Is Exercise or Nutrition More Important for Weight Loss? | ZOE Science and Nutrition Podcast

Podcast videos will be made available here a week later each Monday.

In the context of human history, our transformation into coach potatoes happened in the blink of an eye. Only 100 years ago, most people relied on manual work to make their living.

Today, things are different. Many of us live our lives in front of a screen. Online shopping and remote work mean some of us don’t need to leave the house at all. So how bad is this for us?

The answer is now clear: Low levels of physical activity lead to an increased risk of disease and a lower quality of life in older age. However, when we come to the question of what sort of exercise you should be doing, how often, and how much it contributes to weight loss, the answers might surprise you.

In today’s episode, Jonathan speaks to a Human Physiologist to learn about the interactions between diet and exercise and their impact on human health:

Dr. Javier Gonzalez is an associate professor of Human Physiology at the University of Bath and also a technical advisor to the athletes in the INEOS Tour de France cycling team.

Timecodes:
00:00 - Intro
01:58 - Episode start: quickfire round
03:55 - Why does exercise matter?
04:59 - How much exercise do you need to see health benefits?
05:58 - Defining exercise
08:53 - How much walking to do to see health benefits?
09:51 - What is cardio training & strength training?
11:33 - Differences between cardio and strength training
13:20 - Importance of strength training
16:43 - Is exercise or nutrition more important for weight loss?
19:47 - Dr. Javier’s research on fasting & exercise
24:17 - Should we exercise in a fasted state?
27:49 - Fasting and bone health
29:06 - What can we learn from professional athletes?
30:49 - How does glycogen get produced?
35:00 - How does exercise relate to gut health?
36:18 - What we should eat to benefit from exercise
39:09 - How to think about protein intake
41:04 - How should non-athletes think about food to complement their exercise
45:03 - Personalization & differences between men & women
48:38 - How important is exercising for menopausal women?
50:52 - Summary
57:39 - Goodbyes
57:51 - Outro

This podcast was produced by Fascinate Productions.

[fleurcraven]

I would just like to add, I am going through the menopause, and I take body identical HRT. HRT has really helped my symptoms, however I just couldn’t get into my exercise. I visited Louise Newson’s menopause clinic (Stratford upon -Avon)in February this year and the doctor suggested that I add in some testosterone. 2 months later, I have spontaneously started to exercise, demonstrating that for me this wasn’t behavioural. I feel like I have more energy and want to exercise again. I hope this info might help any ladies here, who are struggling to exercise because of their menopausal symptoms. Please don’t feel bad about yourself as it could be down to your hormone profile being out of balance, affecting your behaviour, not you so to speak ☺️

[vanessamcmurtrie]

Really useful discussion. I follow a 16/8 eating window and run 5km twice a week (only since hitting menopause to improve bone density) in a fasted state (usually around the 14th hour of fast). Helpful to understand what the body is doing. I find running in a fasted state much easier than a few hours after eating, now my body is used to it but my takeaway from this podcast is that if I do a longer run (75 -90 mins) I should probs eat something beforehand to avoid hitting the wall.

[milena_z_whales]

I wanted to add, that some forms of yoga are also very good at improving joint and ligament health. The same as high impact endurance training can help strengthen the bone structure (running, jumping, can really work well for bone density in the long leg bones), also a form of yoga can help with bone density in the spine. It is about providing the right type and amount of stress at the right place in the body. I know that strength training is great at those, but there are other forms of exercise that work too.

[Radhatter]

1. Morning Sunlight
2. Grease the groove (movements like pull-ups, squats, hanging etc) intermittently
3. Block blue artificial light at night enhances melatonin antioxidant
4. Get grounded walk on grass shoeless barefoot, swim in lakes
5. Sweat daily saunas exercise etc
6. Walk 10, 000 steps a day

[julieharrison]

Really good episode - knew some of this but good to understand the myths and also the impact of some of the ideas (fasting before exercise, protein after exercise). I'm a cyclist (knees no longer allow me to run) and training a lot at the moment and I know I overeat afterwards. Need to be much smarter in thinking about what goes in before and after (is it endurance, is it intervals or is it just a gentle ride). AND being mindful what I eat on my more sedentary days

[michaelrawson]

Thank you excellent broadcast. I would like to know more about; the effects of exercise - fed and fasting - for people over the age of 70.

[francesbarratt]

Thx for the discussion and suggestions about menopause. I’ll definitely try those out - even a little jog which I’ve always tried to avoid.

[GreenGivesMeJoy]

I’m a dietitian and this type of information helps me give better advice to my patients. Very good, solid based research. Thanks for sharing!

[corefactorpilates]

Really found this so valuable and so very interesting. Incredibly helpful and fascinating. A super set of questions properly answered in this podcast, which I loved as well as clearly explained.

During Lockdown 1 and 2 I put on nearly 2 stone as my steps plummeted from 15, 000 a day to 2, 000. Some people became more active and were outside more but for me, it was the opposite.

Being a normally very active and busy person, teaching Pilates at venues, I taught only from home on Zoom. I rarely went out and obviously no socialising. I ate more (still home cooking from scratch) but I found I was eating larger portions and snacking more on salty high fat snacks, as well as drinking more and in the day. With downtime restricted to just watching TV and films or socialising with friends via the laptop, my life became very sedentary and in those 9 months, I’d gained 22 pounds. Friends were shocked when I said and told me they couldn’t tell, as I’m relatively tall at 5’7 but I knew and could FEEL it, especially when 80% of clothes were no longer fitting!

I also know that it was a coping mechanism to deal with the silent stress of the Covid situation and the lockdowns, which were hugely damaging for me; emotionally and physically.

It was great that I could still teach Pilates via Zoom though and see all my clients regularly each week. Without that, I know I would have suffered to a far greater extent.

I found Zoe in April 2020 due to the Zoe Covid App and have logged daily ever since but admit my regularity is waning as I forget to log more often now, being distracted with social things and activities, which is so great!

Just before 2021, I decided that I had to shift the gained ‘Lockdown Lard’ and became my own Personal Trainer, introducing formal cardio training running between 2-5k every other day and I still do. Combined with increased water consumption, a reduction of carbs, calories, eating more vegetables and cutting back on meat by about 65% and introducing an element of fasting and exercising, the weight has finally dropped off. It’s taken 16 months to lose 18 pounds of the 22 gained, which I put on in only 9 months in 2020.

Being the age I am (now 50) I realised that being in peri-menopause, the dropping Oestrogen levels were also playing a major part. Since I was 45, I had adjusted my diet to respond to cravings of food high in vitamin B6 which worked and managed the symptoms to an extent but last year, I realised suffering increased night sweats, daytime hot flushes, cycles of 50+ days, insomnia, itchy skin and mastitis just before a period, it was time to seek medical help and go onto HRT. I’ve been on it 8 months now and it’s a game changer! My cycles are back in sync at 28-29 days, the troublesome symptoms have gone and I feel like I did in my 30s again, which is terrific! Interestingly too and it may have been coincidental but I lost 4lbs within 3 weeks of being on HRT. I think balancing my hormones has definitely been a huge benefit in helping me drop my Lockdown weight gained.

I’m still keen to lose the remaining 4lbs and get back to my pre-Covid weight that I was in March 2020.

The combination of regular cardio exercise, reduction in meat intake and increased veg, increased water intake, fasting periods, less alcohol, swapping to healthier vegetable snacks, reverting back to my normal step count of 15, 000 a day, socialising again, whilst being on HRT, being happier to have my normal life back again, combined with the Pilates I do have all contributed in my mission to lose that Lockdown unwanted weight.

Thank you again Zoe for all you do and providing such helpful advice, research, facts and an excellent forum for discussion! ✨🌟🤸🏽‍♂️

[andrewmainprice]

Really good podcast .It was really well explained and was easy to understand.

[richardstarkess]

Love this podcast, from getting into the dietary aspect of life I've begun to understand more about why I've always felt like I do. I've always had an active physical life but have been called a "bad eater" usually one meal a day, yet I could keep going when my colleagues would flag and need to stop for food.
Being slightly hungry had me on a kind of high ?
At sixty three I'm still the same weight I was at twenty three 😊

[frednelson]

Thanks, backed up what I have learned recently about nutrition and exercise

[andylees]

Such a joy to hear from people who really know their onions! Also very pleased to learn that I can treat running as a leg day...

[macsmiffy]

You said weight “loss” in relation to menopause. Surely, you meant weight “gain”. I’m mid 60s now and weight gain is a huge (in more ways than one) problem for me even though I eat a good, non-processed diet. I have chronic pain from osteoarthritis of the hip and referred pain in the knee which has had a big impact on the type and amount of exercise I can do. I’ve lifted weights for over 40 years, done various aerobics classes, rambling, cycling, spinning, yoga (you didn’t go on to talk about benefits of yoga), but a lot of that has stopped now. Lockdown didn’t help. I’m at a loss really of what to do next. Especially when you add in the problems of dieting affecting metabolism. I can’t afford the Zoe diet, so I’m basically just keeping to a whole foods diet and trying out different forms of exercise to see what is manageable because even walking is difficult. For me, exercise was also a big part of my social life: walking with ramblers and cycling with a community group. I’ve had to give all that up. It’s quite demoralising really.

[karenshaw]

I learnt a lot from this podcast - wish I'd known some of the facts during my menopause. However, knowing that Calcium I take is doing me good, plus I'm grateful to learn that having breakfast after taking exercise is better. Also that I might have fewer estrogen receptors as the loss of estrogen has had quite an effect on me.

[TaffmanGuyo]

I wonder what the impact of central heating in temperate zones & people getting their own vehicles earlier in life has? Born in 1951 in South Wales, UK, I spent a lot of time waiting on cold bus stops, feeling cold in homes with no central heating - I must have been using energy to keep warm? As a young buck in my early 20s I'd think nothing of jogging 3 miles to meet up with my girlfriend, also cheaper than getting 2 buses. There was brief mention about biological health markers eg blood lipid levels, I'd be interested in knowing more about the significance of these, as a retired Biologist I am aware of how they might impinge on our chances of a heart attack, but is this really the case? A follow up would be fascinating. Thanks for the continued good work Zoe & associates.

[christill]

I’ve definitely been very sedentary since the beginning of the pandemic. I was at home on furlough, then refused to go back to work in October 2020 so quit. Since then haven’t moved that much and have only recently found the motivation to ride the indoor bike every few days and walk on the treadmill for 10 minutes on the other days. It’s not that I don’t want to get back into acceptable shape. But the world depresses me to the point where I just don’t care. Don’t want to go outside when the covid cases are still so high and the world has generally gone mad.

But I feel like I need to at least keep working to progress, even if it is slow and painful with how weak my muscles have become. And maybe soon get outdoors on the bike again. I just have to get over the idea that going out when everyone is not wearing a mask being a failure of me to be disciplined. I know it’s pretty much an indoor disease but it’s hard to get over that irrational fear. It’s not like I’m going on a bus or train which is a rational fear based on the data.

[rumanuu]

Very good interview especially how Jonathan asked Dr Gonzalez to expand on a few points that may not have initially been totally clear to the viewer.

[caroltarr]

An interesting conversation, as I'm a Nutritionist, although long since retired. I felt that perhaps it concentrated too much on the aspect of athletes or those who do a lot of fitness training, rather than the average person who takes moderate exercise and simply wishes to lose weight or maintain a sensible weight. And please could the interviewer sit on his hands! They were waving around all the time, which I found very distracting, to the point where I shut my eyes whenever he was talking.

[Disirablepossessions]

I am 80 and find most forms of exercise difficult. I walk up and down the length of my garden, which takes about 5 minutes, a couple of times a day. My goal is to gradually get better cardiovascular and lung health. Is that the right way?