Dr. Tim Church Weighs In On Exercise Causes Weight Gain Debate

Diane wrote: “Later Dr. Church declared unequivocally to the LA Times that Time Magazine misunderstood his professional opinion. What he actually believed was that virtually all people who lose weight and keep it off are exercising.”

A few notes. First, Dr. Church *still* does not claim that exercise will make you lose weight. Which is good, because it won’t. [see below]. He says that people who have *already lost* weight and who keep it off (maintenance), exercise. That may be true anecdotally, but it confuses correlation with cause and effect. As in: Everyone with a cut wears a band-aid. Therefore, band-aids cause cuts.

Conventional Wisdom is often shown to be incorrect when held up to the prism of actual science, and “Fewer Calories In (food consumed) vs. More Calories Out (‘burned through exercise’) makes you thin” is a top offender.

In vs. Out relates to the First Law of Thermodynamics, which is usually brought up to ‘prove’ this theory. Conveniently, proponents leave out the last clause in that law, which it is true “only in a CLOSED system” — like an engine, or car. Humans are neither engines, nor cars, not do we have closed systems. If we did, then In vs. Out would work, and we’d be a world of slim people. A simple glance around the real world, however, where the poorest people work the hardest in terms of sheer physical labor (the Out), yet who eat the least food (the In) and yet who are often morbidly obese demonstrates that clearly. The fact is, ever since Ancel Keyes came out with his ludicrous lipid theory (by manipulating the data, which is why, despite vigilant attempts by the science community for 40 years to prove it, it remains only a theory to this day) that fat is bad and starch and protein is good you, we have as a nation grown ever fatter and more diabetic. We exercise more than ever too, yet keep on gaining weight and especially fat.

It’s the Second Law of Thermodynamics that applies to humans, because we are complex systems whose energy is in flux. Which simply means that unlike a car engine which burns the fuel we put in it exactly the same way until all the fuel is gone, humans burn different fuels differently — which creates different levels of ‘energy’ that either get used up, or stored as fat.

People are not fat because they don’t exercise enough and eat too much. They don’t exercise enough and (sometimes) eat too much because they are fat. They have a metabolic fat accumulation disorder brought about by eating the wrong *kind* of calories. This is so clearly and unequivocally demonstrated in Gary Taubes’ “Good Calories, Bad Calories” (quoted in the Time article that it should be required reading by all dietitians, nutritionists, doctors and especially reporters before they are allowed to say or write a single word on the subject of food, exercise and/or obesity.

I got fat by eating a very low fat, low calorie, conventional wisdom diet. Lots and lots of complex carbohydrates, and very little food; about 1200 calories a day. On a fast treadmill three times a week. Because all my energy was, with the help of the insulin I produced by eating carbs, getting stored as fat, my body was actually starving. The more energy I demanded of it with exercise, the more it vigilantly held on to every food molecule I consumed instead of burning it for fuel. Within a few years I was up to 225 pounds. My body fat was up to a measured 53 percent. I was morbidly obese and on my way to just morbid, like many of my country’s men and women who keep following the ‘calories in vs. calories out’ dictum.

Then I read about the *science* of human biology. I stopped all exercise except for a once-a-week, 30 minutes of SLOW weight training session, put myself on a 2000 calories a day diet that consists of 72% fat (mostly saturated), 15% protein and 12% carbohydrates — and lost 65 pounds in two years. I’ve kept the weight off for the last three (sans exercise, thank you, except for weight training once a week) and am a member of the National Weight Registry. If “Calories In vs. Calories Out was scientifically valid, I would weigh 300 pounds by now. According to Keyes, I would also suffer from high cholesterol and heart disease. Instead, at age 61, my HDL is 97 (!) and my triglycerides are 49. My BP is 114/60 and I take no prescription medicine whatever.

And these results have been replicated over and over again in every single *controlled* scientific study done in the last five years that pits a low fat diet against a high fat, moderate protein, low carbohydrate diet. Greater fat, weight, and inches loss and better lipids in every single high fat vs. low fat participant. And exercise has *nothing* whatever to do with it.

The Time article was correct, though it didn’t go far enough. In terms of *weight loss* (as opposed to other nice health benefits one gets from any type of regular, even limited exercise) — the only thing exercise does is make you hungry. And until humans become ‘closed systems’ like engines, that will remain true no matter how loudly conventional wisdom screams.

For those who have written in other comments on other sites that exercise has caused them to lose weight, I would argue that they too are confusing correlation with causation. In other words, it’s what they’re eating, or not, that is doing it. If they eat sugar and carbs (especially with fat, as in candy bars and doughnuts) they can exercise their heads off and not lose a pound. If they up the fat while cutting carbs, they can lounge on the sofa (or better yet, loll in bed) and still lose the weight they want. In fact, years ago, “bed rest” while “cutting farinous foods” (sugar and carbs) was the medical prescription for weight loss — and it worked.

The definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and over and expecting a different result. In other words — Medical Wisdom? Heal Thyself.