learning ability, understanding ability and memory.

In addition, although exercise can't play a direct role in losing weight, moderate exercise will help us keep a good figure for a long time after losing weight. No matter what kind of exercise you choose, you should not have the purpose of losing weight. We need to learn to find natural pleasure in sports.

Sports are not just boring running or gym. Walking the dog, playing somatosensory games and even doing housework are all sports. Team sports are also easier for people to have fun. Try to play basketball and badminton with some friends. When you begin to enjoy sports and have natural exercise habits, the benefits that sports bring to you will really show up.

Exercise has many benefits, but it doesn't include losing weight.

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