Indeed, designing a workout and nutrition program with the goal of being thin will almost certainly ensure that you cannot achieve a high level of fitness you would eat a low-calorie diet, thereby robbing yourself of muscular gains.I would go farther than Nolan, and say that if someone is obese, what would "behoove them" is the same thing that would behoove most of us: to try to become more fit by incorporating some form of exercise into our lives, and have reasonably healthy eating habits. But outside of that, the concept of being "thin" could not have less to do with the concept of fitness. Certainly, if someone is obese, it behooves them to get down to a healthier body weight. Not to get "thin." To be in shape, for the average person, connotes being healthy, and improving on the basic elements of one's own fitness: muscular strength, endurance, cardiovascular, flexibility, etc. The purpose of working out is get in shape. Writing an entire, ostensibly meaningful and important story on whether exercise can make you thin is analogous to wondering whether going to college can get you laid. It is certainly not the goal of an exercise program. "The newest science suggests that exercise alone will not make you thin, but it may determine whether you stay thin, if you can achieve that state."Nolan rightly points out that there's no reason the point of an exercise regime should be thinness, and in fact that thinness could be counterproductive:īeing thin is an awful goal towards which to strive. "Thin!" That is exactly the word this story uses. Exercise therefore has value to the extent it helps you lose weight. Weight loss is the goal towards which you should strive.Ģ. But this latest story clearly distilled these fundamental premises from which the journalism proceeds:ġ. This is hardly the first time the NYT has asked some slight variation of this maddening question. "Does working out really help you lose weight?". Gawker's Hamilton Nolan issues an appropriate takedown, in a story titled "Never Take Fitness Advice from the New York Times:" Even though we have no reliable studies on what happens when women do (or don't) put on weight after menopause. Because, as a 54 year old, being thin should of course be the ultimate goal of your existence. In addition to many other problems, the article cites that same crazy weight loss study that followed women starting at a mean age of 54, and found that only those who started thin and exercised for an hour or more a day stayed thin. The NYTimes is at it again, trying to figure out exactly what it is we need to do to be thin.
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