Health Care 4 U

Why going to the gym can make you pile on the pounds

You have stuck resolutely to your fitness plan, making it to the gym even when you are so stressed that you don’t have time to eat properly before you go.

You grab an energy bar, bust a gut for 45 minutes and then return home to collapse on the sofa and refuel with a big dinner.

All the effort, you might think, should mean you see pounds melting away. 

Bad for your waistline? Working out can actually be the root cause of extra pounds for some of us

So why aren’t you seeing any results?

We all know exercise is good for our health; it replaces fatty tissue with taut muscle. But what if exercise is actually making you fatter?

Research overwhelmingly suggests that significant weight loss cannot be achieved by exercise alone and that, in some cases, working out is the root cause of extra pounds.

Here’s why and what you can do about it.

YOU’RE WORKING UP AN APPETITE

Part of the problem is what scientists refer to as ‘compensation’.

There is no doubt exercise burns calories, but at the kind of level most of us work out, it also stimulates hunger.

The more moderate activity we do, the more we eat, effectively cancelling out the weight loss benefits.

Linia Patel, a sports dietician with the British Dietetic Association, says it’s a misnomer that exercise is a green light to increase the calories.

‘Appetite often soars when you exercise a lot,’ Patel says. ‘You need to make sure you  eat enough, but stop before you get to the point where you