Follow Up on Diet Questions from this Month

The following is another good post on interval/high intensity training vice long slow distance running by Mike Boyle. There's little argument about this info - interval running at high intensity provides far more fitness gained, and even fat burned, for the amount of time spent and does so with decreased oxidative stress, fewer foot falls, and while building muscle (whereas long slow distance training consumes muscle).
However, one should not look to running, walking or any exercise for weight loss. The evidence that exercise is useful for body composition management is slim to none - as highlighted here http://nymag.com/news/sports/38001/#ixzz0e7FSe0yV .

"In the September/October 2006 issue of the ACSM's Health and Fitness Journal Dr. David Swain wrote an article called Moderate or Vigorous Intensity Exercise: What Should we Prescribe?
In the article Dr. Swain states that "running burns twice as many calories as walking".
Great news for those who want to lose bodyfat. This is actually a huge difference, particularly when you do the math.
Swain states that a 136 pound person walking will burn 50 calories per mile and, proportionally more as the persons weight increases. In other words a 163 lb person would weigh twenty percent more and as a result burn twenty percent more calories. This means that expenditure goes from 50 to 60 calories, also a twenty percent increase.
Swain goes on to state that running burns twice as many calories at 7 miles per hour as walking at 4 miles per hour.
This means a runner would burn 100 calories in roughly eight and one half minutes or about 11 calories a minute.
The walker at 4 miles per hour would burn 50 calories in
15 minutes ( the time it would take to walk a mile at 4 MPH).
That's less then 4 calories per minute of exercise. That's nearly three times as many calories per minute....As I have said in my fat loss articles and on my fat loss DVD, the facts clearly support higher intensity exercise for fat loss. The nice thing is that science continues to do research that supports the value of high intensity exercise. The fact is, it's not should you exercise harder, it's can you. The key is to work as hard as your health and body allows."