The scene is woefully familiar. A smelly underclassman stumbles into one of the dining halls donning a headband, a sweat-drenched T-shirt and Asics. Half-relieved from wrapping up his workout at Ping, he makes a beeline for the nearest food.
In line, the starving underclassman eyes the usual things he eats at dinner. A molehill of mashed potatoes is soon covered by a mountain of steak, General Tso's chicken and a gyro. Dining hall workers shovel corn on a second plate along with chicken curry, if it's available.
Exhausted but satiated, the student's mantra is simple: Reward thyself. He returns to the dorm and showers in the primordial stalls, thinking he broke even calorically.
Sadly, a study at the University of Colorado in Denver earlier this year showed that after exercise, when our bodies have returned to rest, our metabolism resumes its leisurely pace.
The report said that when the exercisers took a day off after a workout, their metabolisms were more or less the same as they were before the workout, leaving exercise experts, in one's words, flabbergasted.
Researchers said they took the 65 subjects from various degrees of health, obese to triathlete, and closely monitored their calorie intake. Exercisers worked out at different degrees of intensity throughout the study, alternating between low-intensity, high-intensity and unstructured cycling regimens.
The finding left many exercise researchers scratching their heads, as it probably would any post-workout eater. It was long believed exercise particularly helped burning fat calories around the clock.
It makes perfect sense that our metabolism would settle itself back down after a workout. One reason, researchers believed, was a half-truth in our perception of burning calories.
Google body building and you'd be remiss to sift through the first page of links without noticing lines like the following, albeit laced with typos and spelling errors: LET THE MUSCLE DO THE WORK FOR YOU
BULK UP AND IT'S SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN THAT THE MUSCLE WILL BURN FAT ON ITS OWN!
Granted, these capitalized claims carry some merit. Muscles in rest do burn more calories than fat, and, yes, it is scientifically proven. But for most of us flabby-bellied sissy ninnies, not very much.
Researchers say one pound of muscle burns seven to 10 calories daily, versus two calories melted away by a pound of fat. This is all pretty paltry, considering burning a pound of fat requires us to forego about 3,500 calories.
An average American male has in the ballpark of 75 pounds of fat-incinerating muscle, and the average American woman has around 50 pounds of said muscle - 750 and 500 calories required, respectively. These calorie demands could be easily met by eating relatively healthy at, say, Chipotle (750 calories for a vegetarian burrito with mild salsa, hold the animal products).
Another unforgiving fact of life underlies the love-hate relationship between exercise and weight loss: After we exert physical force, our bodies automatically begin to demand more nourishment. The cravings that hit halfway between Ping and Nelson more often than not cause students to overeat. In effect, if one doesn't watch his or her diet, exercising could actually cause weight gain.
This is why most experts are stressing intake rather than output in weight loss plans nowadays. In a far-off corner of the dining hall, a tale of skinny buzzards munches away. Forests of broccoli, chutes of celery and springs of Italian dressing populate their plates. And before their plates are empty, the exercises are done.
Adam Liebendorfer is a sophomore studying journalism and Spanish and a columnist for The Post. Send him an him an e-mail at al211307@ohiou.edu 4
Opinion
Adam Liebendorfer
