Disturbing news from Time magazine last week! In an article called “Exercise does not make you thin”, there is this author who has this “special” idea that exercise makes you fatter.

WHOA!! Maybe I’m in the wrong industry If I want to help people! Seriously, I earn a living helping people lose weight, get lean and strong, get the physique they want, get into the best possible health and perform to the best of their ability! None of these things require “more fat” and if exercise makes us fat, then I should be asking all my clients to do as little exercise as possible.

Now there is scientific basis for this article as I wrote about in my previous article on the topic of fat loss and exercise.

In fact there is another study I just came across from the University of Oklahoma which came to exactly the same conclusion. I.e. 10 weeks of proper exercise had no effect on fat loss (only about 1kg of fat was lost on average!).

So… it seems this article has some merit!

Time to look for another job Coach Jon… you just spent 3 months (10-12 weeks as demonstrated in the studies) of all your client’s time, effort and money for what is in effect the same scam as any slimming center or infomercial product!

We better stop teaching clients to exercise...you know...in case they get fat!

NOT SO FAST!!

Just because the author of the article spends many hours each week exercising (and even getting a personal trainer to help him!) without getting results – doesn’t mean that he is doing it right.

The article mentions nothing about the role of eating correctly for burning fat. In fact it says that exercise makes you hungrier and you end up eating more. For example after exercise that burns 300 calories, you feel like eating a piece of cake that has 500 poor quality, fat storing, no-nutrient calories in it… YES that is true. And if you keep doing something as foolish as that – exercise will make you fat!

But exercise has so many benefits that it would be totally outrageous to stop.

• Maintaining strength, power and muscle at all ages and especially as we get old. This is a key determinant of happiness, independence and quality of life of senior citizens.
• Fitness in both the short and long duration energy systems (aerobic and anerobic) that mean life becomes easier
• It improves brain function, and happiness. My sister can attest to this! She is a therapist in the area of mental health and exercise is the BEST modality that is non invasive, drug free and has no side effects.
• It prevents age related disease like osteoporosis.
• It builds muscle mass which has direct co-relation to the strength of our immune system. (You don’t fall sick)
• It makes us look good! Yes, there I said it. If you just diet yourself till you are thin you will be weak, sickly and unattractive because you will be “skinny-fat”.
• The list really does go on and on…

So we can’t afford to ditch exercise (especially proper exercise that is the stuff we do in our personal training and fitness boot camp programs).

If there is a member of the media in Singapore who is having trouble with their tummy fat like this Time magazine author is, I would invite them to participate in our Singapore fitness boot camp. Along with our nutritional coaching.

If they did that for 12 weeks, irresponsible articles like this would never be published and I would never need to quit my awesome job of helping people in Singapore burn fat and get strong!