Are you among the “diet resistant”? Exercise can be the key to weight loss | health

MONDAY, Aug. 22, 2022 (HealthDay News) — ‘You can’t escape the fork.’

It’s an old weight loss adage that reminds people that diet is more important than exercise when it comes to shedding extra pounds.

But is it true for everyone?

New research shows that there is a category of “diet-resistant” people who need to exercise and watch what they eat if they want to lose weight.

In fact, these people should prefer exercise because it reduces them fat mass and boosts their muscles’ ability to burn calories, Canadian research has concluded.

“We found that slow losers responded much better to exercise than fast losers,” said senior study author Mary-Ellen Harper. She is the Chair of the Department of Mitochondrial Bioenergetics at the University of Ottawa.

“We hope that these findings will allow for a better, more personalized approach to obese adults who are trying to lose weight, and especially to those people who have great difficulty losing weight,” Harper said.

She noted that previous research has shown that the ability of muscle cells to burn energy varies greatly between people.

People struggling to lose weight tend to have very efficient muscle cells; these cells are very good at storing energy rather than burning it, Harper said.

In fact, sometimes dieting will slow a person down metabolism even more so, said David Creel, a psychologist and registered dietitian at the Cleveland Clinic’s Bariatric and Metabolic Institute.

“Their metabolism responds to the lower calorie intake by becoming even more efficient,” Krill said. “They’re not going to respond as well because they’re just not burning as many calories.”

To see if exercise could change that, Harper and her colleagues collected clinical data from more than 5,000 people who participated in a low-calorie weight-loss program at the Ottawa Hospital.

The program restricted people to 900 calories a day, but there was still a group of people who lost much less weight than others.

Based on these recordings, the researchers matched 10 “diet-resistant” men with 10 “diet-sensitive” women and had them all participate in a six-week exercise program. Participants were selected by age, weight and BMIand said to eat as usual.

Participants practiced three times a week. Each exercise session consisted of 30 minutes of walking on a treadmill followed by weight lifting and strength training.

“We know from the exercise physiology literature that you don’t have to do that much to get the benefits of exercise,” Harper said. “The greatest benefits are at the lower end of the physical activity spectrum.”

Exercise did not lead to weight loss in either group, but exercise reduced fat mass, waist circumference, and body fat only in diet-resistant participants.

The researchers found that dieters also tended to have greater improvements in muscle cell metabolism. Their muscles began to burn more calories, even at rest.

One expert said these changes would likely eventually lead to weight loss.

“I think if the intervention had been longer, there might have been a difference in weight loss between the groups,” said Dr. Reshmi Srinath, director of the Weight Loss and Metabolic Management Program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. York City

The Canadian research team is now recruiting people for a follow-up study with a larger sample.

According to Harper and Krill, people who struggle to lose weight are more likely to have “pear-shaped” obesity with extra weight on the hips, thighs and buttocks, as opposed to “apple-shaped” bodies with extra weight around the middle.

Previous research has shown that regular exercise is one of the best predictors of whether you’ll be able to keep off the weight you lose.

Creel noted that the exercise in this study was relatively mild, and that people might have gotten even better results if they could get 250 to 300 minutes of physical activity per week.

“We know that some people may need a higher level of physical activity to control weight than is necessary for overall health,” Creel said, noting that the U.S. guiding principles require 150 minutes of cardio per week to maintain health.

The new work shows that exercise may be a key ingredient for people who have trouble losing weight solely through diet, Creel said.

“I think it’s just important to understand that not everyone responds to a diet the same way,” Creel said. “I think it helps us to de-judge people who may be struggling with the intervention.”

A new study was published recently in the eBioMedicine magazine.

Additional information

The Harvard T. Chan School of Public Health will tell you more about physical activity and weight control.

SOURCES: Mary-Ellen Harper, PhD, Department of Mitochondrial Bioenergetics, University of Ottawa, Canada; David Creel, Ph.D., medical specialist, psychologist, and registered dietitian at the Institute of Bariatrics and Metabolism at the Cleveland Clinic, Ohio; Reshmi Srinath, MD, director of the Weight Loss and Metabolic Management Program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York; eBioMedicineAugust 11, 2022, online