'Calorie for calorie, it’s easier to lose weight by dieting than by exercise'

Weight loss is probably one thing that beats the US foreign policy in the frequency of discussion. The results of a study, published very recently in The New York Times, takes up the old but never-resolved debate over dieting and exercise. In a recent study undertaken  by a group of US-based researchers, it has been revealed that exercising doesn't always result in weight loss.The NYT article says, "The underlying and rather disheartening message of that finding, of course, is that physical activity by itself is not going to make and keep you thin."[caption id="attachment_404048" align="alignleft" width="380"] A recent study said one necessarily doesn't lose weight by exercising. AFP.[/caption]The researchers made a trip to Tanzania to ascertain the effects of exercising and dieting. They got members of the local Hazda tribe to volunteer for their research. The tribesmen who still live by hunting and gathering, were given a rough idea of contemporary field-study techniques and then fitted with GPS devices. The researchers tracked them for eleven days as they went hunting. The NYT article says:

Providing these tribespeople with a crash course in modern field-study technology, the researchers fitted them with GPS units, to scrupulously measure how many miles each walked daily while searching for food. They also asked them to swallow so-called doubly labeled water, a liquid in which the normal hydrogen and oxygen molecules have been replaced with versions containing tracers. By studying these elements later in a person’s urine, researchers can precisely determine someone’s energy expenditure and metabolic rate.

The resultant calculations confirmed, what could be bad news for several weight watchers - exercising doesn't guarantee weight loss.However, fitness enthusiasts need not lose heart and ditch the treadmill completely. A Huffingtonpost.com article cites another research which says that compared to a carefully-planned healthy diet, an exercise regimen is likely to increase a person's  lifespan and reduce possibilities of cardio-vascular diseases.In the research published in Huffingtonpost.com and conducted by Dr. Duck-chul Lee of the University of South Carolina's Arnold School of Public Health, 14,000 white, slightly overweight, middle class men were put under the scanner. It was found that for an increase worth one unit in fitness, there was a 19 percent decrease in the risk of heart diseases.So, don't skip the treadmill yet and give the Big Mac a miss now and then!