Exercise won’t help you lose weight, says top diet expert

By James On Jan 7, 2023

Exercising won’t help you lose weight on its own, one of the nation’s leading experts has sensationally claimed.

Professor Tim Spector, a prolific diet researcher and author, agreed that exercise is “great” for overall health, especially for the heart.

He even insisted that ‘we should all do it’.

But in terms of losing weight, Professor Spector argued that exercise “doesn’t do any good”. He goes against the advice of health agencies around the world that claim it is “key” to combat weight gain.

Professor Spector acknowledged that while exercise is “great for your health” and “great for your mood”, you shouldn’t exercise alone if “your goal is to lose weight”.

Professor Tim Spector (pictured above) said exercise has been “greatly hyped as an easy solution to our obesity problem.”

Exercise, of any kind, actually plays a “very small role in weight loss,” she stated on Steven Bartlett’s podcast The Diary of a CEO.

Professor Spector, who trained as an epidemiologist and gained fame for tracking Covid during the pandemic, said: “All the long-term studies show it doesn’t help you lose weight…

It has been greatly exaggerated as an easy solution to our obesity problem.

All the studies show it.

“The only caveat is that if you have changed your diet, improved your diet, and lost some weight, keeping up some exercise prevents it from coming back up.

“But by itself, if you don’t change your diet, it’s of no use and that’s well known by now by all obesity experts and studies.”

He added: ‘It’s great for your health, I work out. It’s great for your mood, it’s great for your heart.

We all should, but absolutely not if your goal is to lose weight.

“That’s a huge myth, particularly perpetuated by gyms and fitness apps. It’s complete nonsense,’ she said.

Professor Spector’s comments go against some of the most trusted health advice. “Being active is key to losing weight and keeping it off,” says the NHS.

He adds that eating fewer calories will help you lose weight, but staying flab permanently “requires physical activity to burn energy.”

A calorie is a way of measuring energy, either the amount contained in food or the amount burned through activity.

People gain weight when they consume more calories than they burn through daily activities. To lose weight, you need to use more calories than you take in.

As a result, limiting calories, or exercising more, are the first steps for many seeking a lean physique.

Speaking on the same podcast, Professor Spector advised that people who want to lose weight simply look to change their diets.

He said calorie counting, while effective in the short term, was “utter nonsense” because most people who stick to the tedious regimen “recover.”

Instead, he advised eating more plant-based foods, doing so within a 10-hour window, and avoiding ultra-processed foods.

Official guidelines suggest that adults should get 150 minutes of moderate exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise per week spread over four to five days.

Examples of vigorous exercise include running, swimming, jumping, and stair climbing.

Similar advice, which also includes muscle-strengthening exercises two days a week, exists in the US.

Lack of exercise, combined with unhealthy diets, has been blamed for increasing obesity epidemics around the world.

Two thirds of British adults are overweight, and more of us are expected to gain weight in the future. Rates are even higher in the United States.

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How should people lose weight?

Professor Tim Spector, a nutrition expert, said some people can lose weight in the short term by limiting their calorie intake. But almost everyone “regains” their original weight, and “many exceed it,” he said.

He argued that the approach, advocated by the NHS as a way to lose weight, is a “giant camouflage” that keeps people focused on calories rather than the quality of what they eat.

Professor Spector shared his three tips for those looking to reach their healthiest weight:

Avoid ultra-processed foods

Ultra-processed foods are foods that have undergone industrial processes and are nothing like the original foods from which they came.

They usually contain a lot of added salt, sugar, fat, and other chemical additives.

Researchers have found that people who ate an ultra-processed diet consumed an additional 300 calories a day more than people who ate a minimally processed diet.

Advice: If you ever want to see how processed something is, look at how many ingredients there are. Generally speaking, the more ingredients, the more processed.

Try time-restricted eating

Eat all your meals within a ten-hour span, and then fast for 14 hours, most of which occurs overnight while you sleep. Just like us, our gut microbes also need to rest and recuperate so we can give our gut lining time to repair itself. Our results from the ZOE health study showed that this almost immediately cuts any snacking out of your diet, and more importantly, prevented people from late-night snacking, the worst kind of snacking for our health.

Advice: Skipping breakfast or delaying it for a few hours is the easy way to extend your fast.

Eat 30 plants every week.

Instead of focusing on the number of calories, focus on the number of plants per week.

For people trying to lose weight, I would recommend eating a variety of different foods. 30 plants a week is something we should all aim for to improve our gut health.

Advice: Remember that a plant is not just fruit and vegetables, it is also nuts, seeds, herbs and spices, so it is easier than it seems.