Just Can't Weight? Trying to make sense of the relationship between exercise and weight loss

by Richard Seltzer, seltzer@samizdat.com, www.samizdat.com


I've been keeping records of weight and exercise, trying to uncover patterns and find ways to effectively lose weight.

I've found that when I exercise extremely hard, I typically gain a few pounds the next day and the day after.

Obviously, that's frustrating, resulting in a decline in motivation, and a fall-off in exercise for a week or so after that.

Now it has finally dawned on me what seems to be happening:

When I exercise far above normal, my body seems to automatically shift to a different gear. Sensing that I'm sweating a lot, my body starts to retain more liquid. Sensing that I'm burning a lot of energy, my body lowers the rate at which it uses energy. And those changes stay in effect for a day or two after the exercise, hence leading to weight gain.

That's how I would explain the fact that when I walked 16 miles one day, the next day I gained five pounds, despite the fact that I hadn't eaten much.

I suspect that many people have run into this barrier without understanding the mechanism. And many weight-motivated exercise programs have been abandoned as a result.

To try to break through this barrier, I'm going to try a regimen of steady exercise -- building very slowly, with no major day-to-day change, and always exercising some each day.

If you have had similar experience and related suggested, please email me at seltzer@samizdat.com


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