Exercise + Fasting Is Stress, Causes Obesity And IR, And Requires Cortisol Blockade To Reverse

[Vinero]

Yes, I agree. But that is the point though. If you are healthy then do NOT start exercising either otherwise you will have to keep it up indefinitely and eventually the crash will come as I mentioned in my post to dibble and then you will become insulin resistant. Also, raising MR through stress/exercise/fasting has been shown to increase mortality and morbidity in the long run. What is healthy is having a high RMR (aka resting MR), which depends on thyroid and low PUFA stores.
This whole exercising/fasting thing is right up there with drugs like PPI and SSRI. Once you are on them you'd better keep that routine or all hell breaks loose. And then when hell does break loose the version from your doctor is "well, we all get sick eventually and die, nothing you can do about that". The first one can definitely be avoided to a large degree.

Docters are so stupid it's unbelievable. In 2012-2013 I was using cortisone for skin problems I was having. After a few months on cortisone I got very weird neurological issues and complained to my doctor about it. He actually thought I was depressed and wanted to give me SSRIs. Not once did it occur to him that maybe it were side effects from the cortisone I was given. When I stopped the cortisone those strange neurological issues went away after a few weeks/months. I never go to doctors again, it's like digging your own grave with the drugs you get.

 

[Dobbler]

What about slow walking at nature?

 

[Hans]

I was into intermittent fasting (16/8) and fasted weight training a few years ago. The first time I tried it I got really good results. A real good lean bulk. Then I stopped for some reason and continued weight lifting but without all the fasting. I got real chub quickly. Two years later I decided to give the intermittent fasting and fasted weight training another shot. On the 16/8 I didn't get any results and had to increase my fast to 23 hours and stuff myself with all my calories in one meal for the day. Well it worked, but it was not sustainable. And also I never got the so called better and faster mental abilities from fasting.
Its still very possible to get fat and insulin resistant after stopping IF and fasted training even when eating in a caloric surplus. I never stopped training when switching between fasting and non fasting, so just the fasting alone is a major stressor on the body.

 

[tallglass13]

Ray peat always talks against fasting and stressful forced exercise, so I'm assuming that most all Peater's follow his diet and regime. Most of all the supplements designed for us lower Cortisol as well. Is this thread just a reinforcement of Peat's ideas?

 

[sladerunner69]

Or.... because they eat too much, foods that stimulate metabolism, stimulate hunger, and many overshoot their needs because of that.

Yes and many people after reading about the benefits of sugar and saturated fat, simply avoid PUFA and limit starches, not counting saturated fat intakes. What I was doing at the beginning was drinking 2% milk, whole milk, half and half in my coffee, organic beef, lamb sausage, frying in butter/coconut oil. I wasn't counting the fat calories at all, but probably consuming 3-4k calories a day total, and only lifting a few times each week. I felt great so I didn't pay attention when the fat started to accumulate. Now, 3 years later and 40 pounts heavier. I am lowering my fat intake and trying to burn it away, but it is relatively slow to the fat loss experienced by fasters and low carbers. I can lose maybe 1-2 lbs a week... Im trying to go extremely low fat now and I've stopped taking niacinimide and aspirin so maybe that will help bump it up to 3 lbs a week.

 

[CLASH]

@haidut
To clarify, Exercise as in running "aerobic exercise" is what is being discussed here?
Lifting weights (obviously not at excessive volumes) is not being discussed as a stressor leading to IR, obesity and elevated cortisol?

 

[CLASH]

Also, I'd like to chime in and add, in a similar train of thought as Tarmander, that the gut situation, I think, is just as important as the stress of exercising/ fasting. The running/ fasting most likely is additive/ synergistic due to the effects of stress on the gut mucosa as described by Selye (ulceration/ bleeding). So running, fasting (cortisol), plus/ but mostly inflammation from endotoxin (serotonin, prolactin, estrogen, blocking efficient respiration) is the true cause of obesity. The cortisol may also be up-regulated by the gut bacteria.

I think, the reason most people feel better fasting is because once in the lowered metabolic state (from running/ fasting) and having the compromised gut bacteria, carbohydrate digestion and digestion for most foods (minus basically meat and pure fat) becomes impaired and when they eat they are basically poisoning themselves (especially, store milk, fruit and sucrose on the Peat diet which is easily fermented by bacteria and hard to break down by people initially, at least from my experience). When they start with Peat they feel better initially because they are eating sugar which lowers acth and other stress hormones but then once the endotoxin production ramps up from bacterial fermentation they gain weight and start to have other issues.

Thus, the real cure is to lower cortisol other stress hormones through eating sugars and revitalizing metabolism but doing so in a way that doesn't lead to endotoxin production and bacterial fermentation. This can be done with Peats dietary paradigm, but some specific tweaks need to be made.

In order to do this from my experience and research, sucrose needs to be cooked into monosaccharides (i.e. invert syrup) with an acid (I use ascorbic acid). I find that I can't eat sucrose at all without endotoxin symptoms but invert syrup is no issue (when switching to invert syrup, I ate the same amount of calories but I lost 10lbs in a week). I think that all the studies that show that sucrose or fructose causes negative changes in the liver and blood lipids is due to endotoxin, not the sugar directly (minus the false interpretation of some lipid changes as negative parameters when they really aren't).

Also, A1, pasteurized, homogenized milk from the store is a massive issue. Its not easily digested, leads to bacterial fermentation and causes inflammation in the intestines (Theres studies on A1 vs. A2; heating proteins denatures structure and milk proteins have a specific structure such that when hydrolyzed via pepsin they release peptides with "bioactive" properties that I believe (experienced) are hampered by pasteurization; homogenization butchers the casein-fatty acid- calcium structure in milk effecting digestion as well). Thus, in order to address this raw A2 or raw goat milk, I think, would solve most peoples problems (also, make sure the milk is grass fed with grass that isn't sprayed with herbicide or pesticide or uses GMO which will be present in the milk; the grass feeding also allows for the correct bacteria to colonize the raw milk and thus colonize your gut; it also makes sure that there is no allergenic components of the milk from the grain causing inflammation in animal and thus leading to an effect on the milk).

Lastly, I would assume most peoples colonic bacteria are severely impaired due to c-section birth, formula feeding, strong anti-biotic use (cephalosporins, carbapenems etc.; these damage the gut microbiota much more than penicillin, and tetracylines, theres many publications showing this), and years of grain consumption (look at what happens when ruminants are fed grain, they develop acidosis and can die or become extremely sick leading to the need for antibiotic use, hence the use in factory farming. Also coincidently it makes the cattle fat. How do you make cattle fat= grains and antibiotics, how do you make humans fat= grains + antibiotics). Thus, in order to replenish these bacteria in the colon and wipe out the negative bacteria, raw goat milk or A2 + Raw kefir (utilizing kefir grains, not industrial starter or store-bought garbage) can be utilized. The raw milk is antibiotic itself and contains bacteria that colonize the colon, and the kefir contains entire colonies of bacteria with all the ingredients to set up shop in the colon (the kefir is akin to sending troops to Afghanistan with weapons, supplies etc.; while probiotics is akin to sending college students over, naked and starving). I know that Peat isn't big on colonic bacteria, but I think this is an underdeveloped component in his paradigm and if addressed would solve a lot of peoples problems such as obesity, IR and high cortisol (in conjunction with not fasting and avoiding chronic cardio).

 

[Djukami]

When you say one should never exercise while fasting, are you referring to all those folks that do IF and exercise while fasting (remembering Ori Hofmekler, for instance)? Not saying this is healthy, but I'm always confused if people are talking about fasting + exercise and not refeed after (I don't know who would do this though). I guess both are unhealthy in your opinion, nonetheless.
(I may have asked my own question already, lol.)

 

[vulture]

I'm the kind of guy who loses weight, fat and specially muscle, when stops training and eating "properly" (I mean as I used to).
When I gained weight working out I needed huge amounts of food, even used to eat 15 eggs a day. I could even eat a whole chicken in one meal when I was 83 Kg at 1.82 m tall some years ago.
When I started Peating I came from IF and a 4 day water fast (I even tried "the anabolic diet"). As far as I see I'm eating more frequently (I get hungry about 6 to 8 times a day) but I've never being leaner in my life and I'm not even trying to...I never expected to get leaner drinking coffee with sugar 4 or even 5 times a day, not to mention eating almost 20 oranges a day...
So, my case seems like reverse of what you are saying here. I'd like go GAIN weight, obviously muscle. One of the main insights and advices I got here are: stop lifting weights (Mark Rippetoe's starting strength routine) and recover. I have to admit that it was challenging to even consider such idea.
I seriously doubt you can be significantly stronger just having a good endocrine system or good methabolysm alone, I won't say you can't live longer being away of strength training, but you surely won't be able to carry an 80 kg sand bag just drinking OJ and coffee alone hahaha as long as I can see here, brief strength training here seems popular

 

[paymanz]

Also, I'd like to chime in and add, in a similar train of thought as Tarmander, that the gut situation, I think, is just as important as the stress of exercising/ fasting. The running/ fasting most likely is additive/ synergistic due to the effects of stress on the gut mucosa as described by Selye (ulceration/ bleeding). So running, fasting (cortisol), plus/ but mostly inflammation from endotoxin (serotonin, prolactin, estrogen, blocking efficient respiration) is the true cause of obesity. The cortisol may also be up-regulated by the gut bacteria.

I think, the reason most people feel better fasting is because once in the lowered metabolic state (from running/ fasting) and having the compromised gut bacteria, carbohydrate digestion and digestion for most foods (minus basically meat and pure fat) becomes impaired and when they eat they are basically poisoning themselves (especially, store milk, fruit and sucrose on the Peat diet which is easily fermented by bacteria and hard to break down by people initially, at least from my experience). When they start with Peat they feel better initially because they are eating sugar which lowers acth and other stress hormones but then once the endotoxin production ramps up from bacterial fermentation they gain weight and start to have other issues.

Thus, the real cure is to lower cortisol other stress hormones through eating sugars and revitalizing metabolism but doing so in a way that doesn't lead to endotoxin production and bacterial fermentation. This can be done with Peats dietary paradigm, but some specific tweaks need to be made.

In order to do this from my experience and research, sucrose needs to be cooked into monosaccharides (i.e. invert syrup) with an acid (I use ascorbic acid). I find that I can't eat sucrose at all without endotoxin symptoms but invert syrup is no issue (when switching to invert syrup, I ate the same amount of calories but I lost 10lbs in a week). I think that all the studies that show that sucrose or fructose causes negative changes in the liver and blood lipids is due to endotoxin, not the sugar directly (minus the false interpretation of some lipid changes as negative parameters when they really aren't).

Also, A1, pasteurized, homogenized milk from the store is a massive issue. Its not easily digested, leads to bacterial fermentation and causes inflammation in the intestines (Theres studies on A1 vs. A2; heating proteins denatures structure and milk proteins have a specific structure such that when hydrolyzed via pepsin they release peptides with "bioactive" properties that I believe (experienced) are hampered by pasteurization; homogenization butchers the casein-fatty acid- calcium structure in milk effecting digestion as well). Thus, in order to address this raw A2 or raw goat milk, I think, would solve most peoples problems (also, make sure the milk is grass fed with grass that isn't sprayed with herbicide or pesticide or uses GMO which will be present in the milk; the grass feeding also allows for the correct bacteria to colonize the raw milk and thus colonize your gut; it also makes sure that there is no allergenic components of the milk from the grain causing inflammation in animal and thus leading to an effect on the milk).

Lastly, I would assume most peoples colonic bacteria are severely impaired due to c-section birth, formula feeding, strong anti-biotic use (cephalosporins, carbapenems etc.; these damage the gut microbiota much more than penicillin, and tetracylines, theres many publications showing this), and years of grain consumption (look at what happens when ruminants are fed grain, they develop acidosis and can die or become extremely sick leading to the need for antibiotic use, hence the use in factory farming. Also coincidently it makes the cattle fat. How do you make cattle fat= grains and antibiotics, how do you make humans fat= grains + antibiotics). Thus, in order to replenish these bacteria in the colon and wipe out the negative bacteria, raw goat milk or A2 + Raw kefir (utilizing kefir grains, not industrial starter or store-bought garbage) can be utilized. The raw milk is antibiotic itself and contains bacteria that colonize the colon, and the kefir contains entire colonies of bacteria with all the ingredients to set up shop in the colon (the kefir is akin to sending troops to Afghanistan with weapons, supplies etc.; while probiotics is akin to sending college students over, naked and starving). I know that Peat isn't big on colonic bacteria, but I think this is an underdeveloped component in his paradigm and if addressed would solve a lot of peoples problems such as obesity, IR and high cortisol (in conjunction with not fasting and avoiding chronic cardio).

God point about sucrose.

I thought the same,

However once I did a little search about it and apparently the rate of monosaccharide absorption in intestine and the rate of hydrolysing of sucrose match together. inverted sugar didn't absorbed faster than sucrose. At least in those studies I found.

 

[paymanz]

What about slow walking at nature?

I believe things like that lower cortisol.

 

[Lucenzo01]

Also, I'd like to chime in and add, in a similar train of thought as Tarmander, that the gut situation, I think, is just as important as the stress of exercising/ fasting. The running/ fasting most likely is additive/ synergistic due to the effects of stress on the gut mucosa as described by Selye (ulceration/ bleeding). So running, fasting (cortisol), plus/ but mostly inflammation from endotoxin (serotonin, prolactin, estrogen, blocking efficient respiration) is the true cause of obesity. The cortisol may also be up-regulated by the gut bacteria.

I think, the reason most people feel better fasting is because once in the lowered metabolic state (from running/ fasting) and having the compromised gut bacteria, carbohydrate digestion and digestion for most foods (minus basically meat and pure fat) becomes impaired and when they eat they are basically poisoning themselves (especially, store milk, fruit and sucrose on the Peat diet which is easily fermented by bacteria and hard to break down by people initially, at least from my experience). When they start with Peat they feel better initially because they are eating sugar which lowers acth and other stress hormones but then once the endotoxin production ramps up from bacterial fermentation they gain weight and start to have other issues.

Thus, the real cure is to lower cortisol other stress hormones through eating sugars and revitalizing metabolism but doing so in a way that doesn't lead to endotoxin production and bacterial fermentation. This can be done with Peats dietary paradigm, but some specific tweaks need to be made.

In order to do this from my experience and research, sucrose needs to be cooked into monosaccharides (i.e. invert syrup) with an acid (I use ascorbic acid). I find that I can't eat sucrose at all without endotoxin symptoms but invert syrup is no issue (when switching to invert syrup, I ate the same amount of calories but I lost 10lbs in a week). I think that all the studies that show that sucrose or fructose causes negative changes in the liver and blood lipids is due to endotoxin, not the sugar directly (minus the false interpretation of some lipid changes as negative parameters when they really aren't).

Also, A1, pasteurized, homogenized milk from the store is a massive issue. Its not easily digested, leads to bacterial fermentation and causes inflammation in the intestines (Theres studies on A1 vs. A2; heating proteins denatures structure and milk proteins have a specific structure such that when hydrolyzed via pepsin they release peptides with "bioactive" properties that I believe (experienced) are hampered by pasteurization; homogenization butchers the casein-fatty acid- calcium structure in milk effecting digestion as well). Thus, in order to address this raw A2 or raw goat milk, I think, would solve most peoples problems (also, make sure the milk is grass fed with grass that isn't sprayed with herbicide or pesticide or uses GMO which will be present in the milk; the grass feeding also allows for the correct bacteria to colonize the raw milk and thus colonize your gut; it also makes sure that there is no allergenic components of the milk from the grain causing inflammation in animal and thus leading to an effect on the milk).

Lastly, I would assume most peoples colonic bacteria are severely impaired due to c-section birth, formula feeding, strong anti-biotic use (cephalosporins, carbapenems etc.; these damage the gut microbiota much more than penicillin, and tetracylines, theres many publications showing this), and years of grain consumption (look at what happens when ruminants are fed grain, they develop acidosis and can die or become extremely sick leading to the need for antibiotic use, hence the use in factory farming. Also coincidently it makes the cattle fat. How do you make cattle fat= grains and antibiotics, how do you make humans fat= grains + antibiotics). Thus, in order to replenish these bacteria in the colon and wipe out the negative bacteria, raw goat milk or A2 + Raw kefir (utilizing kefir grains, not industrial starter or store-bought garbage) can be utilized. The raw milk is antibiotic itself and contains bacteria that colonize the colon, and the kefir contains entire colonies of bacteria with all the ingredients to set up shop in the colon (the kefir is akin to sending troops to Afghanistan with weapons, supplies etc.; while probiotics is akin to sending college students over, naked and starving). I know that Peat isn't big on colonic bacteria, but I think this is an underdeveloped component in his paradigm and if addressed would solve a lot of peoples problems such as obesity, IR and high cortisol (in conjunction with not fasting and avoiding chronic cardio).

There is a great book called The milk cure. Pretty Peaty. There used to be places where people get to drink raw milk and rest in hot bathes for years to treat really serious conditions and war traumas.

Regarding digestion, stomach acid tends to be the culprit for a lot of people.

 

[paymanz]

main insights and advices I got here are: stop lifting weights (Mark Rippetoe's starting strength routine) and recover.

Recover from what?

The weight loss they mention here is the fat weight.

If you want gain muscles you can eat as much as carb and protein you want, and wokout.

Just have enough rest between your sets, dont do too intense that you can't hold a conversion(as haidut said). Don't do wokout to long and to the point of glycogen depletion.

 

[vulture]

Recover from what?

The weight loss they mention here is the fat weight.

If you want gain muscles you can eat as much as carb and protein you want, and wokout.

Just have enough rest between your sets, dont do too intense that you can't hold a conversion(as haidut said). Don't do wokout to long and to the point of glycogen depletion.

Low testosterone, stress hormones and inflammation, I suppose. There was a suggestion to get libido and vitality back up before working out again.

I mentioned all that because most of you talked about gaining weight when started Peating your diet.

eating more protein it's usually tied to more fat (only way I see to avoid this is skimmed milk or casein and I'm far from able to digest milk properly). Is that ok or there's limit on fat other than PUFA intake per day?

 

[Peater Piper]

Also, raising MR through stress/exercise/fasting has been shown to increase mortality and morbidity in the long run.

Well, since you used rat studies...

Exercise increases average longevity of female rats despite increased food intake and no growth retardation. - PubMed - NCBI

In previous studies, male rats given access to voluntary running wheels showed improved survival. Because the male runners did not increase food intake, it was not clear whether their improvement in average longevity was due to decreased availability of energy for cell proliferation and growth or to another effect of exercise. In this study, female rats, which increase their food intake in response to wheel running, were used to determine whether exercise can increase longevity when availability of energy for cell proliferation and growth is not decreased. At age 5 mo, the female voluntary wheel runners were running 9173 +/- 3640 m/day (mean +/- SD); running distance declined to 965 +/- 483 m/d by age 34 mo. From 5 mo to 10 mo of age, the runners ate approximately 37% more than the sedentary rats. Thereafter, the runners ate approximately 20% more. The runners and sedentary rats attained similar peak body weights. However, the runners gained weight more rapidly, attaining steady state by 11 mo; the sedentary rats' weights did not plateau until approximately 15 mo. The runners had a significant prolongation of average longevity without an increase in maximal life span. The sedentary rats' average age at death was 924 +/- 155 days (mean +/- SD; range, 619-1263 d) compared to 1009 +/- 132 days (range, 693-1259 d) for the runners, p < .001. These results show that exercise improves average longevity of rats independent of decreased availability of energy for cell proliferation and growth. They also provide evidence that an increase in food intake is not harmful when balanced by an increase in energy expenditure.

There's also plenty of correlation between physical activity and longer lifespan in humans, but of course there's many variables involved. I'm just not seeing the evidence that sensible exercise and diet are actually harmful, in fact there's a fair amount of evidence showing otherwise.

 

[Thoushant]

Yes, I agree. But that is the point though. If you are healthy then do NOT start exercising either otherwise you will have to keep it up indefinitely and eventually the crash will come as I mentioned in my post to dibble and then you will become insulin resistant. Also, raising MR through stress/exercise/fasting has been shown to increase mortality and morbidity in the long run. What is healthy is having a high RMR (aka resting MR), which depends on thyroid and low PUFA stores.
This whole exercising/fasting thing is right up there with drugs like PPI and SSRI. Once you are on them you'd better keep that routine or all hell breaks loose. And then when hell does break loose the version from your doctor is "well, we all get sick eventually and die, nothing you can do about that". The first one can definitely be avoided to a large degree.

The healthiest people I know(3 I regard as superhealthy) have all incorperated exercise in their lifestyle, and they are all NW0. The thing is they introduced swimming, running, sports very slow in teenage years and took frequent breaks, they stuff you would get lynched for "don't be a *****" "Run through the pain" etc, doesn't phase them.
They would walk-run 1km in the begining and every months they would increase slightly, logging distance etc.

The title of this thread is very misdirecting. Exercise group had better parameters overall, better than sedentary. I guess it's provocative enough to start a discussion, but a lot of people probably won't read the study itself. and you highlight stuff in support of the title, leaving out the "important to note.." I qouted earlier.

It wasn't exercise+CR, it was the sudden change in lifestyle, CR by the researcher, so it wasn't even up to the rats. No food = pass the time with running wheel. Run-CR is the true exercise+CR and they had better overall parameters. Post-Wheel placebo and PW mifepristone had abrubt lifestyle changes, and the study found worse outcomes for them.
the researchers suddenly stop the runningwheel, and introduce ad libitium food intake. Sheer frustration of not having their usual daily passtime activity is probably enough for them to overshoot eating.
So parameters measured is for a really specific lifestyle change, and they only measured for 1 week after this change. What would happen long term?
The food intake wasn't measured in ad libitum groups, only the first three weeks they noted "50%CR".
I would emphethize with any rat, having 3 weeks of starvation, to just stuff itself in food when opportunity rises. But obviously a lot of gene expression changes happend, that don't support this sudden change, short term.

 

[Peater Piper]

It wasn't exercise+CR, it was the sudden change in lifestyle, CR by the researcher, so it wasn't even up to the rats. No food = pass the time with running wheel. Run-CR is the true exercise+CR and they had better overall parameters. Post-Wheel placebo and PW mifepristone had abrubt lifestyle changes, and the study found worse outcomes for them.
the researchers suddenly stop the runningwheel, and introduce ad libitium food intake. Sheer frustration of not having their usual daily passtime activity is probably enough for them to overshoot eating.
So parameters measured is for a really specific lifestyle change, and they only measured for 1 week after this change. What would happen long term?
The food intake wasn't measured in ad libitum groups, only the first three weeks they noted "50%CR".
I would emphethize with any rat, having 3 weeks of starvation, to just stuff itself in food when opportunity rises. But obviously a lot of gene expression changes happend, that don't support this sudden change, short term.

You know, this is what many people do to themselves. They decide to lose weight, they start exercising balls to the wall while drastically cutting calories, then after a month or two they feel awful, start binge eating and regain more than they lost. Then they do it all again months down the road. Obviously this approach is a disaster. Everyone I've known who remained healthy and active throughout their lives knew how to pace themselves and weren't restrictive with their diet. I think inactivity is actually a major problem, not overactivity (though it can be a problem, and exercise addiction can be very real). Most people do the whole start and stop thing, placing a huge amount of stress on their bodies and their mental health, instead of starting slowly and finding an amount of work that isn't too stressful and is easy to maintain long term.

 

[haidut]

We have mentioned lots of ways to break that cortisol cycle, but I think the best ways must address digestion in some way. Just lowering stress hormones doesn't do it if the small intestine is not addressed. This narrows down a lot of the plethora of treatments to things like cypro or cascara

True, in people who run a lot or do a lot of other endurance type exercise endotoxin is high and cortisol may rise to keep inflammation at bay. So, lowering endotoxin load may break the cycle for some people.

 

[haidut]

Exercise group had better parameters overall, better than sedentary

Yes, better parameters while exercising/fasting. Not after they stopped. Also, look at the other studies they cited which found the same effects. Those other studies did not fast the animals. The point of the thread is that it is probably not a good approach to keep yourself thin with running/fasting. If there is a weight problem then there is probably an endocrine/endotoxin/inflammation issue and forcing your weight down through stress is not the solution even if you keep at it until you crash.

 

[haidut]

You know, this is what many people do to themselves. They decide to lose weight, they start exercising balls to the wall while drastically cutting calories, then after a month or two they feel awful, start binge eating and regain more than they lost. Then they do it all again months down the road. Obviously this approach is a disaster. Everyone I've known who remained healthy and active throughout their lives knew how to pace themselves and weren't restrictive with their diet. I think inactivity is actually a major problem, not overactivity (though it can be a problem, and exercise addiction can be very real). Most people do the whole start and stop thing, placing a huge amount of stress on their bodies and their mental health, instead of starting slowly and finding an amount of work that isn't too stressful and is easy to maintain long term.

Again, the message of this thread is NOT to never exercise, it is to not use exercise to lose weight unless it is exercise that builds muscle since only the latter raises RMR. So, in other words, you if you exercise you'd better be doing stuff that recompositions your body to have more muscle and less fat. Running often and/or fasting it one of the words ways to do that as when stopped it will lower RMR while resistance training will actually raise RMR by building muscle.
And the reason a lot of these poor souls you mention get into this predicament is that they are being told by everybody to exercise in order to stay healthy, while the message should be "raise RMR to stay healthy". Instead, they do the commonly recommended (even by their doctor) approaches to stay healthy, which includes fasting and running/cycling and that really destroys their metabolism and fat-free muscle mass through hypercortisolemia.