It was easier to be skinny in the 1980s

[Walt34]

Sadly so many people are locked into the belief that they must exercise hard to lose weight.

The machines I use at the gym give an estimate of calories burned and at the end of a workout I get the total. All that hard work amounts to about one chocolate chip cookie. Clearly, exercise at the level I can or will do, will not make me lose weight.

 

[audreyh1]

Yes - it's hard to burn a lot of calories through exercise without going to extremes and the resulting health/injury risks. Plus exercise often makes you hungry, so it can be self-defeating.

Better to look at exercise as for fitness and improving metabolic health such as insulin sensitivity, lowering bp, etc., and not for weight loss.

Although I have to say on a very low-carb diet I can exercise without getting hungrier - probably because I can more easily draw directly from fat stores. But when I was on a more "normal" moderate carb diet I would get very hungry after exercise, probably the body's signal to replace glycogen. So there is that. In ketosis, glycogen stores remain depleted, yet an hour weights and cardio workout even if you haven't eaten for hours - no problem!

 

[timo2]

The point of the OP article was that changes in the human environment have caused changes in the stomach gut biome that makes all methods of losing weight more difficult. Upon further research of information that can be found online, this environment includes that of food animals and crops grown for food. Various drugs and pesticides are the most studied elements in the search for a reason why this happened or is happening. But I didn't see where anyone or any study had come up with a definite reason as to why the human gut biome has changed. I'm going to have to wait for the graphic novel version to totally understand it.

 

[Amethyst]

Typical gym exercise sessions may not burn all that many calories, but training creates lean muscle, which uses more calories even at rest.

 

[audreyh1]

Typical gym exercise sessions may not burn all that many calories, but training creates lean muscle, which uses more calories even at rest.

Yes, which is good. But normally the body simply eats more calories to compensate.