{"id":956,"date":"2010-10-25T13:27:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-25T20:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leanmeanvirilemachine.com\/?p=956"},"modified":"2010-10-25T13:27:00","modified_gmt":"2010-10-25T20:27:00","slug":"why-eat-less-exercise-more-doesnt-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/theguycancook.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/25\/why-eat-less-exercise-more-doesnt-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Why “Eat Less, Exercise More” Doesn’t Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"eat<\/a>“In order to lose weight, you simply need to eat less and exercise more.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sound familiar? That’s because 99% of all weight loss and maintenance advice boils down to the quote above.<\/p>\n

But while it is <\/em>necessary to incur a caloric deficit if you are looking to lose that beer gut once and for all, restricting your calories while forcing yourself to exercise as much as possible is not<\/em> the best way to go about it.<\/p>\n

Huh-what<\/em>? Let me explain…<\/p>\n

The Study That Changed Everything<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the most authoritative studies on the effects of human starvation was conducted in the 1940s at my own alma mater<\/em>, the University of Minnesota, by Dr. Ancel Keys.<\/p>\n

Keys studied 36 men who were first fed an adequate amount of food for three months, then placed on semi-starvation diets for six months, followed by a three-month period of rehabilitative re-feeding.<\/p>\n

During the period of semi-starvation, they were also instructed to walk and exercise enough that they burned more calories than they consumed each day.<\/p>\n

Drum Roll, Please…<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Minnesota<\/a>The good news for those looking to “eat less and exercise more” their way to a leaner body is that these men lost a whopping 25% or more of their total body weight during the starvation period!<\/p>\n

The bad news is that it took an immense toll on the participants. They uniformly exhibited decreases in basal metabolism, body temperature, heart rate, and sexual function.<\/p>\n

They also displayed signs of emotional distress, including depression and anxiety. One of the participants even went so far as to cut several of his own fingers off. (There’s no way in hell you could get away with doing an experiment like this nowadays.)<\/p>\n

Oh yeah, and once the experiment was over, the men gained back all the weight they loss, and then more<\/em>, with fat gain proportionally larger than muscle gain. Yikes!<\/p>\n

Of particular note to us, and the basis of the rest of this series, is that they all experienced a lack of control, concentration, and focus. These characteristics, which I will group together as “will power,” are the reason that “eat less and exercise more” by itself is a terrible way to lose weight and keep it off.<\/em><\/p>\n

Eat Less, Exercise More?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here’s the “dirty little secret” you need to know about The Minnesota Starvation Experiment: during the starvation period, the participants were put on a tightly-controlled diet and exercise regimen consisting of about 1800 kcal consumed and 3009 kcal burned each and every day<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Far from eating only two apples every day then running a marathon, these men followed a very similar diet and exercise protocol that many, if not most, popular weight-loss experts would support.<\/p>\n

So why did these men succeed in losing weight following a plan that doesn’t seem to work for others? And why do so many guys fail to lose their extra belly fat by simply eating less and exercising more?<\/p>\n

Like P. Diddy says, it’s all about the willpower, baby. (Wait, am I remembering that right?)<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Hold on to your hats, gentlemen, ‘cuz I have a big series coming at you on what I believe to be the most overlooked aspect of health, fitness, and wellness: how your willpower is screwing\u00a0it all\u00a0up.<\/p>\n

In the next installment, I’ll take a closer look at the “energy in – energy out” paradigm and show you how oversimplification has led to the most dangerous weight-management advice of all time.<\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“In order to lose weight, you simply need to eat less and exercise more.” Sound familiar? That’s because 99% of all weight loss and maintenance advice boils down to the quote above. But while it is necessary to incur a caloric deficit if you are looking to lose that beer gut once and for all, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[138],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-willpower"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/theguycancook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/theguycancook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/theguycancook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theguycancook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theguycancook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=956"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/theguycancook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":979,"href":"http:\/\/theguycancook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956\/revisions\/979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/theguycancook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theguycancook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theguycancook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}