Hate to exercise, but feel guilty for not doing it? Don’t worry; it really doesn’t matter all that much after all. Yes, burning calories causes weight loss. So what? However seductive it is to think if we exercise we’ll burn calories and lose weight, it just isn’t the answer.

Imagine a 5’4” woman who at 230 pounds is about 100 pounds overweight. If she starts jogging at a rate of 5 miles per hour she will burn about 400 calories in one hour. Given that it takes 3,500 extra calories burned to lose one pound she will have to run a little over an hour every day for eight days to lose one pound. At that rate it will take her 800 days or just over two years, two months to lose those 100 pounds. That is, if she is 100% dedicated.

Oh yeah, it also means that she can’t ever eat anything extra – nothing! Put the idea of never eating anything extra in perspective. For the average person the difference in calories burned between sitting at the computer and running one mile is about 80 calories. A single chocolate chip cookie has around 125 calories.

It takes a pretty good runner about 10 to 12 minutes to run a mile. It takes an average eater (you and me) about 20 seconds to completely eat an average sized cookie. It is impossible to exercise more than you can eat!

Now, really, can you imagine our woman going over two years without eating something extra? Does it sound remotely reasonable that she will completely magically lose the urge to snack or clean her plate or go for desert even when she is full?

Remember she has already given in to those urges and overeaten in the past, even when she did not want to. Even when she would have loved to be thin or was scared silly of diabetes, her urges still drove her to eat enough to be 100 pounds overweight.

Am I saying that exercise is useless? Of course not. Exercise is very useful for many reasons. Even to burn calories and lose weight. But the amount of calories and weight loss from exercise has been extremely over sold. And it is critical to understand that exercise alone will never be enough. It is an emotional trap to think that exercising will make you lose weight.

The American Heart Association and American College of Sports Medicine together suggest 30 minutes of moderate physical activity five days a week “to promote and maintain health.” About the relationship with exercise and weight loss they say: “It is reasonable to assume that persons with relatively high daily energy expenditures would be less likely to gain weight over time, compared with those who have low energy expenditures. So far, data to support this hypothesis are not particularly compelling.” If after years of study, the American Heart Association and American College of Sports Medicine can’t be more conclusive, then perhaps we can just use our own logic and realize that exercise is good, but just not for weight control and stop beating ourselves up for not going to the gym. It is time to find a better answer.

Obviously exercise is a good thing. Everyone says they feel physically and mentally better when they exercise. If you choose to exercise keep in mind that you are doing it for your health and to feel better, not to lose weight. Of course if you do choose to begin any exercise program you

should consult your doctor first. That is true for anyone and especially important if you are overweight and have been sedentary for any extended period of time.