At a public debate in May on the relative importance of exercise
and diet in battling obesity, Yoni Freedhoff began his opening
arguments with some basic physics. "There's no debate about
whether the laws of thermodynamics exist," said Dr. Freedhoff,
the medical director of the Bariatric Medical Institute in
Ottawa. Energy can't be created or destroyed, so weight loss
ultimately depends on burning more calories than you consume.
But which side of that equation should you focus on? Dr.
Freedhoff and Robert Ross, the director of the Centre for
Obesity Research and Education at Queen's University, argued for
diet and exercise, respectively, at the "forks v. feet" debate
at the University of Ottawa (which you can watch at
http://bit.ly/mluJBQ). But this wasn't a clash between burger-
and-beer scarfing exercise junkies and gym-phobic calorie
counters. In fact, it's increasingly clear that the two factors
can't be separated, as a new long-term study of more than
100,000 runners reveals. The National Runners' Health