Exercise to gain fat?

F

fervor

New member
This has been kinda bothering me for a while. In the Harsh Truth forum, there is a sticky that lists the top 5 ways to gain body fat. #1 is doing long, slow aerobic exercise every day.

It's one thing to say that long slow exercise won't help other than to burn some calories. But it's a totally different thing to say that it's one of the top 5 ways to gain body fat. (Not sure how this is more effective than eating a pint of ice cream every night.)

Should I tell my parents to stop playing golf because that'll make them fat? Should I tell my grandmother to stop exercising 2 hours a day? BTW, my 86 year old grandmother is the most fit grandparent I've ever met.

I understand that there is a difference in effectiveness when you exercise properly to lose fat. But I'm going to need a LOT more evidence and convincing that doing exercise is one of the top ways to gain body fat. Moving the body should be better than not moving it at all.

The article makes it seem like if you aren't going to exercise properly, then it's better not to exercise at all.
 
I think the idea behind it is that when you do the same thing every day for the purpose of losing weight, you think the exercise is more effective than it actually is. So if you're counting on burning a certain number of calories and your body has adjusted such that you aren't burning as many as you think, then you will not be burning off as many calories as you think you are, you will be eating a certain amount depending on how much you burn, and that's where the fat gain can come in.

It's not that exercise will make you gain fat, it's that relying on a certain type of exercise without ever changing it may not burn the calories you think it does.

I hope this is right, I'm not a professional! :)
 
fervor said:
This has been kinda bothering me for a while. In the Harsh Truth forum, there is a sticky that lists the top 5 ways to gain body fat. #1 is doing long, slow aerobic exercise every day.

It's one thing to say that long slow exercise won't help other than to burn some calories. But it's a totally different thing to say that it's one of the top 5 ways to gain body fat. (Not sure how this is more effective than eating a pint of ice cream every night.)

Should I tell my parents to stop playing golf because that'll make them fat? Should I tell my grandmother to stop exercising 2 hours a day? BTW, my 86 year old grandmother is the most fit grandparent I've ever met.

I understand that there is a difference in effectiveness when you exercise properly to lose fat. But I'm going to need a LOT more evidence and convincing that doing exercise is one of the top ways to gain body fat. Moving the body should be better than not moving it at all.

The article makes it seem like if you aren't going to exercise properly, then it's better not to exercise at all.
Click to expand...

I suspect it - " that long slow exercise won't help other than to burn some calories " has more to do with the " fat burning zone ' fallacy than anything else.

It's not that this type of exercise makes you gain fat per se - all other things being equal, adding long slow cardio exercise to your daily routine will make you lose weight ...eventually. :)

It's just that " doing long, slow aerobic exercise every day " may not be the ' optimal way ' to lose fat when it comes to cardio.
 
Define fatter.

For some it may mean gaining more fat.

For others it may mean losing LBM, thus, increase BF%.
 
I think it was added because the theory was that your body will adapt and get very efficient at these exercises and after you do them for awhile, then they just don't have much effect at all. The whole idea behind exercising to lose weight is to be as INefficient as possible, but these long slow workouts are teaching your body to do the opposite. Basically if you don't push yourself, your body adapts and you don't burn anywhere near what you think you are, and that could lead to eating more than you ought to be, which leads to extra fat.
 
What everyone said here is true. But these explanations are still a far cry from explaining how the article ranks doing "long, slow aerobic exercise every day" as one of the "Top 5 Ways to GAIN Body Fat."

For example, here is a list of things you can do that is more effective at gaining body fat than anything on her list.

1. Eating too many calories.
2. Not doing any exercise at all.
3. Eating tons of processed starches/sugars.
4. Fad dieting, which leads to yo-yo weight loss/gain.

That means that the article isn't a list of the "Top 5 Ways to GAIN Body Fat". It's some advice on how to exercise properly to lose body fat.

It just bothers me because this article is a sticky in one of your forums, yet the title is obviously an exaggeration. As a result, although her advice seems sound, I can't help but question the validity of the article's contents.

I guess my primary point here is that the article makes it sound like doing 'fat burning zone' type aerobics is worse than doing no exercise at all. I find that rather questionable.

Here is a real life example. There are a lot of people who walk to work in the cities or bike to work in the burbs. They obviously don't want to work so hard that they sweat profusely, and for many, this commute does take a while. Their commute doesn't change, so it's the same intensity and duration every day for years and years. Are all these people gaining body fat as a result of thinking it's more healthy to walk/bike to work?
 
It's just a title. A title meant to draw you in as a reader.

And the article is about physique enhancement. Not how to get skinny. Big difference that you seem to be missing.
 
Wha? The article is clearly about how to lose bodyfat (i.e. getting skinny). Every single piece of advice in the article is directly pointed at fat loss and talks about losing and burning fat. That does fall under physique enhancement, which is essentially the goal of everyone who visits these forums.

As for the title, I guess it's just me. I was viewing the article as a real resource, not a fluff piece for a magazine like Maxim or Cosmo. As a result, I expected the title to accurately reflect the contents.
 
Ya, what do I know?

Losing weight is a lot different then physique enhancement.

To me, physique enhancement = body recomp

And to me, that is what this article is about. Losing fat and gaining/maintaining muscle.
 
Personally I thought it was kinda weird myself, if not misleading to some people. Seems like I even questioned that awhile back.
 
I think she was trying to touch on the simple notion that many people seem to have.... which is, endless hours of steady state cardio is NOT the answer to losing weight and maintaining muscle.

That's all. Her word choice may not be the greatest, but I certainly understand the points she is trying to make.

If you guys have such a problem with it, maybe you should start a poll and ask the forum as a whole. If too many people dislike the article, I'm sure it will be taken down.

Just my 2 cents.
 
Oh I got over it... just seemed kinda weird placing this above "pigging out for 2 hours straight at the buffet" in a "top 5 ways to gain fat" list, at least considering the audience. :cool: I read the article when it first came out and as far as I remember it was interesting and informative, the title was just kinda misleading to the point of being weird.
 
corndogggy said:
Oh I got over it... just seemed kinda weird placing this above "pigging out for 2 hours straight at the buffet" in a "top 5 ways to gain fat" list, at least considering the audience. :cool: I read the article when it first came out and as far as I remember it was interesting and informative, the title was just kinda misleading to the point of being weird.
Click to expand...

Who was the audience. I haven't read the article in a bit.

To add to this, I think, in a round-about-trying-to-be-cleaver way, her point was to touch on some of the misconceptions regarding body recomposition.

If you don't know that pigging out for 2 hours everyday will cause fat gain, something is wrong with you.

But maybe that was her audience. People that have something wrong?
 
I am the audience. I had no problem whatsoever to get the point of that post/article. If you boys don't deal well with a little irony and/or sarcasm, then maybe you should stick to other kinds of literature...
I don't think the article was directed to you anyway. Think woman, 20-50 yo, not much knowledge about the human body to start with. If you ask me, the idea of both the title and the article behind it was to shock the reader enough to get her to educate herself more on the subject.
Just my 0,05€.
Julie
 
Yeah I think that was one of the first articles I'd ever read explaining all that info and I'd just joined the forum. I think I even posted and was like "huh but I don't get it, that's not what I've always heard???" and now I'm no longer eating 600 cals a day and walking 2 miles on my treadmill every night expecting to lose weight. So I think it was a brilliant article with a great title that surprised and informed me about how what I was doing to my body was absolutely the incorrect way to go about losing bodyfat.
 
Steve said:
Who was the audience. I haven't read the article in a bit.

To add to this, I think, in a round-about-trying-to-be-cleaver way, her point was to touch on some of the misconceptions regarding body recomposition.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what it was, it was the top 5 misconceptions, and it was a good list. The title just didn't fit, that's all. The fattest people I know aren't doing ANY of those things. I'm not dwelling on it though, just agreeing with the original poster that yeah it is kinda strange at first, totally not what you were expecting. Which, like you said, may be the point.

I think the audience would be anybody who is in the beginning stages of weight loss and truly are trying and really have made some changes, but the things they are doing that they think are correct may actually be counter-productive. All of the points deal with myths. Most of the people I've dealt with in person with the REAL problems don't even bother trying to follow the advice of the myths, that's why it might be misleading.
 
Last edited:
corndogggy said:
Most of the people I've dealt with in person with the REAL problems don't even bother trying to follow the advice of the myths, that's why it might be misleading.
Click to expand...

Where on Earth are you. B/c I need a plane ticket if this is the truth!

I've dealt with boat loads of ppl in RL and on the web and I can so more uneducated people than not, in fact, DO follow the "advice of the myths."

That's one of the craziest statements I've seen in a long while.
 
Well, for example, some of the people I dealt with locally never even got to the point where they were willing to do low intensity cardio at all, much less for a long time. And 2 meals a day? Hardly. Maybe two meals at a buffet each day plus one or two more.

They would meet for an hour a week and mostly just gossip, cry on each others shoulders, and hope that somehow they would stumble upon a painless trick that they could pull to get thin. I stressed over and over again that the 50+ minutes of the hour they're wasting every week would be some good workout time and they never would do anything about it. One girl wouldn't give up her Cokes and was still drinking at least 4 a day even after attending weight loss classes for 2 months.

So yeah I've seen several people with severe motivation issues and not necessarily education issues, and these are just locals that I know.

So keep in mind that I'm thinking about these folks when I think of somebody being misled when they see this list. It really was a crazy experience and it kind of made me believe that there are alot of people like this everywhere.
 
Last edited:
Yeah.

And those are the people that don't care about fitness/health.

Don't waste your time worrying about them.

Help those that care to help themselves. Doing otherwise will lead to a long path of frustration.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top