Carl Foster,an exercise physiologist at the University of Wisconsin,La Crosse,was amused by ads for a popular piece of exercise equipment. Before-and-after photos showed pudgy men and women turned into athletes. And it all happened after just 12 weeks of exercising for 30 minutes three times a week. Then there was the popular book,promoting a programme that would totally change your body in six weeks with three 20-minute exercise sessions a week. There are many examples of people who took up exercise and markedly changed their appearance. But how long does it take? And how much time and effort are required? Six weeks sounded crazy to Dr Foster. We said: Wait a minute. You cant change yourself that much, Dr Foster said. He and his colleagues decided to experiment. The plan was to photograph volunteers wearing bathing suits and then randomly assign them to one of three groups: cardiovascular exercise,weight lifting or control. Six weeks later,they would be photographed again. Their heads would be blocked out of the photos,which would be shuffled. Then the subjects and judges would rate the body in each photo on a scale of 1 to 10. The volunteers were men,aged 18 to 40. These were people who were just sort of dumplings, Dr Foster said. Results were not surprising. The subjects rated themselves more highly than others did,and female panelists rated them lower than the male subjects or panelists did. But,over all,the ratings barely changed after the exercise programme. And neither did weight or percentage of body fat,or waist size or the size of the bicep or thigh. To make a change in how you look,you are talking about a significant period of training, said William Kraemer,a kinesiology professor at the University of Connecticut. In our studies it takes six months to a year. And,he added,that is with a carefully designed individualised programme. And genetic differences mean some people respond much better to exercise than others,said Dr Mark Tarnopolsky,an exercise researcher at McMaster University in Ontario. People who did change their bodies say six months is a bare minimum to see real change. Schuyler Antane,43,a research scientist,is one. He began in January 2006 with a diet. In three months,he had lost 10 pounds and was down to 190 pounds on his 5-ft-8-inch frame. Then he read an article on 5-kilometre races and decided to give it a try. He could run for only five minutes when he started,and it took two months to train for his first race. Within six months,he weighed about 150 pounds. Then he added bicycling and swimming,which got him to his fighting weight of 140 to 145 pounds. Then theres Charles Reilly,a federal prosecutor. This marathon runner took a 10-year hiatus when he joined his local school board. With no exercise and more eating,he ballooned from 159 pounds to 282. On April 18,2005,he had his last school board meeting. Eight days later,he went out for a run. After half a mile,I had to stop and walk, Reilly said. A month later,he could run three miles. By the end of 2006,he ran 10 miles. He changed his diet too. Reilly lost 100 pounds by February 2007,in a little over 21 months,and has maintained his weight. But,he said,he never believed those ads saying you can transform yourself almost overnight. Its not really possible, he said.
