Last week, TIME Magazine has caused big hullabaloo when they published the article, “Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin.” Since then, the article has been the talk of the town and has set fire to discussions and debates in blogs, talk shows, and who knows, maybe even in the streets and your own homes.

Here, we will briefly explain why this piece of literature should not be taken seriously by serious health buffs and fitness freaks.  We shall set the record straight about exercise and weight loss once and for all.

You might be wondering why such kind of article managed to find its way to the pages of such a respectable magazine.  Well, there really are a handful of handful of crucial pitfalls the media tends to fall victim to when reporting on matters of health, fitness, and nutrition:

1. The use of anecdotal evidence to support claims.

2. The haphazard use of blanket statements and universal qualifiers.

3. Keeping things vague in order to support said claims.

4. Eliminating the nuisance of fact checking.

Let us remove ‘mis’ from the misinformation the article’s author, John Cloud, caused.  Read on and digest these exercise and fat loss FACTS that Mike Howard has so conscientiously researched:

* Everybody should exercise for the health benefits first and foremost – there is no debate here – exercise is good for you. (In fairness, this is touched on in the article).
* Exercise in the absence of healthy eating and calorie control will not be very effective for fat loss.
* The term “exercise” is extremely broad in its definition, and hence we need to specify what kind of “exercise” we are talking about in order to draw a conclusion about its efficacy. I think we can all agree that there is a pretty substantial difference between walking on a treadmill at 2.3 mph, and doing barbell complexes and HIIT (high intensity interval training). This is where John Cloud looks to have graduated from the Gary Taubes school of ambiguity.
* Type (resistance vs. cardio), duration, intensity, frequency – these all have varying impacts on muscle tissue development, hormonal response, calorie expenditure, and henceforth the ability to burn fat.
* The familiar rhetoric that “overweight people eat no more, or exercise no less, than thin people” needs to be scrutinized, as obese people tend to underreport food intake, and over report physical activity.
* In the meta-analyses (compilation of studies) regarding exercise and weight loss, exercise typically has a “modest” effect on weight loss. Again, it’s not going to do much in the absence of dietary change. Please note that “modest” does not mean “useless” or “counterproductive” or “a waste of time”.
* On studies that have a diet only, exercise only, and exercise plus diet groups, the exercise plus diet groups (with scant exception) come out on top when it comes to weight/fat loss. Diet only, almost always beats out exercise only.
* One very well conducted 12 week study by Kramer et. al., which included both aerobic, strength training, and a dietary control, showed the following results. Fat mass losses – diet only: 6.7kg, diet/cardio: 7kg, diet/cardio/resistance: 10kg. Most noteworthy – the D+C+R group lost almost no lean tissue whatsoever, whereas the diet only group lost almost 3kg worth of lean tissue.
* Putting on and saving muscle tissue will have a lasting impact on your body’s ability to lose fat. Plus you will look much better.
* Exercise becomes more important once you have lost the weight. Exercise should be a central strategy in preventing a re-gain.
* Pertaining to the above, the National Weight Loss Registry (which tracks those who have lost and kept off at least 30 lbs), shows that high levels of physical activity are a primary predictor of success.

There are things that do not have to take a genius to know and understand.  There are actually many things that common sense can already explain.  But apparently, common sense is not that common after all.