Time magazine is going to get a lot of people up in arms over this, but maybe not actually up off their sofas.
Yep, the article in question, “Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin” posits the idea that working at working out is akin to the old dog chasing his tail scenario: You’ll keep doing it just to keep doing it, with no real results.
Oh, I take that back. You’ll just get hungry. And then eat. Maybe a lot. And then the whole cycle starts over again. You keep working out, just to stoke your internal fires of hunger, not your metabolism.
This isn’t the first time an idea like this has been leveled at all of us collectively grunting, sweating and loathing our way on treadmills, Stairmasters and recumbent bicycles across America.
“In general, for weight loss, exercise is pretty useless,” Eric Ravussin, chair in diabetes and metabolism at Louisiana State University and a prominent exercise researcher tells Time. What does help, if you are trying to lose weight, is what has always helped: a healthy diet heavy on the fruit and vegetables, light on the bad fats and empty calories.
But, let’s not forget, in this contrarian take on the conventional wisdom, that there are myriad other reasons to exercise — disease prevention among them. As one of the first recommendations for protection against cancer, exercise is hard to beat. It helps boost your mood, your mental alertness, and is a great social activity as well, so don’t hang up those running shoes just yet.
Unless you were really looking for a reason to, then this might be it!
Read the full piece here.
Photo courtesy of Paul Kemkin@sxc.hu