Exercise Alone Just Doesn’t Cut It

I read a really fascinating article by John Berardi yesterday on the Precision Nutrition forum in which he discusses how nutrition trumps exercise when trying to reach your physique goals. Is it Tom Venuto who says “you can’t out-train a lousy diet?” Same concept.

In the article, John Berardi cites two recent studies in which sedentary people were divided into two groups: one group was assigned an exercise program, while the placebo group just showed up for measurements. No changes in diet were made. The exercise groups underwent a strict training schedule for 10-12 weeks while the placebo groups remained static.

STUDY #1: After 12 weeks, the exercise group lost only 1 pound of fat and gained 2 pounds of lean muscle vs. the placebo group – a net bodyweight loss of one measly lb! This amounted to a 1% loss of bodyfat after 12 weeks of exercise for people whose bodyfat ranged between 35 – 40%.

STUDY# 2: After 10 weeks, the exercise group lost 2.4lbs and gained 1.7lbs of lean mass – a net bodyweight loss of .7lb.

Wow. That’s eye-opening but it also corresponds to the documentary on the Boston Marathon training that I mentioned awhile back in a comment. After 9 month of strict marathon training, only one out of the 11 participants changed her body composition. Everyone else’s bodyfat remained unchanged!! I think Bec mentioned in a post that she saw the same documentary too. Hey I like runner’s high, but that’s a whole lot of training hours that I would rather spend more productively if it’s not going to make any diff in my body composition.

Interestingly, there was a third group in Study #2 that did have nutritional intervention along with the exercise program. They had 2 nutrient-dense meal replacement supplements. Each supplement contained 300 calories, 5g fat, 25g carbs, and 40g protein and a host of vitamins and minerals. And while the exercise-only group saw small fat losses and muscle gains, the exercise plus supplement group, lost 6lbs of fat and gained 1.8lbs of lean muscle – net 4.3 lbs lost after 10 weeks. They seemed to fair a little better.

Of course John does have a little ulterior motive for posting these studies. Apparently, the results of his most recent Precision Nutrition Body Transformation Challenge blows the results of these studies out of the water! The top 5 PN finalists lost between 1.4lbs to 2.2lbs PER WEEK and the average fat loss for all of his participants was 1/2% bodyfat (or 1lb) per week versus 1 to 1.5lbs total after 10-12 weeks in the two studies above. Not bad. I ALMOST joined that last PN group training session when I bought the PN System but opted to buy just the book instead. Now I wish I had joined in – there’s something to be said about personal coaching that is more motivating than going it alone. Look at Mike Groom training with the legendary Carlos DeJesus. I’ve never seen Mike so pumped up and determined!

So the morale of this long-winded post – a solid training program alone isn’t enough to get people into great shape. Exercise ALONE just doesn’t cut it. You must have a sound nutritional program.

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