Yes, Virginia, Exercise Matters for Weight Loss
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I find exercise helps curb appetite. So without exercise, I would probably eat more! So yes, exercise definitely helps me lose weight.
(Not advocating unhealthy eating here. You still need to fuel your body properly. Just commenting that it certainly does help me stay in a calorie deficit)0 -
It's such an interesting concept - the opening figures of the thread. I know there's my perfect calorie amount, but I haven't found it yet. Maybe be with more logging I will.
I love my exercise and couldn't live without it. The benefits it's made on my life are unbelievable - confidence, self esteem, new friends, sense of purpose, no asthma, feeling strong and bouncy - not to mention more visible muscles in arms and torso, a much leaner shape, great leg definition and then all the benefits I can't see to the organs! I play tennis all the time and can't wait for the time when I start to beat the ladies who've been wiping the floor with me for a year!
I've lost a lot of weight and I'm not sure I'd have carried on losing without the tennis. But, it makes me very very hungry. It makes me lazier when I get home. If I don't count cals, I start to gain weight pretty fast. I feel I deserve a great big reward food-wise and I don't feel that on a non tennis day. So I think it has to be approached with some caution and constant reminder that if you don't count the cals you're not going to lose any weight no matter how much exercise you do - unless perhaps you're a pro athlete and not like us ordinary mortals!0 -
Thanks. Now the song Meet Virginia is stuck in my head.0
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I think we get in a habit of eating a certain amount of food and certain types of food. I've noticed that even when I exercise and MFP says, "You have 3000 calories left," I still eat about the same as before. On days when I have 1600 and no more, I have to watch it more because it is under what I would normally eat.0
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Yes, exercise can aid in weight loss.
Helpful = yes
essential = no
other than that, I am not really sure where this thread is headed…
does not seem that ground breaking to me *shrugs*0 -
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I think it might be a little different for everybody. I find exercise makes me hungry, and on top of that, there's some evidence that people tend to reduce NEAT after exercising (our bodies just don't want to lose weight!). And on top of that, again, being at the older, shorter end of the scale, proportionately, I don't burn a lot of calories when I exercise. Which means that proportionately, it doesn't increase my TDEE by much, and I can't eat much more accordingly. I'm never going to be able to create a "significant deficit" through exercise alone.
Now I'm not disagreeing, because my stats are specific to me. I'm all for exercise, and I think it might actually help weight loss in other subtle ways. And I do think compliance is key so well done on finding a way to keep that going while increasing your deficit!
I'm also on the older shorter end of the scale and don't burn a lot when I exercise either. I have the opposite experience of you when I do exercise, though. It tends to blunt my appetite.
Like you, my stats and experience are specific to me. I exercise mainly for pain relief. It significantly keeps my arthritis manageable. The appetite suppression is a bonus. I'm happy with my intake.
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Exercise is huge. I used to have a job, where the parking garage was six blocks from the office, forced 12 blocks of walking a day, I changed jobs to an office with parking right by building, my weight started creeping up. Same eating, no longer walking/running.0
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Does seem like common knowledge, but I'm also annoyed that this post is true for me. Right now i'm back in school taking extremely time consuming chem courses for a Dietetics program. I refuse to make time to exercise. I've been in maintaining my weight for about 6 months, give or take a couple of pounds, and I have no idea HOW I'm maintaining; I'm not counting calories and i'm not working out.
I am sort of paying attention to what I'm eating, but I don't, more often than not. That said, when I was working out, I was working out for fitness, and so that I was able to eat more. I'm 5'4 and 121lbs. I simply just can't eat very much if i'm not moving very much. It's super annoying. I've been lucky to not gain. I guess I'm just eating less than I think. But I feel like I've been skating on thin ice. Then again, when I am working out, my appetite does increase (not right then, but in general). It's all just a ridiculous catch 22 lol.
But really, all this boils down to is that you have to put out more energy than you put in to lose weight.0 -
SergeantSausage wrote: »"Yes, Virginia, Exercise Matters for Weight Loss For You, OP " (ftfy)
Both appealing to authority "a PhD biomedical researcher" AND a sample size of ... of ... exactly two ... lead me to this conclusion:
LOL
Counterpoint: it doesn't matter whether or not I exercise, I can tailor my eating habits to lose 1, 2, 3, or more pounds a week whether I exercise or not. I have 3 years of data.
Counterpoint: You want abs. You say so multiple times on your profile. Exercise is vital to your goal. Not just any exercise either.
Although judging by seeing you in other threads you just word vomit and leave. I rarely see you reply to rebuttals to your stance.
OK, I'll bite and come back ... just 'cause you begged.
(1) since when is "visible abs" (my goal) equivalent to "weight loss" (title of thread) - you are conflating the two. One is (sometimes) a subset of the other but they are certainly not the same. You can't have visible abs without low body fat which, for most folks requires weight loss... most ... but you certainly CAN have weight loss WITHOUT having visible abs. They are not equivalent, and only barely tangentially related. You are arguing something altogether different and irrelevant in an obvious ad hominem attack that has, literally, nothing at all to do with the title correction I submitted.
Logic much?
(2) You "counterpoint" in and of itself is an absurdity. Visible, 6-pack abs requires ZERO exercise. Nothing other than a low body fat percentage is needed. Nothing. How do I know? I had 'em as a high schooler and ... yeah ... you might consider being a member of the Chess Club being athletic and "vital exercise", right? Maybe all that dragon-slaying at the RPG tournaments worked my abs hard - what with all that throwing around of the 10 and 12 sided dice being "not just any exercise", right?
I left, because it's the polite thing to do rather than continue to do this:
You called me back, remember?
And because I make an attempt to clean up my mess before leaving, these are for you
Ad Hominem
Tangential
Abs
Now, please: don't accuse me of running away and not defending my argument and replying to rebuttals again.
I left to be polite.
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SergeantSausage wrote: »SergeantSausage wrote: »"Yes, Virginia, Exercise Matters for Weight Loss For You, OP " (ftfy)
Both appealing to authority "a PhD biomedical researcher" AND a sample size of ... of ... exactly two ... lead me to this conclusion:
LOL
Counterpoint: it doesn't matter whether or not I exercise, I can tailor my eating habits to lose 1, 2, 3, or more pounds a week whether I exercise or not. I have 3 years of data.
Counterpoint: You want abs. You say so multiple times on your profile. Exercise is vital to your goal. Not just any exercise either.
Although judging by seeing you in other threads you just word vomit and leave. I rarely see you reply to rebuttals to your stance.
OK, I'll bite and come back ... just 'cause you begged.
(1) since when is "visible abs" (my goal) equivalent to "weight loss" (title of thread) - you are conflating the two. One is (sometimes) a subset of the other but they are certainly not the same. You can't have visible abs without low body fat which, for most folks requires weight loss... most ... but you certainly CAN have weight loss WITHOUT having visible abs. They are not equivalent, and only barely tangentially related. You are arguing something altogether different and irrelevant in an obvious ad hominem attack that has, literally, nothing at all to do with the title correction I submitted.
Logic much?
(2) You "counterpoint" in and of itself is an absurdity. Visible, 6-pack abs requires ZERO exercise. Nothing other than a low body fat percentage is needed. Nothing. How do I know? I had 'em as a high schooler and ... yeah ... you might consider being a member of the Chess Club being athletic and "vital exercise", right? Maybe all that dragon-slaying at the RPG tournaments worked my abs hard - what with all that throwing around of the 10 and 12 sided dice being "not just any exercise", right?
I left, because it's the polite thing to do rather than continue to do this:
You called me back, remember?
And because I make an attempt to clean up my mess before leaving, these are for you
Ad Hominem
Tangential
Abs
Now, please: don't accuse me of running away and not defending my argument and replying to rebuttals again.
I left to be polite.
It's not polite to drop something potentially inflammatory and leave.
You also cannot compare a teenager body to that of an adult. Very different compositions and hormonal make up.
You're the one who wants visible abs, I'm the one with visible abs. Go ahead and prove me wrong by not doing any exercise to get to your goal (and by exercise I'm talking lifting or cardio or calisthenics, not ab work).
Also, I'm not a child. I don't need you to define things for me. Telling you that you drop volatile posts and never return is a fact, not a character attack. I've read Scooby's post about abs before and it doesn't apply here. You're assuming when I said exercise I meant ab workouts. I did absolutely no ab work when I initially got visible abs.
ETA: I think you missed these points by the OP:
-I'm not going to claim this pattern holds for everyone.
-weight loss was 100% determined by caloric deficit. What is under discussion here is the method of creating a long term caloric deficit
So, you're saying you don't need to exercise to create the deficit and the OP specifically stated it wasn't true for everyone. You weren't creating a counterpoint, you were weighing in with your experience that you don't need exercise to lose weight (weight, not fat, there is a difference).0 -
I feel better creating a calorie deficit through exercise alone versus diet alone. I don't feel hangry and the extra calories give me the energy I need to exercise to make them disappear.... The 75 pounds I've lost thus far is from exercise alone, the treadmill mostly. I really hate the elliptical.....
If I were the type of person to mostly eat clean, someone who didn't care for fast food or [a lot of] steak and potatoes, then I think I could stick to say 1200 calories a day... but that's just an impossible feat for me.
Honestly, I wish I was a man because I love to eat.0 -
I think it might be a little different for everybody. I find exercise makes me hungry...
I also feel hungry after exercise. By having an intake level well above BMR, it creates room for me to deal with that hunger....and on top of that, there's some evidence that people tend to reduce NEAT after exercising (our bodies just don't want to lose weight!).
I can't say for sure that didn't happen to me, but I can say that if it did, the number was small enough to live in the noise.0 -
So when you cut 1300 cals and 900 cals and then binged, what were you eating? Was your diet restricting anything or were you an omnivore and was there any significant difference in weight to lose at each point?
I've tried both restricted (keto/LC/VLC) and unrestricted ("moderation"). At the low intake levels (deficit without exercise) the end result was the same - an inevitable binge. Usually pizza and/or hot dogs - which isn't much of a clue because they're loaded with all three macros.
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Nothing like absolute thread titles with a touch of backpedalling in the post.0
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JeffseekingV wrote: »Nothing like absolute thread titles with a touch of backpedalling in the post.
Meh, that wasn't really my interpretation on it. Exercise does matter for weight loss, in the sense that it's a component for creating a deficit. That's an absolute. And that's really what the OP is talking about.
And I can relate to what was said. I've found I have a range for the minimum amount of calories I eat that will make my hunger bearable, and that minimum holds true whether or not I exercise. Additionally, that amount of calories tends be at or slightly over my maintenance. It gets a little more complicated when I factor in food "quality" and macro composition, but in general I tend to feel hungry even when my energy needs are being met. In that scenario, exercise matters quite a lot, which is unfortunate because I dislike exercising. It's just a trade off of what I dislike more: exercising or feeling hungry.
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The thing is, most of us who need to lose weight love food. If we enjoy eating less, we probably won't be here. I recently increased my weekly exercise goal, just so my TDEE won't be so pathetic.0
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girlviernes wrote: »Cool data and observations. I wonder what effect larger deficit induced through activity will have on lean mass preservation. Also, do you notice any effect on exercise performance?
If I under-eat (increase the deficit) - especially under-carb - performance suffers, a lot. It's not subtle, it's like hitting a wall. I attribute that to blowing out glycogen reserves, but am open to alternate explanations.
Wondering if you have experimented with irregular eating patterns?
I find that everyday deficit kills my motivation and also my exercise/sport performance suffers badly.
Same (small) weekly calorie deficit but with very low days and high days keeps glycogen topped up and I found it far easier mentally for adherence plus I made steady progress in all aspects of strength and fitness. My pattern was 5:2 but there are many others.0 -
I understood what he said. But the title is misleading. It's just some "wow" factor thread title so people will read it.0
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JeffseekingV wrote: »I understood what he said. But the title is misleading. It's just some "wow" factor thread title so people will read it.
And what I said was that I didn't find the title misleading. It may or may not have been click baiting based on the modification of "Virginia" expression, but that's different than being misleading. But it's a forum post...it happens. There was nothing really disingenuous going on.
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In general, it's never better to exercise your way into a calorie deficit. I do on occasion do cardio for an extra 100-200 calories but since most of my workout is lifting, it's a very inefficient way to get under your calorie goal. It's much more efficient to manage your calories vs exercising more. Unless your goals require exercising. ie.. weights for mass/strength. running for cardiovascular health/endurance. HIIT for speed/explosiveness. Or sports in general for enjoyment.0
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I just don't see what is so ground breaking here or what is even being discussed..?
yes, exercise can help increase TDEE because you expend more energy exercising..
at the same time, exercise is not necessary for weight loss...
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I think this is definitely true for many people. My main problem is that when I do more intense exercise like lifting heavy, I get seriously hangry, a LOT. While I know it raises my TDEE and I can eat more calories, the amount my appetite increases is substantially more than the actual amount I can eat and still be in a deficit. I have some serious self-control issues I need to work on.
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For real.
I came here because I live in Virginia and thought perhaps there would be a shoutout.
VIRGINIA, LAND OF NOTHING COOL!0 -
I have to agree for me, too. It comes up so often on here that I don't bother to argue it but two things I see said a lot: "You can lose without exercise" and "1200 calories is too low even if you're a couch potato." So for me personally, if I listened to both of those statements and chose not to exercise, and decided to eat, say 1500 calories, I'd be achieving a whopping 100 calorie per day deficit. I can either be really hungry or I have to exercise. Oh, the perils of being a short person.0
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I could NOT lose weight at 1200 calories because yes, I would binge, or give up because I was *miserable*. At 1500, I'm fine. At 1800 (300 cals in exercise a day) I'm great and don't even feel like I'm depriving myself of anything.
I'm losing at a pound a week, which is not as fast as I'd like to be, but any more than that and I'm not eating enough (and I can't work more exercise into my schedule right now)0 -
Obviously I can't speak for everyone, but I am certain that I would not have lost the weight (or maintained the loss) without exercise! I also always end up bingeing if I try to eat below a certain amount, so it's much easier for me to add in some exercise and eat more.
Exercise also helped me break unhealthy eating patterns by replacing it with a new habit - instead of eating junk food at night in front of the TV, I now go to the gym!
Working out also really helps alleviate anxiety/stress, which also makes me pyschologically more capable of managing my diet and making healthy choices.
Have you guys seen the National Weight Control Registry's stats on people who have successfully maintained weight loss? 90% of the successful maintainers in the NWCR exercise at least an hour a day. So, it's totally possible to be in the other 10%, but for most of us, exercise is key.
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JeffseekingV wrote: »In general, it's never better to exercise your way into a calorie deficit. I do on occasion do cardio for an extra 100-200 calories but since most of my workout is lifting, it's a very inefficient way to get under your calorie goal. It's much more efficient to manage your calories vs exercising more. Unless your goals require exercising. ie.. weights for mass/strength. running for cardiovascular health/endurance. HIIT for speed/explosiveness. Or sports in general for enjoyment.
You're conflating "better" with "efficient." You're 100% correct that simply not eating is a more efficient way of creating a deficit. Except...
What's being discussed here involves long-term adherence, which makes things somewhat more complex. So saying that it's generally never better to use exercise as a means of creating a deficit is an oversimplification. Instead, I'd say that it's good to be as efficient as you can (i.e. eat as little as your satiety, nutritional, and energy/performance needs will allow for, assuming a healthy goal), and then adjust the deficit through exercise if necessary. The second part of that, the exercise part, may not be necessary for everyone but that wasn't implied either.
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girlviernes wrote: »Cool data and observations. I wonder what effect larger deficit induced through activity will have on lean mass preservation. Also, do you notice any effect on exercise performance?
If I under-eat (increase the deficit) - especially under-carb - performance suffers, a lot. It's not subtle, it's like hitting a wall. I attribute that to blowing out glycogen reserves, but am open to alternate explanations.
Wondering if you have experimented with irregular eating patterns?
I find that everyday deficit kills my motivation and also my exercise/sport performance suffers badly.
I do "small window" IF, and occasionally drop in a big-day/small-day. The former helps me, a lot, haven't (yet) noticed a big effect from the latter. It does make sense, though, so I will keep experimenting with it.
:drinker:0
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