Unfortunately, the maths isn't in our favour. Most of us have a grasp of the rudiments of weight gain and loss: you put energy (calories) into your body through food, you expend them through movement, and any that don't get burned off are stored in your body as fat. It's just that, in defiance of decades of New Year resolutions, it's unlikely to make us slim. After all, exercise is still good for us. And it's a scientific discovery that most health professionals are, naturally, keen to downplay. It sounds faintly heretical, if not downright facetious. The Mayo Clinic, a not-for-profit medical research establishment in the US, reports that, in general, studies "have demonstrated no or modest weight loss with exercise alone" and that "an exercise regimen… is unlikely to result in short-term weight loss beyond what is achieved with dietary change." That tri-weekly commitment to aerobics class? Almost worthless, as far as fitting into your bikini is concerned. More and more research in both the UK and the US is emerging to show that exercise has a negligible impact on weight loss. Since the days of the Green Goddess, we've known that the healthiest way to lose weight is through exercise. She ought to have been the slimmest of the bunch: that she remained overweight was a frustration to her, and a mystery to all of us.įrom StairMasters to kettlebells, Rosemary Conley to Natalie Cassidy, we understand and expect that getting in shape is going to require serious effort on our part – and the reverse is true, too, that we expect exercise to pay back the hours of boring, sweaty graft with a leaner, lighter body. She didn't eat unhealthily – the rest of the family ate exactly the same meals, and did a fraction of the exercise she did. Most days she took the dog for a brisk, hour-long walk. Every week she headed to the gym, where she pounded the treadmill like a paratrooper, often three times a week. A size 18 and a couple of stone heavier than ideal, she tried in vain for years to shed the extra. My mum used to complain that she couldn't lose weight.
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