Exercise a Lot? Expect to Gain Weight
It was one of the worst days of my life. Last week I learned that exercise may make you gain weight. That's right. I said, gain. Not lose. I had been wondering about that for a while, as, last summer, when I ramped up my exercise routine - running, swimming, doing the elliptical, all in the same day -- I began putting on the pounds. I couldn't believe it. Someone suggested I wasn't eating enough (yeah, right). But I didn't start losing weight until I scaled back my exercise in the fall. Now a new study is saying it wasn't all in my head. (Or the scale.) I was right. Gretchen Reynolds writes at The New York Times that this provocative new study shows that a substantial number of people who take up an exercise regimen wind up heavier afterward than they were at the start, with the weight gain due mostly to extra fat, not muscle. Say what? A recent review of studies related to exercise and weight control found that in most of...