Exercise ‘doesn’t help the middle aged lose weight’

HAVE you joined a gym, squeezed into Lycra and pounded a treadmill for hours in the hope of beating the middle-age spread?

Well, apparently you’ve merely been wasting your time and money.

A leading academic says the middle-aged should not exercise if they want to lose weight.

Professor Roy Taylor said it was ‘complete nonsense’ that overweight people were encouraged to exercise because they ended up overeating to compensate.

Instead, the Newcastle University metabolism expert said, a low calorie diet was all that was needed to lose weight.

‘If people who are overweight start putting on Lycra and exercising, they will engage in compensatory overeating,’ he told the Diabetes UK Professional Conference in Manchester.

‘It’s subconscious partly, conscious partly, but it’s a real phenomenon.

‘So please – no exercise if you want to lose weight, for overweight, middle-aged and above people.’

Professor Taylor told the conference his research had shown overweight people could lose 2st 5lb in two months on a carefully monitored diet of 600 calories a day.

But he stressed that exercise was vital for keeping weight off once it had been lost.

‘This doesn’t take away anything from the important message of exercise for keeping weight steady,’ the professor said.

‘Physical activity is really important in the weight maintenance phase. We know that a combination of increased physical activity and sustained calorie restriction is the best way to keep the weight down.’

More than six in ten adults in Britain are either overweight or obese, according to Government figures.