How can diet with exercise NOT cause someone to lose more weight than dieting alone?

Has anyone read this Yahoo article?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070126/hl_n...

Does this article make sense to anyone? The research doesn't make sense to me. Why is one group reducing their caloric intake by 25% while the group that exercises reduces their caloric intake by just 12.5%?

This means that Group 1 (diet alone) is consuming less calories than Group 2 (diet & exercise). Therefore Group 2 has more calories to burn.

If one wanted to truly compare diet w/ exercise vs. dieting alone, shouldn't the caloric intake be the same for both groups?

If the goal of weight loss is to burn more calories than you intake, then it should logically follow that an active lifestyle would burn more calories than a sedentary lifestyle.

Am I just not "getting something" when it comes to the research they conducted? It sounds like an excuse for people to be lazy.

The weight reduction in the experiment was based on BMI. Both groups reported a 10% loss of fat, not necessarily weight.

Apparently, this article also "debunks" the myth that muscle mass boosts metabolism.

i was a bit surprised by some of the comments in the article, so i decided to check out the real thing and see what it was about. weight loss was the same because in both groups, the amount of calories in v. calories out was the same. they just went about accomplishing it in different ways. group A reduced their calorie intake through diet alone (let's just say they cut it down 500 calories for this example). group B reduced their calorie intake by diet (minus 250), and then exercised long enough to burn 250. so in the end, both groups are at minus 500 calories per day, and gradually, the participants lost weight.

the point of this article wasn't even to compare the effects of diet v. diet/exercise. it was looking at biological markers that are found in organisms that tend to live longer. also, the researcher's statements about added muscle mass possibly burning less calories was not even addressed in this article. just keep in mind how newspaper journalists tend to pick and choose what parts of an article to write about, and they can certainly mis-quote the researcher to make it fit a particular way.

Because with exercise, your building muscle...muscles weigh more than fat

I do not agree with that research. The diet and exercise group should lose more weight

As Dan Majerle would say, "ERRONEOUS!"

thats a tough one....but both groups would lose weight either way...only at diffrent rates i would think.....
idk...this is confusing....but i don think diet alone would be enough to lose weight or anyone could do it for the period of time
i would think the research is bollocks....or not...

What you aren't getting is your body is not a machine. It's a living organism with a great deal of control over these processes.

For example. Just because you eat something, doesn't mean you digest and absorb it. This goes for calories, as well as nutrients. How many calories does your poop have? Your body can and does control this. Just because one person eats more calories than another, doesn't mean he absorbs more calories. This is under your body's control. It can and does change it depending on the type of food etc. For example. Refined foods are easy to digest. Almost all the calories are immediately absorbed. Whole foods take more work. FAR fewer calories are absorbed. Two meals....one is fast food, the other is a homecooked meal with whole food ingredients. Both have the same calories. But, one is fattening. The other is not. Can you guess why?

Another has to do with set point. Set point is basically your body temperature. Understand something. Over 80% of your energy goes towards maintaining your set point. Physical activity is only 20%. Exercise has relatively little ability to "burn calories". Moderate exercise, however, raises your set point. There is damn little difference between moderate exercise and intense exercise in using up calories. There are extreme diminishing returns.

What happens if you eat too few calories? This is an interesting question that all dieters need to explore. The answer is this. Your body starts to work harder to absorb more calories from the food you do eat. It simultaneously lowers your set point. This is an interesting phenomenon. You eat fewer calories but lose less weight.

With diet alone, you will lose fat. With diet + exercise you will not only lose fat but will also build up muscles. Muscles weigh more.