Exercise & Dieting: Why it Fails so Often

Exercise Without Proper Eating will Fail

Let me say it right up front – Exercise is an add-on to a successful weight control program, not a foundation. In fact exercise actually complicates your program if you haven’t fixed your eating habits first. Allow me to explain.
If you ask 100 people the key to weightloss you can expect 97 of them to say “eat less and exercise more.” But if you’ve had a weight problem for any length of time you know that this equation doesn’t always work. In truth, it generally only works the first or second time you do it. Each time you re-commit to an exercise program you have probably found it less and less successful.
In fact, many of our clients are stuck on a permanent plateau while ‘eating less’ and continuing to ‘exercise more’.

For more about our program go to www.keepamericaslim.com

The simple explanation is that you are not prepared nutritionally to support exercise. Most people blindly head to the gym, sign up for some aerobics courses or jump on the treadmill and assume that the fat will simply slide off their body. The truth is the new demands you are placing on your body require a new approach to eating, as well as exercise.
Now don’t get me wrong, there are many great reasons to exercise, so if you want to exercise for all the right reasons, please go ahead. However if you make it the foundation of your weight control you will eventually fail. Injuries, pregnancy, a change of job, new romance, lack of motivation – there are any number of reasons why people stop exercising. However none of us will ever stop eating. The foundation of any successful long-term weight control program is learning how to shop, cook and eat properly. Only when you have established that foundation should you add exercise.
But there’s more. Exercise in combination with a low-calorie diet can actually undermine your program – not enhance it. This is because it puts you even deeper into Starvation Metabolism.
Starvation metabolism is our genetic response to under-eating. Our body shifts from burning fat for energy to preserving fat for the future. We begin to burn muscle for energy and store fat. Eventually you stop dieting but the body is now trained to store calories so you gain back all you lost – and usually more.

Consider this typical scenario: A 160-pound woman who wants to be 130 pounds needs to eat a minimum of 1350 calories for safe weight loss, but she starts a diet, limiting herself to 800 calories per day. This automatically puts her into starvation. Then she adds exercise.
Let’s say she does 45 minutes on a treadmill, burning about 300 calories. Since she is on a diet she doesn’t want to eat more food, so this new demand for energy puts her even further into starvation. Even if she loses weight, one-third of the loss will be muscle. Her body will fight against the loss of more body fat – essential for survival during starvation - guaranteeing a plateau at best and a yo-yo response at worst.
So what to do? First, choose muscle building exercises instead of aerobic exercise. This has the ability to restore muscle lost from previous dieting. Second, if you exercise, you must eat more food. In the Keep America / Keep Canada Slim program we recommend adding 75 per cent of the calories burned back into your diet. In the above case, this means an additional 225 calories, taking her up to 1575 calories. Then she would have safe permanent weight loss and get the full benefits of her exercise program.
Unfortunately, we don’t see this happening in North America.

In the Keep America / Keep Canada Slim program we typically see a loss of 10% of a person’s bodyfat in six weeks without exercise. This is more than most people can achieve at the gym without a properly balanced food plan. So if you are planning a weightloss program, start with food first.

Keep America / Keep Canada Slim is a comprehensive weight control program sold through the website, www.keepamericaslim.com and through independent consultation offices across Canada.