--- title: Lean Times description: Lean Times --- [![SlowBurn](https://blog.slowburnpersonaltraining.com/hubfs/SlowBurn_Personal_Training_July2017/Images/logo.png "SlowBurn")](http://seriousstrength.com/index.php) - [Default HubSpot Blog](https://blog.slowburnpersonaltraining.com/blog) # Lean Times August 21, 2009 While John Cloud erred in several ways in his Time magazine article titled [Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin](http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1914857-4,00.html), he's correct on the fat loss issue. Many people including the Surgeon General have lambasted Mr. Cloud for his candor and scientifically sound information on getting svelte.  What he was saying is that exercise does not affect fat loss much if at all. And research on the subject of exercise and fat loss supports his statement time and time again. Even the American College of Sports Medicine agrees that exercise does little to affect it as we’ll learn shortly.  The knee-jerk reactions that bombarded the internet lambasting Cloud for the article which include Jake Steinfeld (the Jake of  Body by Jake Fame) only serve to keep people fat and injured.  They assume that Cloud is saying that exercise is not good for us or that it provides no benefit. That is not what John Cloud was saying. And he does, in fact, make mention of the many benefits of exercise. In fact he even says at the end of the article “You should exercise to improve your health…” Again, the title of the article is "Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin." And it won't. It never has and that is a fact of science. Good for John for having the guts to reveal this information and help us all get closer to the truth and, perhaps, save us from an orthopedic injury.  Jake Steinfield, who may I say I respect and admire, had this to say on his [Huffington Post blog](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jake-steinfeld/the-ireali-truth-about-ex_b_262321.html):  “Cloud states that the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association's guidelines regarding weight loss and exercise are unrealistic, especially for those with jobs or those looking for jobs. The guidelines encourage exercise for 60 to 90 minutes on most days of the week. What he fails to mention is that they also say that "research shows that moderate-intensity physical activity can be accumulated throughout the day in 10-minute bouts, which can be just as effective as exercising for 30 minutes straight. This can be useful when trying to fit physical activity into a busy schedule."  What Jake neglects to mention is that, unfortunately for those who seek to lose weight via exercise, the ACSM admits exercise doesn’t work. From the AHA/ ACSM paper titled: **[Physical Activity and Public Health. Updated Recommendation for Adults From the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association](http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/reprint/CIRCULATIONAHA.107.185649v1)** (page 7):  “It is reasonable to assume that persons with relatively high daily energy expenditures would be less likely to gain weight over time, compared with those who have low energy expenditures. So far, data to support this hypothesis are not particularly compelling.”  Also from Jake’s Huff Post blog (he is quoting Dr. Robert Sallis, past president of the American College of Sports Medicine):  "If exercise were a pharmaceutical it would be the most potent drug ever invented. Exercise has been clearly proven to prevent and treat chronic diseases and lower mortality rates. From a scientific perspective, any attempt to discredit the value of exercise is just laughable and potentially very harmful to the public. As a physician who works hard to get patients more active, I find it very irresponsible for *Time* magazine to run a story that so misrepresents the facts." Well, Dr. Sallis isn’t quite correct. All of the studies done on exercise that are used as iron clad proof that exercise prevents and treats chronic disease and lowers mortality rates are epidemiological / observational studies. These types of studies are not controlled research studies. They can only suggest an association - they do not prove cause and effect. Just because people who exercise regulary live longer and are generally healthier than those who don’t doesn’t mean that the exercise caused these benefits. But why? Why does exercise have little to no effect on fat loss? There are many reasons including increased appetite and being more sedentary after the workout. An interesting example of this was watching my daughters ride their bikes around Mackinac Island last week while we were on vacation and after the 8 mile ride all they wanted to do was sit in bed and read. But the most important issue is the understanding of the language of fat loss. What tells the body to release fat from the fat cells? Fat loss is not a numbers game. In other words, a calorie is not always just a calorie. Fat loss is a hormonal game. Fat is not released from the fat cells because you burn calories doing exercise. No one loses fat without altering their diet and sticking to that alteration. And the specific alteration is a reduction in carbohydrates, not necessarily calories, which in turn reduces insulin secretion, which in turn allows the lipids to be released form the fat cell. That's the biochemistry. We don't get to vote on it. There are other issues, but this is far and away the most critical. And why do so many experts and the ACSM assume exercise will work even though time and time again research fails to support the assumption. So too do the failures of millions of Americans who try to shed the pounds by sweating to the oldies. A thorough read of Gary Taubes' book [Good Calories Bad Calories](http://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Gary-Taubes/dp/1400040787) explains this in great detail. According to Gary: "Obesity is a disorder of excess fat accumulation. So the question everyone should be asking and always should have been asking is what factors regulate fat accumulation? As it turns out we've known that since the 1960s and it is not controversial. You can find it in endocrinology and biochemistry textbooks, just not in obesity textbooks. Fat accumulation is fundamentally determined by the hormone insulin and our insulin levels go up and down with the quantity and quality of carbohydrates we consume. The more carbs we eat, the more refined they are and the sweeter they are (the more fructose in them, in other words), the more insulin we will ultimately secrete. The higher our insulin levels, the more fat we accumulate." Exercise cannot and does not solve the problem of fat release from the fat cell. The real key to the fat cell is not exercise. It is the control of hormonal tone and the most important hormone to control is insulin. As the late Carl Sagan said: "Science as a candle in the dark." 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