New Questions and Answers About Losing Belly Fat

There's always something new to learn about weight loss. Let's start with a question that you almost never seen in pitches for weight loss products, the common observation that people often gain weight, rather than losing weight, when they start working out on a regular basis.

Q. Help! I'm exercising but I'm gaining weight instead of losing. What am I doing wrong?

A. Exercising results in innumerable health benefits, but weight loss is not necessarily one of them. One study found that people who exercise lose only about a third as many pounds as would have been predicted by measuring calories. Exercise physiologists at Arizona State University in Phoenix conducting a clinical trial to understand the relationship between exercise and weight loss found that in most cases exercising more results in gaining, rather than losing, weight.

The Arizona State University researchers recruited 80 women, all of whom were overweight to varying degrees, none of whom had exercised in the past year. The researchers had the women work out on treadmills at about 80 percent of their maximum possible exercise rate for 30 minutes per session three times a week for 12 weeks.

At the end of the 12-week exercise program, all of the women were significantly more fit. However, 70 percent of the women had gained weight. Moreover, the weight these women gained was not new muscle. It was new fat, for some women, as much as 10 pounds (4.5 kg) of fat mass added during the 12 weeks they were working out hard.

A few of the women, however, actually lost weight during the 12-week intervention. Taking a closer look at the data, the researchers made a very important observation. Women who were losing weight at the end of the first four weeks continued to lose weight during the rest of the program. Women who were not losing weight at the end of the first four weeks tended not to lose weight or even to gain weight during the rest of the clinical trial.

Staying on the wrong program too long may even cause you to gain weight. If that is the case, then you may have to lose weight by dieting.

Q. What makes the difference between weight gain and weight loss among people who exercise?

Most people gain weight, and gain weight in the form of fat, when they work out on a regular basis, for the simple reason that working out makes them hungry. They eat snacks on the way home from the gym, or they eat larger portions at the next meal, or they reward themselves with food for meeting their exercise goals. "Calorie compensators," as researchers call these people, enjoy better cardiovascular fitness as the result of working out, but they don't lose or weight or lose fat.

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Q. Does this mean that some people should not work out at all?

Some people respond better to resistance exercise, or weight lifting, in combination with gentle exercise to maintain flexibility, than they do to heavy aerobic exercise.

More Uncommon Questions And Answers About Losing Belly Fat

There is probably more misinformation believed to be fact in the field of weight loss than in any other area of health education. Here are some more questions that should be asked about banishing the belly, but aren't.

Q. Isn't it true that small changes in diet, exercise, lifestyle all add up to sustain weight loss? 

A. For instance, is it true that obese people who walk a mile (1.6 km) a day can lose 50 pounds (22 kg) in five years? Isn't it a fact that cutting out 100 calories a day from your diet and add to a pound of weight loss in 35 days?

These and many similar assertions are all based on the old idea that a pound (450 g) of fat supplies 3500 calories of energy. This 50-year-old idea simply is not true. The 3500 calories per pound of fat measurement was made by observing men on extremely low-calorie and liquid diets for just a few days at a time. For every 3500 calories missing in their diets, they typically lost about a pound of body fat or belly fat.

Obese people who walk a mile a day typically lose 10 pounds (4.5 kg) in 5 years, not 50. For them, it is as if a pound of fat is equivalent to 17,500 calories, not just 3,500. Small changes in diet and lifestyle may result in small changes in weight and belly fat in the short term, but the body adjusts to make losing fat, and losing weight, harder and harder the longer you stay on the same diet or the same exercise routine. Just about the only sure way to lose weight through exercise is to do hard, manual labor at a variety of tasks, and do it all day long.

Q. Smaller weight loss goals are more likely to result in success than ambitous, hard-to-achieve weight loss goals, aren't they?

Two studies have found that people who decide to lose weight are more likely to achieve their goals when they decide to reach an ideal weight, not just to "lose weight." Making a weight loss program more "realistic" reduces disappointment with the program but does not result in losing more weight. Choosing a goal of losing more weight results in losing more weight.

Q. Is it true that the faster you lose weight, the more likely you are to gain it back?

No, a series of clinical trials find no difference in long-term results between very-low-calorie and low-calorie diets. Weight loss through exercise is so unusual that is has not been well-studied.

Q. Isn't it true that having sex burns 100 to 300 calories for each participant? Isn't having sex a great way to lose weight?

Sorry, the scientifically measured energy expenditure in sexual intercourse averaged 21 calories per participant, in one of the few studies that has tackled this question. There are many reasons to have sex, but weight loss is not one of them.

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Q. Doesn't eating more fruits and vegetables accelerate belly fat loss?

Sorry, eating more plant foods won't help you lose weight unless you also eat less of everything else.