Explain this contradiction.
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TimothyFish wrote: »The National Registry of Weight Control reveals that 90% of the people who maintained a loss of 30 pounds or more for at least a year exercise about 1 hour per day. So, exercise is the most important factor when maintaining weight loss, but during the dieting phase, calorie restriction is more important, even to the point that people are often told that exercise isn’t required. Explain this apparent contradiction.
You first. Please to explain where there even exists a contradiction and if you can do that, I'll explain...whatever it is you feel needs explaining.0 -
So basically you just started another thread to stir something up- got it.0
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I'm going to assume it's because they have less time to eat. It's hard to cram in pizza/ avocados/ paleo bacon kumquat puffs while under a barbell or while running. (see what I did there to keep all eating factions of mfp happy?)0
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TimothyFish wrote: »mamapeach910 wrote: »Oh, they did more than that, Tim. Here's what the site says on the summary page for research findings. Note that it mentions diet.There is variety in how NWCR members keep the weight off. Most report continuing to maintain a low calorie, low fat diet and doing high levels of activity.
78% eat breakfast every day.
75% weigh themselves at least once a week.
62% watch less than 10 hours of TV per week.
90% exercise, on average, about 1 hour per day.
So no, it's not mentioned as the most important factor.
"90% exercise, on average, about 1 hour per day."
It is the highest one, so that makes it the most important. In fact, if you consider that 78% eat breakfast, that means that at least 22% don't eat breakfast and still maintained their weight, but only 10% don't exercise an hour a day an have managed to maintain their weight.
I don't eat breakfast; I don't exercise on average about 1 hour per day. Maybe (if I'm lucky) 3h per week.
I've been at goal weight for two years (three? four maybe? I've lost track).
Exercise gives me extra calories so I can eat more.
I like eating a lot, and so does much of north america.
It stands to reason that if many people do not count their calories (to ensure that cals in are <= cals out), then they're likely exercising enough to sustain that goal weight by offsetting any additional calories consumed by that exercise.
Also, many people who are at goal weight have gotten there, or stay there because fitness is important to them. They do it because they enjoy it, not because they have to do it to stay at goal.
Is exercise a mandatory? NO.
Does it make it so that it's easier to enjoy life (and cookies and pizza and cake and ice cream and hamburgers mmmmm)... YES
which in turn, makes it easier to remain at goal weight.
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The exercise is ONE part of the healthy habits that those people are doing.0
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mamapeach910 wrote: »Need2Exerc1se wrote: »TimothyFish wrote: »mamapeach910 wrote: »Oh, they did more than that, Tim. Here's what the site says on the summary page for research findings. Note that it mentions diet.There is variety in how NWCR members keep the weight off. Most report continuing to maintain a low calorie, low fat diet and doing high levels of activity.
78% eat breakfast every day.
75% weigh themselves at least once a week.
62% watch less than 10 hours of TV per week.
90% exercise, on average, about 1 hour per day.
So no, it's not mentioned as the most important factor.
"90% exercise, on average, about 1 hour per day."
It is the highest one, so that makes it the most important. In fact, if you consider that 78% eat breakfast, that means that at least 22% don't eat breakfast and still maintained their weight, but only 10% don't exercise an hour a day an have managed to maintain their weight.
It makes it the most common factor, which could be viewed as the most important. But that still does not equal required.
Isn't the fact that 10% maintained without it proof that it's not required?
What percentage of people who eat breakfast every day also do 1 hour of exercise at least 5 times a week? Do we then conclude that eating breakfast causes one to burst into spontaneous zumba?
I hate when spontaneous zumba happens. Darned inconvenient in cramped spaces.
And early meetings.0 -
TimothyFish wrote: »The National Registry of Weight Control reveals that 90% of the people who maintained a loss of 30 pounds or more for at least a year exercise about 1 hour per day. So, exercise is the most important factor when maintaining weight loss, but during the dieting phase, calorie restriction is more important, even to the point that people are often told that exercise isn’t required. Explain this apparent contradiction.
What about the 100% of people who maintained a loss of 30 pounds by breathing every day?
Hold your breath -> get fat
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I totally get why you find this confusing. Here's the thing. Exercise doesn't really work for weight LOSS, because it's very, very difficult to create enough of a deficit through exercise alone. For example, let's say that before attempting weight loss, I was eating 2,500 calories per day. I need about 2,000 calories per day to maintain my weight and about 1,500 calories per day to lose a pound per week. It is almost impossible to create a deficit of 500-1000 calories per day with exercise. I HAVE to restrict calories to create enough of a deficit. And I know this from experience because even when I trained for and ran 10k races and half marathons I never lost a pound.
I ended up losing 40 lbs. after my second child using calorie counting alone and doing NO exercise (except for what results in having 2 kids, lol).
But for MAINTAINING weight, exercise is very helpful. For example, my sedentary TDEE is 1600 calories, whereas my active TDEE is about 2100. This makes is much easier for me to maintain my loss over a long-term period of time.
I hope that helps clarify the importance of exercise for maintenance rather than loss.0 -
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TimothyFish wrote: »The National Registry of Weight Control reveals that 90% of the people who maintained a loss of 30 pounds or more for at least a year exercise about 1 hour per day. So, exercise is the most important factor when maintaining weight loss, but during the dieting phase, calorie restriction is more important, even to the point that people are often told that exercise isn’t required. Explain this apparent contradiction.
That's not a contradiction at all. You haven't said anything about their calorie balance during the year. Since you haven't given any data on the other factors, you cannot (logically speaking) conclude that exercise is or is not the most important factor.
I will say, though, that when you are overweight and eating 4000 calories a day like I was, the easiest and biggest impact is to change your diet. At that point, I couldn't climb a flight of stairs without stopping to rest, so exercising wasn't an option really.
But still, there's no contradiction. Calories in vs. Calories out applies while dieting and maintaining.0 -
Small study, but some people's bodies may lower their metabolism when caloric intake is cut. Thus, they would need to exercise more to keep their metabolism up. Note: I haven't read the study, so I have no idea if the methodology was good or what other possible explanations for the phenomena seen were.
Why You Can't Lose Weight -- But Your Best Friend Can -- On The Same Diet
At last a nutrition and weight loss study has revealed what millions of people have already known all too well from personal experience: different folks lose weight at different rates – even when their calorie deficit is the same.
“This study is the first time that it has been shown in a laboratory setting that individual differences in biology make it difficult for some obese people to lose weight,” said Susanne B. Votruba, a nutrition researcher at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases and senior author of the study published in the journal Diabetes yesterday.
The findings suggest that weight loss is a bit more complex “calories in, calories out,” and that a calorie for one person is not necessarily equal to a calorie for another person in terms of how their bodies burn the energy. In the small in-patient study, all 12 participants lost weight, and yes, they did so because they were burning more calories than they were consuming. However, even when their calorie restrictions were proportionally identical, some lost twice the percentage of their body weight as others during the six weeks of a strict diet.
"It’s nice to see calorimetry employed to prove that the friend who can ‘eat anything’ and not gain weight probably is put together differently than most of us,” said Yoni Freedhoff, an assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Ottawa and the founder and medical director of the Bariatric Medical Institute, which provides non-surgical weight management.
Votruba’s team defined two different body types as “thrifty” or “spendthrift” based on how the participants’ bodies burned calories during a 24-hour fast, measured in a whole-room calorimeter. (The room measures breath to calculate precisely how many calories the body is burning.) Some participants’ metabolism slowed down when they fasted, meaning they burned fewer calories – a thrifty person. “Therefore, when restricting calories, the body of a thrifty person slows its metabolism more in effort to conserve energy, making weight loss more difficult,” Votruba said.
In other words, the less the person eats, the fewer calories their body burns, relatively speaking. “Spendthrift” folks have the opposite going on: they burn calories faster when they fast. The researchers don’t know whether these differences are there from birth or whether they develop over time. In this particular study of seven men and five women, most of the spendthrift people were men and most of the thrifty ones were women.
The 12 participants, with an average weight of 237 pounds, first spent three in-patient weeks maintaining their weight with a strictly regulated diet (50% carbs, 30% fat, 20% protein). Then they spent the next six weeks consuming only a liquid diet of Ensure that contained 50 percent of of the calories required to maintain their weight (individualized to each person) and not exercising. Contrary to the popular idea that cutting 3,500 calories equates to losing a pound, the researchers found the loss of one pound equated to anywhere from 1,560 to 3,000 calories depending on the person.
“We all have our own internal fuel efficiencies when it comes to our bodies’ abilities to handle calories,” Freedhoff said. “This isn’t in and of itself news, of course. Ten different people with the same degree of caloric excess or restriction will vary in the amount of weight they’ll gain or lose as a consequence.”
But what does the study’s findings actually mean for people with obesity who are trying to lose weight? Not much. There is no easy way for the average person to learn whether they have a “thrifty” or “spendthrift” metabolism – only a few of those metabolic research chambers exist in the world – and it’s not clear that knowing would make a difference in terms of a weight loss strategy.
“In general, as things currently stand, weight loss strategies should be the same for all: make smart food choices, practice portion control and increase movement and exercise,” Votruba said. She pointed out that every volunteer in the study lost a significant amount of weight, suggesting that “regardless of biological differences, weight loss is plausible with sustained effort.”
But while this finding doesn’t offer any new ideas for weight loss strategies, it may offer something far more valuable: validation to those who have felt shamed for not “trying hard enough” when they’ve cut calories significantly and still struggled to lose weight, or much of it. While all the participants in this study did, as Votruba said, lose quite a bit of weight, they also ate half of what their bodies needed to maintain their weight, a pretty severe diet (and all liquid in this case) and one that may not be sustainable for many people. This study only compared metabolic differences in people with obesity, but psychology plays a role in weight management as well, and the discouragement of not seeing results if one has a “thrifty” metabolism may feel less dispiriting if there were a way for the person to find that out.
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At 55 I know that exercise is a vital part of my health regime ..even though it always has been its essential now....its not about weight loss its about my heart and vital organ health. its about aging strong and gracefully and independently.0
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One thing that I really like about this OP, is that whatever he says, I can comfortably assume the opposite is true.-1
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TimothyFish wrote: »It is the highest one, so that makes it the most important.
You are confusing correlation with causation. It's a common logical fallacy. Just because two things happen at the same time does not mean that one is causing the other. It does not rule out the (often very likely) possibility that some third factor is the actual cause of both of them. In this case, the third factor is that the person is committed to living a healthy lifestyle. This causes both exercising and eating right.
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You didn't mention pop tarts. Why do you hate people who eat pop tarts?I'm going to assume it's because they have less time to eat. It's hard to cram in pizza/ avocados/ paleo bacon kumquat puffs while under a barbell or while running. (see what I did there to keep all eating factions of mfp happy?)
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TimothyFish wrote: »mamapeach910 wrote: »Oh, they did more than that, Tim. Here's what the site says on the summary page for research findings. Note that it mentions diet.There is variety in how NWCR members keep the weight off. Most report continuing to maintain a low calorie, low fat diet and doing high levels of activity.
78% eat breakfast every day.
75% weigh themselves at least once a week.
62% watch less than 10 hours of TV per week.
90% exercise, on average, about 1 hour per day.
So no, it's not mentioned as the most important factor.
"90% exercise, on average, about 1 hour per day."
It is the highest one, so that makes it the most important. In fact, if you consider that 78% eat breakfast, that means that at least 22% don't eat breakfast and still maintained their weight, but only 10% don't exercise an hour a day an have managed to maintain their weight.
But what is "breakfast"... Or" exercise"... Not knowing how they define those things makes it kind of irrelevant0 -
LiftAllThePizzas wrote: »
You didn't mention pop tarts. Why do you hate people who eat pop tarts?I'm going to assume it's because they have less time to eat. It's hard to cram in pizza/ avocados/ paleo bacon kumquat puffs while under a barbell or while running. (see what I did there to keep all eating factions of mfp happy?)
Because we don't have as many flavours up here in Canada and I have the jealous. I also hate Oreos because we don't get birthday cake confetti salted caramel pumpkin spice ones here.0 -
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TimothyFish wrote: »mamapeach910 wrote: »Oh, they did more than that, Tim. Here's what the site says on the summary page for research findings. Note that it mentions diet.There is variety in how NWCR members keep the weight off. Most report continuing to maintain a low calorie, low fat diet and doing high levels of activity.
78% eat breakfast every day.
75% weigh themselves at least once a week.
62% watch less than 10 hours of TV per week.
90% exercise, on average, about 1 hour per day.
So no, it's not mentioned as the most important factor.
"90% exercise, on average, about 1 hour per day."
It is the highest one, so that makes it the most important. In fact, if you consider that 78% eat breakfast, that means that at least 22% don't eat breakfast and still maintained their weight, but only 10% don't exercise an hour a day an have managed to maintain their weight.
Have you been going to logic classes with Pu?LiftAllThePizzas wrote: »
You didn't mention pop tarts. Why do you hate people who eat pop tarts?I'm going to assume it's because they have less time to eat. It's hard to cram in pizza/ avocados/ paleo bacon kumquat puffs while under a barbell or while running. (see what I did there to keep all eating factions of mfp happy?)
Because we don't have as many flavours up here in Canada and I have the jealous. I also hate Oreos because we don't get birthday cake confetti salted caramel pumpkin spice ones here.
We have birthday cake ones here(East coast) . Not the rest though.
No pop tart flavours though. Just the regular.0 -
alittlesandy wrote: »I totally get why you find this confusing. Here's the thing. Exercise doesn't really work for weight LOSS, because it's very, very difficult to create enough of a deficit through exercise alone. For example, let's say that before attempting weight loss, I was eating 2,500 calories per day. I need about 2,000 calories per day to maintain my weight and about 1,500 calories per day to lose a pound per week. It is almost impossible to create a deficit of 500-1000 calories per day with exercise. I HAVE to restrict calories to create enough of a deficit. And I know this from experience because even when I trained for and ran 10k races and half marathons I never lost a pound.
I ended up losing 40 lbs. after my second child using calorie counting alone and doing NO exercise (except for what results in having 2 kids, lol).
But for MAINTAINING weight, exercise is very helpful. For example, my sedentary TDEE is 1600 calories, whereas my active TDEE is about 2100. This makes is much easier for me to maintain my loss over a long-term period of time.
I hope that helps clarify the importance of exercise for maintenance rather than loss.
Would you say that the 2100 is easier to maintain because you tend to want to eat that much no matter your activity level, or do you think it is because there is something about exercise that causes you to want to eat less?0 -
I'm going to assume it's because they have less time to eat. It's hard to cram in pizza/ avocados/ paleo bacon kumquat puffs while under a barbell or while running. (see what I did there to keep all eating factions of mfp happy?)
@andylllI, it was good of you to try, but someone's bound to be upset, no matter what you say. As for there being less time to eat, I'm sure that's at least part of it.0 -
Basically, here's how I think about it. First, the processes of weight loss and weight maintenance are different. Weight loss has many rewarding factors, number on scale goes down, lots of reinforcement from people, various benefits. However, when you are in maintenance the most you can really hope for is for things to stay the same. So there isn't as much reward. Whereas with exercise, there is an immediate feel good effect PLUS you can continually improve your fitness and have various fitness related rewards.
Exercise is always useful in creating a deficit. It allows you to have a bigger deficit or eat more food. However, study after study have not found that people who increase exercise also lose weight. The primary reason is that they increase their food intake which offsets the calories burned. It's quite easy to overestimate calories burned and underestimate calories consumed. In the case of long-term maintainers, a) they are probably relatively good estimators and b) they are going to have a lower BMR and thus being able to eat more food through exercise will be particularly helpful.
The other thing to keep in mind in interpreting this is that we are taking a very special sample... long-term weight loss maintainers and comparing them to folks in weight loss studies (who on average will lose only 5-10% of starting weight and not maintain that loss). There are clearly special aspects of long-term maintainers which might lead them to exercise regularly (such as conscientiousness, drive, etc.).0 -
At 55 I know that exercise is a vital part of my health regime ..even though it always has been its essential now....its not about weight loss its about my heart and vital organ health. its about aging strong and gracefully and independently.
That is a very good reason to exercise.0 -
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TimothyFish wrote: »The National Registry of Weight Control reveals that 90% of the people who maintained a loss of 30 pounds or more for at least a year exercise about 1 hour per day. So, exercise is the most important factor when maintaining weight loss
How do you get that conclusion? If anything it's a vague observation.
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TimothyFish wrote: »The National Registry of Weight Control reveals that 90% of the people who maintained a loss of 30 pounds or more for at least a year exercise about 1 hour per day. So, exercise is the most important factor when maintaining weight loss, but during the dieting phase, calorie restriction is more important, even to the point that people are often told that exercise isn’t required. Explain this apparent contradiction.
I don't see where the contradiction is. People who exercise are more likely to be successful at weight management - if you want to lose weight, you need a caloric deficit - two different statements that in no way contradict each other.0 -
TimothyFish wrote: »It is the highest one, so that makes it the most important.
You are confusing correlation with causation. It's a common logical fallacy. Just because two things happen at the same time does not mean that one is causing the other. It does not rule out the (often very likely) possibility that some third factor is the actual cause of both of them. In this case, the third factor is that the person is committed to living a healthy lifestyle. This causes both exercising and eating right.
Perhaps that is the case. If so, then exercising an hour a day would be a strong indicator of commitment to the healthy lifestyle. Would you conclude that if a person is trying to lose weight but they aren't exercising an hour a day that they will probably regain the weight, because they aren't committed to a healthy lifestyle?0 -
I lost weight once before and kept it off for 5 years.
While I was successfully maintaining I did a variety of things, but one important one was exercising regularly and pretty hard.
When I abruptly stopped exercising (for various reasons), I also started regaining the weight and did so pretty quickly.
This was either because:
(1) stopping exercising was a symptom of no longer being motivated to maintain the loss or caring, as was lesser concern for eating a correct number of calories (I hadn't monitored calories, but portion size);
or
(2) exercise was one of the main thing that had motivated me and encouraged me to care about maintaining my weight and good eating habits;
or
(3) without exercise I didn't fully understand how much I had to cut my eating to maintain, and so started gaining and once I'd gained 20 lbs or so (I'm short) I kind of felt like what I ate didn't matter that much and I started eating more carelessly, especially since I was generally unhappy and other things were going on.
I wish I knew, but I honestly could not say which of the 3 it is. I do know that exercising is important to me for maintenance, though.
It has been important to me while losing too, but I can see how it's less necessary for many, as losing is fun and motivating in and of itself, while exercise provides an important motivation to stay fit and something to focus on re fitness once the loss is over. That's how it worked for me before.
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TimothyFish wrote: »It is the highest one, so that makes it the most important.
You are confusing correlation with causation. It's a common logical fallacy. Just because two things happen at the same time does not mean that one is causing the other. It does not rule out the (often very likely) possibility that some third factor is the actual cause of both of them. In this case, the third factor is that the person is committed to living a healthy lifestyle. This causes both exercising and eating right.
This.0
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