Why Exercise Alone Doesn’t Work 2

Another factor to consider on the subject of why exercise alone

doesn’t seem to help most people lose much weight has to do with the power of estimation: people have trouble determining their eating and exercise levels accurately. Research has found that it is very common to underestimate the number of calories consumed in food. At the same time, numerous studies have found that it is also very common to overestimate the time spent engaged in activity. For example, a Uni- versity of Pittsburgh School of Medicine study followed fifty over- weight women involved  in a behavioral weight control program. Participants were required to exercise for 30 minutes.
One group exer- cised for 30 minutes without a break; the other group exercised in three

10-minute spurts. All of the women were asked to record their activ- ity in a daily exercise log. To validate their self-reported information,they wore a device that measured their activity. The results? Approxi-mately 45 percent of the women overreported the amount of exercise they performed, and there was no difference between the women engaged in long bouts of exercise and those engaged in short bouts. Even more alarming: the women who overreported their exercise lost on average 3 pounds less than the women who underreported their exercise. While this study was done with women, the same results would likely be seen in men.A more effective and more realistic approach than exercising alone is to split the caloric difference. Begin by reducing calories from food and then add exercise to your strategy.