Fan Favorite: Is Exercising to Lose Weight a Myth?

Usain Bolt can scarf down 47,000 calories worth of chicken nuggets and look great, while some dieters work out 4 hours a day and never shed a pound. So is exercising to lose weight a big scam? And what does Calvin Coolidge's exercise horse have to do with it? Featuring Dr. Herman Pontzer.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Guess what, Mango, what's that? Will do? You remember back
in two thousand and eight when Michael Phelps had that
daily diet that got so much attention because he was
eating these insane amounts of food. Yeah, he was eating
something like eight thousand calories a day. You try twelve
thousand cowers a day during his peak training, he need
a whole pizza, pound of pasta, three fried eggs, French toast,
multiple burgers, and it seemed like anything else he could

(00:24):
get his hands on, which seems so gross but also
kind of the best thing ever. And during those same Olympics,
Hussein Bolt reportedly ate forty seven thousand calories worth of
chicken McNuggets. Yeah, he was eating them with fries for breakfast, lunch,
and dinner. That seems at less great. Yeah, but wouldn't
sixteen year old Mango think of it's pretty incredible. So

(00:47):
I started thinking about this, and I know you've been
getting back into the tennis, and I've been running a
good bet these past few years. But I thought, if
I could just take this to the extreme, I may
be able to follow a similar diet. Like let's say
I'm running twenty miles a week, right, now, and I
just keep doubling that for the next five weeks, I'd
be running six hundred and forty miles a week by

(01:07):
the end of this. I'm so excited about this. Then
I could eat like twelve Chipotle burritos every day and
still have room for a half dozen Wendy Spicy Chicken
sandwiches and maybe even a couple of those naked chicken
choloopas after I run for the border. It's gonna be great.
But after our research for today's episodes, Science may have
crushed my dreams again. It turns out there's not quite

(01:27):
as strong of a connection between exercise and weight loss
as we once thought. So that's what we're gonna talk
about today, Stupid Science Day their podcast listeners, Welcome to

(01:58):
Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm
joined by my good friend Manes Ticketer, and today we're
diving into the topic of exercise, its benefits, it's limitations,
whether it can actually help us shed some unwanted pounds,
and if it really makes us healthier people. And fear not,
we also have a couple of our patented, ridiculous quizzes
along the way. Who've we got on the line today, Mango.

(02:18):
So we'll be talking to Herman Pontzer, and anthropology professor
at Hunter College in New York City. He's responsible for
some truly incredible research on exercise, and he's gonna help
us get to the bottom of just how useful physical
activity really is for burning calories. We're also going to
talk to a couple of personal trainers and see if
we can whip them into shape through the power of
our trivia. Right, So, before today's episode, I would have

(02:41):
told you that exercising is probably the best way to
lose weight simply based on the conventional wisdom of calories in,
calories out. I mean that sounds sensible, right, Sure, We're
taken calories through what we eat and drink and then
burn them up through exercise. The more you exercise, the
more calories you burn, and the more weight you lose.
It just makes sense, it does. But there are actually
all these studies conducted over the last few years that

(03:03):
suggests exercise really isn't an effective way to lose excess weight.
For example, Dr Timothy Church at the Pennington Biomedical Research
Center at l s U. He held an experiment where
hundreds of overweight women were given strict workout regiments for
six months. The one group of them exercised a little
over an hour each week, another one for a little
over two hours, and another for over three hours. There

(03:25):
was also a fourth group that stuck to their typical
routine and didn't exercise at all. And against all logic
and fairness, there was no major difference in the weight
loss between the women who had exercised and the ones
who had And how pissed would you be if you
were that three hour group. In fact, some of the
women in the exercise groups actually gained weight, which doesn't
seem fair at all. I mean, they put into work,

(03:47):
they deserve a reward. Well, it's funny you should say that,
because Church actually concluded that the rewards were the problem.
You know, exercise stimulates appetite, and many of the women
counteracted their work by over eating afterward. Church suggested that
it was justified in their minds. Is kind of a
self reward for all the energy that exerted through exercise. Yeah,
we hear that sort of thinking all the time, like

(04:08):
cheat days and junk food rewards for going to the gym.
But if we're canceling out the calories we burn, then
we're probably imagining our workouts to be much more effective
than they really are. I mean, the Department of Health
and Human Services recommends people aim for at least thirty
minutes of physical activity every day, but at thirty minute
workout that only burns about two hundred calories, and the

(04:29):
average slice of pizza contains close to like three hundred calories.
So you can see how the map doesn't quite work.
It's really just not fair at all. But it isn't
just those powerful post workout indulgences that counteract calories burned
through exercise. You know, the things we consume in preparation
for even during a workout can also take a toll,
which is a good point. I mean, those two hundred

(04:51):
calories you burned during your thirty minutes on the treadmill,
every single one goes right back into your body thanks
to that bottle of gatorade or that energy bar you
might have scarfed down while running right right, And the
same goes for the bagel or the oatmeal used to
carbo load before your workout, And we think the energy
from these meals is going to help us power through
and burn more calories at the gym, But it's actually

(05:11):
the calories from those pregame foods that are going to
get burned off first. And why is that Well, because
sugar from what you've just consumed will still be floating
freely in your bloodstream, and it takes muscle tissue much
less energy to take that sugar than it does to
burn off the existing fat stores. So your most recent
meal will always be the first to go during a workout.
But we can always just exercise a little longer, right,

(05:34):
I mean, once those preliminary calories are gone, our muscle
cells will start chipping away at storage fat for fuel. Well,
I mean yes and no. According to some breakthrough research
from Herman Ponzer, there are a lot of assumptions we've
been making about human metabolism that they're not quite right.
So you know, it's true that a longer workout would
result in more calories burned and even some from storage fat.

(05:56):
But we know there's a limit to how many calories
your body will metabolize in any gift and day, So
I'm definitely intrigued. But before we get too far into this,
we should probably clarify the basics of metabolism, all right, well,
I'll let you do that. Go for it, okay. So
metabolism is basically the sum of all the processes that
takes place in our bodies. We're talking digestion, respiration, the

(06:20):
production of cells, the movement of substances between cells, you
name it, and all these processes require energy, which our
bodies released from the calories we consume. So even without
exercise and other forms of physical activity, we still burned
through or metabolize a huge number of calories simply by
being alive. Yeah, exactly. So back to Herman Ponsers World

(06:41):
Shattering Research and February's issue of Scientific American, Herman shared
findings from his study of the Hadza tribe and rule Tanzania.
He and other researchers spent a whole month living with
the Hatsa, who were one of the last traditional hunter
gatherer cultures left on earth. That was during this time
that Herman and his partners recorded measurements of the daily
energy expenditures of a couple dozen tribesmen and women. So

(07:05):
this allowed them to compare the daily calorie burn of
a society in which every member is highly active to
a Western society like our own, and which members are
more you know, sedentary. Well, back up a second. You
said the researchers measured the hadzas daily energy expenditure, But
I'm wondering how they pull that off. Are you really
wondering that mango or are you just sensing there's an

(07:25):
opportunity here to talk about doubly labeled water? Of course
it is, you know, I love the d l W.
Doubly Labeled water is the special water in which the
hydrogen and oxygen molecules have been either partly or entirely
replaced with heavy isotopes that aren't usually found in the
human body. And it's safe to drink this stuff completely.

(07:47):
They're stable isotopes, so they're non radioactive. But here's what's
great about them. After somebody drinks d l W that's
been enriched, researchers suddenly have this tracking mechanism. Basically, by
measuring the concentration found in urine samples, researchers can determine
a person's daily rate of carbon dioxide production. And since
carbon dioxide is a waste product of our bodies energy

(08:08):
making processes, calculating how much C O two someone produces
in a day is the best way to measure their
energy expenditure. That is pretty neat. Yeah, Doubly labeled water
has become the gold standard for measuring how much energy
a person consumes. Like, the margin of error is pretty small,
and in fact, the only downside is the cost. D
LW is expensive, Like are we talking smart water expensive

(08:32):
or like Fiji water expensive? No, it's so much more
than that. Dl W runs researchers about dollars per test subjects. Actually,
you know what this really expensive water reminds me of?
And I know that this is totally off topic, but
did you know that the federal government actually sells a
two jar of peanut butter and there's just six ounces

(08:53):
of peanut butter in there. It's like a tiny jar.
And it also goes by this incredibly catchy name. Are
you ready for it? Standard Reference Material number two three
eight of it? Oh? That sounds delicious, But why is
it actually so expensive? Is it more delicious? No, it's
the wonkiest reason ever. It's the super precise like peanut butter,
with specific levels of amino acids and fats and carcinogens.

(09:16):
And it's mostly used for quality controls so companies can
test their standards against the governments and make sure it
measures up. But as a result, no one actually eats
the peanut butter. It's just for lad purposes, which only
makes me want to try it more like with a
really cheap jelly. All right, well, let's get back to D. L. W.
Let me tell you what herman and his partners were

(09:37):
actually able to learn from having the Hods of tribe
drink it. Lay it on me. Well, first, let me
preface this by saying that the Hods are the kings
and queens of exercise. Every single day, the men trek
miles and miles to hunt for game with homemade bows
and arrows. They scale forty foot trees to hack tree
limbs with hatchets and gather wild honey. Now, the women
forage all day for wild berries and other edible plants

(10:00):
like tubers that they dig out of the ground with sticks.
Even the kids of the tribe are put to work
by hauling pails of water from a mile or more away. Okay,
so they're seriously active and no one sitting at their desks, right,
definitely not. But what the researchers found was that even
though the Hadzas lives are far more physically demanding. The
amount of calories day ate and burned through in the

(10:20):
day was the same as in Europe and the US. Now,
the men went through about twenty six hundred calories a
day and the women burned through about nineteen hundred. According
to Herman, we looked at the data every way imaginable,
accounting for the effects of body size, fat percentage, age,
and sex. No difference at all, which is insane, isn't it.
I mean that you naturally assume that physically active people

(10:42):
would burn more calories, of course, but the research really
doesn't bear that out. In fact, they did a follow
up study with about three hundred participants and it showed
the exact same thing. The people who were the most
active burned the same daily amount of calories as those
who were only moderately active, and the participants who barely
left the couch at all burned about two fewer calories

(11:03):
than them, the same amount they would have burned from
a mere thirty minutes of exercise. Doesn't seem to suggest
that our metabolisms are like fixed like. It almost seems
like there's a preset amount of calories that your body
is willing to burn in any given day. And no
matter how far you run or how many push ups
you do, you won't be able to top that max limit.
But my bigger question is this, why doesn't the Hadza

(11:26):
hunter burn more in a day than the average office worker. Well,
I'm not sure we really have the answer to that yet,
but one thing I've seen researches suggest is that our
bodies account for the calories burned through physical activity by
dialing back on the number of calories we devote to
the background functions that keep us alive. About six of
the calories we burn each day go to these unseen

(11:48):
or unconscious processes, so it's possible that when our physical
activity pushes us beyond that other of daily cloric expenditure,
our body is just cut back on the calorie spin
on tobolic processes. This would help even the scales and
keep us from exceeding our preset energy budget for the day,
which is really cool but also disheartening. Right, no wonder,

(12:10):
I've got this paunch. I feel so betrayed. Don't take
it too hard. So a fixed daily energy expenditure limit
is likely, and evolved trade meant to help conserve our
fat stores for when we really need them. I mean,
imagine if the Hotsa hunters were free to burn through
ten thousand calories during a hunt instead of the typical
two thousand or so, if they were to come up

(12:30):
empty handed, they would have lost five days worth of
calories in one with no prospects for replacing them. And
at that rate they're already limited. Fat stores will be
depleted in no time, and they'd find themselves on the
brink of starvation. Which is a great point, but still
doesn't make you feel like maybe all that time spent
exercising was I don't know, kind of a waste. Want
no hold on a second, So don't forget that exercise

(12:52):
has all kinds of great benefits beyond weight loss. For starters,
exercises fantastic for your heart and blood vessels. It makes
your heart contract with greater force and frequency, which increases
blood flow leads to less artery clogging. There's also plenty
of evidence that exercise helps reduce the risk of some cancers,
as well as type two diabetes and cardiovascular disease. But

(13:13):
one of my favorite benefits of exercise that often goes overlooked.
Not only does it help strengthen your muscles, it helps
strengthen your bones too. Just like muscles, bones grow stronger
when they've been made to carry more weight than normal.
So your muscles contract during exercise, they apply force to
the bones that support those parts of the body. The
added force stimulates the bones and causes them to reinforce

(13:34):
themselves by building new tissue, which is really cool. But
you know, Will, I'm pretty sure we'd have to forfeit
our part time Genius membership cards if we miss the
chance to talk about some of the more amazing mental
benefits of exercise, like thanks to Fernando Gomez Pinia, a
neuro surgery professor at U c l A, we now
have some firm evidence of that connection. Namely, we know
that exercise increases the number of certain molecules in the

(13:57):
brain that are crucial for cognition. Because apple, there's one
molecule called brain derived neurotrophic factor, or b d NF,
and that stimulates the growth and survival of brain cells
and even helps facilitate communication between them. And there have
been some studies on rats that have shown that physical
activity boost b d n F levels in the hippocampus,
which is a part of the brain that's super important

(14:19):
for learning and even memory function, all right, but how
exactly does that help the rats? Well, that higher level
of b d NF actually allowed them to better remember
how they find their way through underwater mazes, and there
are tons of studies that suggest that same kind of
mental improvement from fitness happens in humans as well well.
A better brain is definitely a nice perk. But there's
another mental benefit to exercise that I like even more,

(14:41):
and that's mood enhancement. You probably heard of runners high
or exercise high, sure, and I've heard of both of those.
That's the euphoric feeling you get when you're need even
a strenuous workout, right. And while most people think it's
caused by endorphins, you know, those dandy neurochemicals that minimize
pain and stir up feelings of well being, exercise eyes
are actually do more to neurotransmitters like sarah tonin and

(15:03):
neuro epinephrin. So our bodies pump more of these throughout
our nervous systems during workouts, which elevates our mood and
helps fight back feelings of stress and depression. Okay, so
maybe our bodies aren't quite the turn coats. That made
them out to be. But we've definitely been misinformed about
the role of exercise and weight loss. How do you
think this misunderstanding got started? And uh, is there really

(15:24):
no basis for thinking exercises an effective way to lose weight? Well,
there's are great questions, but before we exhaust ourselves, but
we check in with our guests for a little quiz.
Sound so our guest today is partially responsible for our
interest in today's topic. His research has contributed to a

(15:45):
much better understanding of the relationship between our daily activity,
our daily calorie consumption and energy use and calorie burning
and all of that. And his name just kind of
sounds like he should have a theory named for him.
Herman Ponzer welcomed his part time genius. Hi, how you
doing doing well? Thank you? See what I mean, Manga,
I mean, can't you just imagine something called the Herman

(16:06):
Ponser theory of why we're still so freaking fat? Sounds right? Yeah, yeah,
we'll see if we can make that happen. So all right, Herman, Well,
let's just start with your research. And Tanzania, I mean,
which got a lot of attention a few years ago,
and people are still talking about it. Can you tell
us why you were studying there and and and just
let our listeners know about your findings from that research. Sure. Well,

(16:29):
I'm an evolutionary biologist who's interested in how humans got
to be the way they are and how the human
body works from a kind of an evolutionary perspective. Um.
And of course humans we've all spent the most most
of our history as hunter gathers. If you go back,
you know, a couple of thousand years, all of us
are hunting and gathering, and you know, back two million
years ago and didnting gathering kind of starts. So we

(16:51):
have a long evolutionary history of hunting the gathering. Uh.
Not many populations hunt and gather anymore, um, but that
makes sort of understanding how their lifestyles and their you know,
their physiology works all the more important because we think
it's a really important sort of uh touchstone for understanding
how our bodies work, even in our weird environments today.

(17:11):
So in northern Tanzania, there's a population called the Hadza,
who are one of the last UH populations on Earth
that are still hunt and gather regularly, so they don't
have any crops or domesticated animals or vehicles or guns
or machines or anything like that. They wake up every
morning and go off and hunt wild game and gather
wild plant foods, just like you know all of us,

(17:34):
did you know, just a few generations ago. Uh. And
so there's this really amazing and cool and generous and
wonderful population to work with to try to understand how
that lifestyle affects the way our bodies work. And one
of the fundamental things we wanted to understand was how
many calories they burn every day, because we thought, well,
they're so active. We know they're extremely active, but they've

(17:55):
burned tons more calories every day than we do here
in you know, in the US, US and Europe another
kind of westernized societies. And what we found instead, to
our huge surprise, was they burned the same number of
calories every day as you and I do. Wow. So
if they were wearing a fitbit or something like that,
would it, I mean, it would tell them that they

(18:16):
had burned probably thousands more calories than they actually had.
Is that true? Or you're right, yeah, the fit that
would tell them the same lies that it tells you,
which you know, however, active you are, determines how many
calories you burned. So we know from other studies that
we've done since that they just to confirm our intuitions there. Uh,
and this is obvious to anybody who's works with these

(18:37):
With these folks, Uh, they are incredibly physically active, sort
of like three to five times more physically active every
day than the average westerner. Um. And yet despite that,
they're still burning the same number of calories as we do.
So you know, they're also really healthy. They have really
healthy hearts and immune systems. They don't have diabetes or
anything like that. We think the physical activity is a

(18:58):
big part of that. So it's important for health, but
it's not what keeping them, you know, sort of protected
from obesity. Yeah, and that's a big part of what
we're trying to remind our listeners of today is just
because there's not this as strong of a connection as
we might have thought between exercise and weight loss, they're
obviously very real benefits to doing the exercise that we do. Yeah,

(19:20):
that's a really important point because you know, when we
came out with this study and said, hey, look, these
hunter gather folks who are important to understand our history
and and how our bodies work. Um, and we thought
that they would burn so many work colgies and and
the rest of us do. Turns out that that's not true. Um.
The response that we got was, you know, emails from
out of the blue saying, you know, you're destroying the

(19:41):
world because you're telling people not to exercise, right, And
of course that's not what we were saying at all.
You still to exercise is still important for your health.
It's just that it doesn't work the way that we
thought it work, which was the exciting and fun part
of the science. You know, something that's been puzzling to us.
And this really isn't related exactly to the HODSA, but
you know, you remember during previous summer Olympics when you'd
see all these stories on Michael Phelps and his daily

(20:03):
diet and Michaels questions. I knew it was exactly So yeah,
you had to know it was coming. So so just
I mean, and again of that's that this is called
the Ponser effect. So, um, so the the insane amount
of food that he would eat in order to keep
up with his fitness regiment. I mean, how was he

(20:24):
not super fat during this process? Yeah? Well, so there's
two cans. There's at least two pieces of this. One
is that, um, Michael Phelps is not a normal human
and uh that's obvious if you watch him swim and
how fast he is an amazing as he is an athlete. UM.
And so you know what he's doing during those those

(20:46):
workout you know cycles where he's burning ten talent colories.
By the way, actually measured how many calories he's bringing
during these cycles, So we don't really know. You see
number thrown around like eight thousand calories a day, um,
which maybe is to um. We know that if you
look at like a Tour de France cyclist like is
happening right now um, or where you look at Michael

(21:08):
Phelps during or another Olympic athlete during these really intense
training and competition times that for a few weeks or
even you know a couple of months, your body can
burn tons more calories than that would be normal. UM.
What we don't know is what are the limits to that.
I don't think Michael Phelps can burn itsels and colors

(21:28):
to day forever. I think that you know, his body
would break down. UM. And I think that you know,
we can do that during certain periods. And the other
piece of this is that you know, there's a reason
that not everybody's Michael Phelps, and it might well be
that people who are flexible enough in their metabolic rate
to to sort of be able to handle that huge
influx are the people who end up being Olympic athletes,

(21:51):
you know. Um. And I think the third thing I'd
say is it just goes to show you, um, you know,
we we think of I think sometimes the paleo diet,
imagine these elite athletes as being kind of indicative of
what our path was like, right Like if we were
only if we only exercise like Michael Phelps, we'd all
be back in this sort of state of nature. Um.

(22:13):
And in fact, people like Michael Felts are way on
the extreme of of beyond what's what's normal for any
human society anywhere. The cycial activity levels extremely too, extremely high. Well,
I feel like we've been ponsored. So it's time to
turn the tables here and put into the test. We're
gonna play a little quiz with herman here. What's our
quiz called today, Mango, It's called real vintage diet or

(22:34):
something we just made up all right, So this is
a pretty simple game. We're going to read you a
list of diets and you're going to tell us if
they're real or whether we just made them up. Does
that sound sound good to you? Herman? All right, Here
we go five questions. The first one the seven day
milk diet, real or made up? Um, I'll tell you this.

(22:54):
A guy ran across the US in two other fift
drinking almost drinking milk and almost nothing else. So I
want to say. I want to say true, because full
a lot of good stuff. Worth that sounds terrible, Yeah,
it's true. In seventies, pamphlet put off by the California
Milk Advisory Board advised eating less and drinking milk with

(23:17):
every meal. Wow, that sounds horrible, and then running it
just sounds then run across the country. Alright. Number two
the sexy pineapple diet, which happens to come from Denmark. Um,
the sexy pineapple diet. I'm gonna say there's no. But
there's no way. I studied people, and I can tell
you about people. Is no human culture fined pineapple sexy.

(23:41):
I'm going to say no to the sex. This is
actually true? And where did this come from. Yeah, Buzzby
had found this diet book from nineteen seventy and the
Chicago Tribune it actually reviewed it and they panned it, saying,
if you're ready to be miserable about something, this diet
guarantees twenty four hour dismay. Yeah. That so there we go. Alright,

(24:04):
one out of two. Number three, Chowder through the thirty
day Chowder, Power diet. Chowder through the thirty day Chowder
Power Diet. I just I don't want that to be true.
So I'm gonna say no, I'm you know, man, go,
I don't know how many skills you have, but this
is one of your skills to make up things like

(24:25):
this that just sounds so real. So yes, this is
this is in fact fault. Right, Yeah, it's false. There
was a tune around the clock diet for a while.
Tune around the clock. Alright, So he's two for three.
Let's see the next one. Skinny like Lincoln the Gettysburg
ration diet um fault because Lincoln was skinny because he

(24:47):
was he had a condition. I think I don't think
he was skinny because I would ate. Yeah, right, So
the last one here, he's three out of four. The
drinking Man's diet. Do you have any details on this?
I mean, what man side? And I got to you
give me details. It kind of gives it away, doesn't it. Um,

(25:10):
So so tell me nothing, tell me nothing. True, Absolutely true,
it's true. I like that. You didn't need any more detail,
but we'll give you a little. It was subtitled how
to Lose Weight with Minimum Willpower and it was basically
in nineteen sixties Atkins Diet. It was based on eating
steak and drinking nothing but whiskey. All right, well that's

(25:32):
pretty impressive. So so how's herman done today? Herman did
an incredible four for five, and in addition to our
harder than admiration, we're actually gonna send him a copy
of a book we found called Help Lord the Devil
Wants Me Fat, a scriptural approach to trim and attractive bodies.
That's gonna be a great prize. Well, Herman, thanks so
much for joining us today. Thank you. It was a

(25:53):
lot of fun. You're listening to part time genius and
we're talking about the surprising truth behind exercise. So mego.

(26:15):
Before the break, I was wondering who to blame for
the fact that exercise has sort of become synonymous with
weight loss in our minds. Any ideas on that. You're
asking me to name names, I actually am. Yeah. Well,
I did some digging, and while it might be a
little unfair to lay the entire blame for a widespread
cultural misunderstanding on one individual, there's no denying that John

(26:36):
Mayor makes a pretty good scapegoat. I'll take it. So
who is who is John? Mayer? Said? Well, John is
this French American scientist and nutritionists who did some high
profile research on the physiology of hunger and metabolism during
the mid twentieth century. In fact, thanks to his breakthrough
studies on rats, babies, and school girls in the nineteen fifties,

(26:58):
Mayor became the first researcher to make a connection between
exercise and weight loss. He showed that the less physically
active a person was, the more likely they were to
be overweight. All right, hold on, so you're saying that
prior to Mayor, nobody thought that burning calories through exercise
might result in weight loss. Yeah, it sounds so crazy,
but that line of thinking was unpopular in the scientific

(27:18):
community before Mayor came along. In fact, during the nineteen thirties,
some scientists actually argued that bed rest was the most
effective way to treat best patients, not exercise. Can you
imagine this? Aw Are you guys going to hike without me?
And my doctor says I need to shut a few pounds.
I'm just gonna lie right here right. It sounds like
one of those crazy diets or miracle cures you sometimes

(27:38):
hear about that you know, never actually works. But back
to Mayor. He actually served as an advisor to both
the White House and to the w h O, which
made him a top name in nutrition and one of
the most influential figures in the public health sphere thanks
to the connections he made between exercise and weight loss.
The idea of getting fit took off in the sixties
and seventies, which led to this uh thriving gym industry

(28:02):
in a cultural obsession with working out as a way
to lose weight and to live healthier, and it clearly
snowballed from their Obesity rates have risen dramatically over the
last few decades as more and more of the population
began trading jobs on farms and in factories for these
desk jobs. It probably made sense to conclude that this
more sedentary lifestyle was the cause of all that weight gain, right,

(28:23):
But today's scientists, no, that's not the full story. It's
actually a case of mixing up cause and effect. People
aren't overweight because they're inactive. They're inactive because they're overweight.
It's harder to stay active when you weigh more, so
many people just don't. Well, it makes sense because it
points back to the real culprit behind the obesity epidemic,
and that's diet. We really have an obscene amount of

(28:44):
food options today, and thanks to lifestyles that are more
sedentary compared to previous generations, we have plenty of opportunities
to over indulge on all of that variety, and we
take full advantage of this. For instance, researchers at Harvard
conducted to surveys on food consume. One was in the
mid nineteen seventies and then a second in the mid
nine nineties, and they found that although the number of

(29:06):
calories expended didn't change significantly in that time period, the
number of calories consumed in a day increased by two
hundred and sixty eight calories for men and a hundred
and forty three for women. Yeah, it really does sound
like our unfettered access to affordable, no muss prepared foods
has taken a toll on our waistlines. I mean, we're
constantly surrounded by food, and according to Brian wantsonk uh Cornell,

(29:29):
researcher who studies how we eat, we eat the amount
of food we do mostly because of what's around us.
In his book Mindless Eating, Brian writes, we overeat not
because of hunger, but because of family and friends, packages
and plates, names and numbers, labels and lights, colors and candles,
shapes and smells, distractions and distances, cupboards and containers. This

(29:50):
list is almost as endless as it's invisible. I think
he was just showing off his illiterative ability. That was impressive.
So it's not so much that are less active lifestyle
have made us gain weight, but that we've developed a
bad habit of filling that downtime with mindless eating brought
on by food cues. Exactly. It's the reverse principle of
out of sight, out of mind. Brian calls it insight

(30:11):
in stomach creative. This guy is just full of them,
and it's a serious problem. For example, if you have
cookies or chips sitting out on your counter, there's a
strong chance you'll weigh about eight pounds more than a
person who doesn't. Oh wow, we really are that suggestible,
aren't we. Yeah, and it gets much worse. Soda is
one of the big examples that gets brought up as
a contributor to rising ob CD rates, and it looks

(30:33):
like that's for a good reason. Apparently, if you keep
soda on hand in plain sight, like front and center
in your fridge, you're gonna weigh on average twenty pounds
more than a person who doesn't. Okay, you're just scaring
me now, My god. So we've got to figure out
a way to keep our weight in check. And it's
clear now that exercise alone isn't going to cut it. Still,
I don't want to write off weight loss through exercise

(30:54):
completely like the nineteen thirties type. So let's try to
make sense of how to really maximize its benefits. Great,
but before we get into that, let's break for a quiz.
Welcome back to part time Genius. So here we are mango,

(31:15):
four chiseled bodies all in one room, or rather rather,
two personal trainers and two podcasters. I think yeah, but
there's a twelve tip between the fourmus I'm with you
on that. So, so who do we have us with
us in studio today? Mango, We've got Jenet words and
Mario Jordan's from the form Athletic Club in Pont City

(31:36):
Market right here in Atlanta. That is just right downstairs
from us. So welcome guys, thanks for having us having us.
All right, So we were just talking before before we
started out that, Mario, you were telling us a little
bit about your your breakfast regiment every single day. What
is it that usually? Um, it's basically two cups of
old meal and six hard boarding me. So say, okay,

(32:02):
hard ball. You didn't say that before because I was
gonna ask if we're doing this like Rocky? So no, no, yeah,
have you have you ever done that? Can't do it? Okay,
it's horrible. I don't do scrambled eggs or yeah, you're
just always horrible. How about you, Janee? Do you how
many do you have? Eight eggs? Oh? No, probably throughout
the day I could, but um, generally I'll have about

(32:23):
four egg whites, sometimes one whole egg and either protein
pancake or ezekiel bread oatmeal. It just takes so long
to eat for me, so I really don't know how
Mario gets through. And actually, with the hard boiled eggs,
I have this problem where I used to when I
would travel a lot and I would stop in and
grab a couple of hard boiled eggs real quick, and

(32:45):
I would eat them too fast, and I just knew
that I was dying because I couldn't breathe, like you're
choking up because they're so dry. Does that ever happen
to you? Sometimes? Most of them. I mean it depends
on how long you cook it. Something just overcooked and
it will it'll be dry. Ye. This actually speaks to

(33:08):
what we've been talking about today. That is important as exercises. Clearly,
diet is very important. That's why these two are in
such great shape because they're not exactly slacky. Now do
you guys have your cheat days or how does that
work for you? Guys? Um? For me, I prep my
food um pretty much weekly, whether it's for seven days
or three days. And then yes, I do cheat. I'm human.

(33:29):
I actually work out and eat right, so I can't
eat it like that's one of the things I do.
So yes, okay, how about you? I'm the same way. Um,
I have cheap meals here and there that Doritos locos, Uh,
milkshakes from Chick fil A good, Those are insane. That's
my advice right now. Yeah, mine is case so Mexican

(33:53):
food in case. All right. Well, I know you guys
have put yourself through a lot as as as personal trainers,
and you work really hard every day. I don't think
you've ever seen anything like you're going to see with
today's quiz, though, Mango, what are we putting them to
the challenge with? Today? We're gonna play a game called
real Exercise fat or nonsensical equipment we just made up?
All right? So this game is super easy. We're gonna

(34:13):
read you six questions and you just have to tell
us if the gym equipment we're talking about is real
or something we made up. You got it, got it,
all right. So, because we know you like a challenge,
we're gonna put you against one another, all right, So, Jenney,
we're gonna let you go first. Now. The first one is,
and I'll read you the tagline along with it. Okay,
it's Hawaii chair. If you can sit, you can get fit.

(34:37):
This is promising you can lose weight. The Hawaiian way.
This electric seat keeps your hips and bottom moving and
a constant hul emotion and you as you answer phones
and file paperwork. Is this something we made up? Or
was this a real exercise fad? Oh god, I really
I'll watch a lot of infomercials. Yeah, um, I'm going

(34:57):
to say that it's real. It is real, all right.
One for one, so you really like move around, moves
your it moves your bottom around like it's so crazy
as you are. This is how Hawaiian all right, Mario, alright,
she's one up on you. Here we go the human

(35:18):
slink a sizer because you're slinky, shouldn't have all the fun.
So this is building off the slinky craze of the
nineteen fifties. This rubber suit and helmet with a spring
on it was made to help obese obese kids somersault
downstairs while shedding away the pounds. Is this a real
exercise fad or equipment we made up? Uh, I'm gonna
say it's not. They're so good at this, all right,

(35:43):
it is something we made up. Mangoes a threat on this.
He's pretty good at making these things up, all right.
Number three, this is back to you, Janet. The moleby
revolving hammock guaranteed to make your spine young. This young
hammock treated your body like the net and slowly spun
you around for better back health and weight loss. Is
this a real exercise fat or something we made up?

(36:04):
I was trying to visualize it, and I couldn't even
visualize that, So I'm gonna say it's made up. We
finally have a wrong answer. They're not perfect. This is
a real exercise fat and super bizarre to see a
picture of this. Number four, Mario, this was back to
you air shorts great for shedding body moisture. These versatile,

(36:25):
inflatable shorts were supposed to bake your stomach, thighs, and bottom,
causing you to sweat as you worked out or wandered
about town. Is this a real exercise fad or something
we made up? Uh? As ridiculous as it sounds, let's
say it's real. Look ridiculous. The pressure is on. Okay,

(36:50):
I think this is a two pointer, though if I'm mistaken,
if I'm reading the rules correctly, the official rules of
our game here, Okay, tag suit the it new way
to weight loss, A weighted suit you can wear as
you run around playing adult tag with your friends. Just
don't stay on base. Is this a real fat or
something we made up? A real thing? Oh no, it's

(37:15):
equipment we made off. She didn't see as I was
trying to make eye contact. All right, here we go.
Now this one, actually, unfortunately Mario comes with a penalty
if you miss it of negative one. So let's see.
So the pressure is on the game. One last one.
This one is called Twist in Tone, the exerciser that's fun,

(37:35):
easy and works. Basically, it was a plastic lazy Susan
that you could stand on while doing the twist. Totally
worth the five dollars and cents. Real fat or something
we made up? It's real? Oh I remember seeing something

(37:56):
like that on TV. Oh wow. All right, we'll tell
us how our can testants have done here today, Mango
Well as always, first place wins a handwritten note from
us to your mom or boss, singing your praises. So Mario,
that's coming your way. And because we don't want anyone
going home empty handed, Janet, you're getting a pair of
hander pants, the number one underwear inspired gloves on the
market today. Well, thank you guys, so much for joining

(38:22):
us today on part time Genius. Thank you for having us.
So we were talking before about how we've been conditioned
over the last fifty years or so to associate exercise

(38:44):
with weight loss and what has turned out to be
a fairly unhealthy way. Yeah. I mean, a lot of
people start workout routines because they expect the pounds to
just melt off based on everything we've been told about
how to stay fit. But when that doesn't happen as
much as we expect, and the payoffs seems too slow
or too little for the amount of effort, well, then
it's good body or gym membership exactly. And that's the

(39:06):
real shame. So many of us put unhealthy pressure on
ourselves as a result of these unrealistic expectations that we
put on an exercise, and the end result is often
that we blame ourselves and just give up on losing
weight altogether. And that also causes us to miss out
on the very real mental and physical benefits of regular exercise.
So let's try to help avoid that, Mango. Let's put

(39:26):
the true effectiveness of exercise for weight loss into perspective. Okay, Well,
first off, I think we should say that the main
reason why a lot of people's exercise routines go could
put is the same reason why sixty of diet or
is returned to their original weight within three years, As
diet and behavior expert Charlotte Markey told Scientific American, people
think too much about short term goals and don't think

(39:48):
enough about sustainable changes. If you're going to lose weight,
you have to change your behaviors for the rest of
your life for otherwise you gain it back. And that's
not a sexy message because it seems daunting. Yeah, it does.
And does she have any suggestions on what kind of
lifelong behavioral changes people might actually be able to stomach. Yeah,
it's all about sustainability. So for example, people don't have
to completely cut out entire food groups or ice cream

(40:11):
or anything like that. But we should strive for small
scale changes that we stick to, like dropping a soda
or two from our daily diet so we can cut
a few hundred calories from our intake, or staying on
the lookout to avoid mindless eating. Well, I think that's
the kind of sustainability is what we should aim for
with exercise too. I mean, once you stop thinking about
the physical activity primarily is a way to lose weight.

(40:33):
It frees us up to add exercise into our routines
and enjoyable ways that will be less likely to give
up on totally. And despite all we've learned about the
limitations of calorie burning through workouts, there actually are some
ways to use exercise to help us with our weight
loss efforts like what. Well, for one thing, exercise helps
distract us from our food cravings. It gives people something

(40:53):
else to concentrate on, and there are some forms of
exercise that can help maximize the amount of weight you
lose from fat rather than must. Well that's a good point.
So we've mostly been talking about exercise in broad terms,
but it's worth mentioning that most forms of exercise fall
into one of two broad groups. So we've got aerobic
type exercise like running, biking, swimming, rowing, etcetera, which helps

(41:15):
strengthen your heart and build stamina, and then anaerobic exercise
such as weightlifting or sprinting, which helps increase lean muscle mass. Right,
and both types of workout will burn fat and help
you lose a little weight, but studies have found that
aerobic training does provide the advantage in terms of most
weight and fat burned. So if you're looking for the
best way to burn the most fat and the least

(41:35):
amount of time, aerobic exercises probably the way to go.
That's true, but I wouldn't trade in your barbells for
running shoes just yet. If sustainability really is the goal,
it's not a bad idea to gain some extra lean muscle.
The research shows that an increase in muscle can speed
up your resting metabolic rate, plus booster strength, and even
lead to a better night's sleep. So if you're really

(41:56):
in it for the long haul, the best strategy is
probably do a little bit of both, which sounds like
a smart plan. Another thing I always wonder about is
fitness trackers like garments and Tom Tom's and fit fits.
Lots of people swear by them, and they're everywhere nowadays.
Like I even saw that McDonald's was giving them away
in happy Meals last year and what had to have have
been one of the most ironic promotions. Articulous. So everybody

(42:20):
has these things draped to their risk, But did they
really help us lose weight or the com any healthier. Well,
you know, we recently had a listener ask a similar question.
So I did some digging and it turns out not really.
I mean, there isn't a ton of long term research
yet on the effects of wearable fitness technology. It hasn't
yet been around long enough. But most of the short
term studies have found that wearing fitness trackers only lead

(42:42):
to a small boost and physical activity, not nearly enough
to lead to any improvements in overall health. And what's worse,
one study found that when people were given the option
of wearing a fitness tracker or not, the people who
chose to wear it actually lost less weight than those
who didn't know. It was seven point seven pounds compared
to the thirteen pounds of those who went techless, which

(43:03):
isn't exactly a bringing endorsement, no, but it's not completely
a lost cause. I mean, keeping track of steps and
calories can be a useful motivator for some folks, provided
they don't take that success as an excuse to reward
themselves with their extra large pizza. Right, and uh, we've
seen how that goes, right, So, fitness trackers can definitely
be a helpful weapon in the never ending battle of

(43:24):
the bulge. But just like exercise or dieting, there no
guarantee of weight loss on their own. Well. I don't
know about you will, but all this talk about exercise
has me feeling a little competitive. Where do you say
we go toe to toe in the part time genius?
All right, I'm ready when you are a mango. M alright.

(43:52):
So here's a tip that comes straight from one of
America's favorite fitness gurus, Barbie. In slumber Party, Barbie came
to your play with a diet book in hand, and
the only tip in it don't eat terrible. Uh though,
here's one that's even worse, the tapeworm diet. Back in
the early twentieth century, diet pills filled with tapeworms were

(44:12):
sold over the counter with the promise that you could
eat more and still lose weight. And of course, when
the baby tapeworms grew up to be like these twenty
five foot monstrosities and started causing things like meningitis and
dimension in their hosts, the government decided that the weight
loss through worms was overrated and the band the pills.
Diet coke might not be that much better for you
than regular coke, but it certainly is lighter. While I

(44:35):
can of coke will sink in water, you know, kind
of like a bulldog. Diet coke actually floats more like
a hot dog. I'm glad you put the dog just
really helps you understand what floating is. My favorite exercise
item from the seventies is the Sauna exercise suit, which
looks nothing like a suit. It's more like a tinfoil

(44:55):
and marshmallow man contraption that promised to help you shed
pounds as you us went about your daily business. Calvin
Coolige's main exercise in the office was through an electric horse,
kind of like a mechanical bull. He'd write it three
times a day on various settings, from saunter to gallop,
but the regiment sounded so silly he kept it a
secret until it accidentally bucked him from the saddle and

(45:18):
had to be put down by an electrician. So that's
pretty good. But here's a great tip from the seventeen hundreds.
If you want to lose weight, stay away from swamps.
In seventeen seven, a so called scientist named Thomas Short
observed that beast people seemed to live near swamps, so
it was important work on the matter, titled The Causes

(45:39):
and Effects of corpulents naturally suggested there was only one
smart way to lose weight, move away from swamps. Yeah,
that swamps. It makes a whole lot of sense. I
think I gotta give you the title on this whe Congratulations, Mango.
I think that's it for today's show. Thanks so much
for listening, a Mango, This show got me inspired. Want
to go for a run? Absolutely not, k Thanks again

(46:12):
for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of how
stuff works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people
who do the important things we couldn't even begin to understand.
Kristin McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the
theme song and does the mixy mixy sound thing. Gary
Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gabeluesier is our lead researcher,
with support from the Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan

(46:32):
Brown and Lucas Adams and Eves. Jeff Cook gets the
show to your ears. Good job, Eves. If you like
what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe. And if you
really really like what you've heard, maybe you could leave
a good review for us. Do we do? We forget
Jason Jason who