It’s often been said that weight control comes down to arithmetic. If you burn up more calories than you take in you lose weight. If you consume more than you burn, you gain weight. These ideas have been around for decades now. And for the most part, they are true. They are perhaps a bit over-simplistic (there are subtleties and added complexities and things we are yet to understand) and some people consider this “harsh” or even a form of “fat shaming”. Some caution and sensitivity is needed. And yet it remains largely true that the equation is correct.
calories in MINUS calories used EQUALS weight change
Most of us know this. What we may not appreciate is just how this works, in real life. Here are some examples:
- Brisk walking uses about 50 calories per km. A half cup of ice cream contains about 250 calories. So to “lose” the ice cream calories you’d need to run about 5km. For one small ice cream.
- One kg of fat tissue contains about 7000 calories. To lose this , just through exercise, you’d need to do something like 140km of walking. That is a lot of walking.
….you can look up lots of these sorts of examples. The point is that exercise, on its own, is not really the answer. We need to consume fewer calories. We need to eat less.
What exercise can do for us is:
- Help with the arithmetic. A bit. Yes.
- Speed up our metabolism so that we burn more calories even when not exercising.
- Improve motivation and mood and general energy levels.
- Improve strength, balance, fitness, and overall health.
- Improve the sustainability of weight control efforts. Many studies have shown this effect and it is probably the result of all the above factors in combination.
Living actively is one of the very best things we can do for ourselves. There are so many benefits in almost every area of our lives. But we should be realistic about its role in weight control. It helps and it can help quite a bit. But perhaps not just as much as you’d hope.
Written by Dr Colin Burns
