“Losing weight without exercise isn’t impossible, but it is harmful”
Thank you, Rabbi Kahane, for the beautiful Torah thoughts from the Piasenczer. It couldn’t have been more timely reading it on Friday night, trying to manage the fear of the oncoming Iran attack. I’ve had this question about Sarah Imeinu for many years and it was extremely emotional hearing Hashem answer through your piece, and at such a raw time. It has been immensely helpful these last few days knowing that fear, heartache, and pain may be realities, but in no way take away from my emunah. I no longer feel guilt for these emotions. Instead, I’m able to turn them into tefillos to Hashem. May all of Klal Yisrael stay safe.
With immense gratitude,
C.S.
The article “Does Exercise Help You Lose Weight?” cited real scientific studies with the intent of supporting the claim that exercise doesn’t significantly help with weight loss, and that the only real way to lose weight is by consuming fewer calories. But the results were sensationalized and misrepresented to fit the claim.
It’s true that adding an estimated 100-calorie burn exercise daily doesn’t add 100 calories to your total daily energy expenditure. Your body can and does compensate by reducing other energy expenditure and becoming more efficient. But the amount of extra energy burned by exercise is limited, not nonexistent. Studies have consistently found that there is still an increase in total daily energy expenditure despite the body compensating. It’s not as dramatic as it would hypothetically be without the constraint, but it’s still significant.
Also, more importantly, the researchers mentioned in the article measured energy expenditure adjusted for the amount of lean body mass to account for differences in body size. However, an individual person’s body composition can change. Putting on more muscle through exercise increases how many total calories you burn, even if the total amount burned per amount of lean body mass stays the same.
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