Exercise doesn't help you lose weight...say what?

cdahl383

Got into a discussion with some friends the other day regarding diet and exercise and losing weight, etc. One of my friends said that exercise does not help you lose weight, it's 100% diet. I disagreed and said that whether you take in less calories (diet) or burn more calories (exercise), if you're in a deficit you'll lose weight, therefore exercise does in fact help you lose weight. She disagreed with me still.

Your thoughts?

Kimegatron

From what I have learned here, your friends are correct.

metcastillon

I look at losing weight as 80% diet and 20% exercise. Sure, you can only focus on what you eat, and you'll lose weight, but it might not give you the results you want. Same thing if you only focus on exercise. I believe it takes a healthy combination of the two working together.

ashleypetrie4

You can't out run a bad diet, so if you're exercising, but eating like crap then it won't help. If you're eating well and in a deficit, but do not exercise, you will still lose weight. Using exercise to create a deficit is fine, but you still have to eat well.

Liftng4Lis

You can't out exercise a bad diet. I believe what you hear here is going to be it's about 80% diet. Exercise is unnecessary for weight loss. It's all about CICO. Exercise is for health and to help the deficit.

WakkoW

Exercise is for fitness and it gives you more calories to play around with, but weight management is all about diet.

DeguelloTex

It can be 100% diet. It doesn't have to be. I lost more quickly than I otherwise would have because I exercised.

nancykyong

I agree that diet plays a HUGE roll! If you eat a high sugar/fat/processed food diet then I would agree that its 100% diet. No amount of exercise will help you.

However, if you have a so-so diet that is mostly healthy with a bit of "too many cheat days".. then I would agree with metcastillon that it's about 80% diet/20% exercise.

Changing your diet alone to eliminate processed food, sugars, saturated fats and supplement with clean nutrient filled veggies and lean meats will do wonders - exercise will accelerate the weight loss and help you look better (naked). Having a higher lean body mass percentage will make you look leaner versus just being "skinny fat" or a bit "soft".

stevencloser

It's way easier creating your deficit by eating less than by exercising more, if you had to choose one or the other.

jaqcan

If you have a sufficient deficit you'll lose weight. But it's easier to measure what's going in than what you are burning, so I'd have to say it's in the food! I logged exercising this morning and it wanted to give me 700 calories for 45 minutes worth of work on the "circuit training, general" entry. On the "Curves, circuit training" entry, it gave me 450. That's WAY more likely, even though the first would be the more correct phrase.
Now if I go have a whopper meal, I'll be over my deficit for the day, even though I technically could have "logged" those calories. But I can safely have a small ice cream bar, and be totally in the green.
Previously, I was doing 5 day a week boot camp. But not paying attention to anything I was eating. I was getting smaller and tighter, but no weight loss. Since I was likely over eating, it may have been some muscle gain, but truthfully, I was just eating more than a workout could burn.

cityruss

I think the argument is more about the wording.

Overall deficit matters, not how you get there.

Merkavar

I imagine it can be 100% diet but not 100% exercise.

Say your maintaining your weight and start walking 50 mins a day, would you not lose weight with no change to your diet.

Depending on your fitness that's could be 250-500 calories burned.

aaron_mc29

I agree that it's 80/20, and I can lose weight through diet alone, but I've found that doing both together keeps me more motivated. If I exercise regularly I tend to make better food choices, because I don't want all of that exercise to be for nothing.

MakePeasNotWar

I think it's because most people naturally eat more to compensate for the exercise they do.

If you increase exercise without increasing calories, you would absolutely create a caloric deficit (or reduce a surplus, depending on your baseline). As you said, it's all about the deficit.

Machka9

Losing weight is a combination of exercise and diet.

It is all about CICO

Calories in ... what you eat
Calories out ... what you burn through daily living + exercise


I have successfully lost weight by:

-- increasing my activity level significantly while eating a lot (eg. 2000-5000 calories/day ... and consuming whatever I wanted). I was my slimmest and most fit when I was doing this, and I maintained my light weight and fitness level for almost 2 decades.

-- reducing the amount I eat, and not doing much activity ... this was marginally successful. I lost the weight, but put it back on again about 6 months later.

-- both reducing the amount I eat and increasing my activity level ... that's what I'm doing now.

sheldonklein

cityruss wrote: »

I think the argument is more about the wording.

Overall deficit matters, not how you get there.

This

999tigger

Its the deficit that matters and thats made up from eating less than your body needs to maintain. It can be 100% diet as above, but you can make that deficit larger by burning calories. It takes a lot of exercise to burn calories, so in the first instance its easier to reduce consumption, but its still possible to burn 250+ calories a day, which you can eat or leave to increase the deficit. That can be significant.

Its only 100% diet if you do no exercise.
That % can change depending how much exercise you do.

Unless you have soemthing to compare with then a % such as 80% is just notional. It cna be more concrete if its expressed as a % of the deficit.

cdahl383

I agree with what everyone has said here so far. My argument to her was then, if I ate 500 calories less per day, or I exercised 1-2 hours more a day and burned 500 calories more a day while eating the same calories as before, I would lose weight in the same fashion. My body does not know if I ate less calories or if I burned more calories to get the same net result. That was essentially my point.

To me if you're looking to get fit and in shape, you should diet and exercise together. But technically speaking you can lose lots of weight just by adjusting your diet and lowering your calorie intake without adding any exercise into your day. It just seemed to be an odd statement to me that "exercise does not make you lose weight". It's more of a matter of wording I suppose.

Cherimoose

ashleypetrie4 wrote: »

You can't out run a bad diet

Not sure i agree with this cliche. Many have lost weight while eating foods perceived as "bad", simply by increasing their calorie output.

"Most studies indicate that .. when combined with dietary restriction, exercise has a synergistic effect and enhances weight loss beyond the effect of diet alone."
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23174547

Serah87

Your friend is correct.

Liftng4Lis

cdahl383 wrote: »

I agree with what everyone has said here so far. My argument to her was then, if I ate 500 calories less per day, or I exercised 1-2 hours more a day and burned 500 calories more a day while eating the same calories as before, I would lose weight in the same fashion. My body does not know if I ate less calories or if I burned more calories to get the same net result. That was essentially my point.

To me if you're looking to get fit and in shape, you should diet and exercise together. But technically speaking you can lose lots of weight just by adjusting your diet and lowering your calorie intake without adding any exercise into your day. It just seemed to be an odd statement to me that "exercise does not make you lose weight". It's more of a matter of wording I suppose.

True, as long as you were in a deficit.

cdahl383

Right. I could exercise and burn 500 calories from that every day, but if I was eating around a 500 calorie surplus per day, I would still lose no weight and possibly gain some weight.

strong_curves

cdahl383 wrote: »

I agree with what everyone has said here so far. My argument to her was then, if I ate 500 calories less per day, or I exercised 1-2 hours more a day and burned 500 calories more a day while eating the same calories as before, I would lose weight in the same fashion. My body does not know if I ate less calories or if I burned more calories to get the same net result. That was essentially my point.

To me if you're looking to get fit and in shape, you should diet and exercise together. But technically speaking you can lose lots of weight just by adjusting your diet and lowering your calorie intake without adding any exercise into your day. It just seemed to be an odd statement to me that "exercise does not make you lose weight". It's more of a matter of wording I suppose.

Yes, if you want to get fit diet & exercise go hand in hand imo.

If you want to lose weight, diet should be your main focus.

Merkavar

Cherimoose wrote: »

ashleypetrie4 wrote: »

You can't out run a bad diet

Not sure i agree with this cliche. Many have lost weight while eating foods perceived as "bad", simply by increasing their calorie output.

"Most studies indicate that .. when combined with dietary restriction, exercise has a synergistic effect and enhances weight loss beyond the effect of diet alone."
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23174547

I think in this case bad isn't greasy cheese burger, but 2000 calorie surplus etc

As in you can't perform enough exercise in a day if your eating too much.

In my experience I burn like 8-10 cal per minute on a treadmill etc. if I was over eating by 1000 or more calories I would have to use the treadmill for like 1.5 hours just to maintain my weight.

Machka9

cdahl383 wrote: »

Right. I could exercise and burn 500 calories from that every day, but if I was eating around a 500 calorie surplus per day, I would still lose no weight and possibly gain some weight.

Right.

Your exercise (calories out) has to be greater than your calorie intake.


In my previous comment, when I say ...

"-- increasing my activity level significantly while eating a lot (eg. 2000-5000 calories/day ... and consuming whatever I wanted). I was my slimmest and most fit when I was doing this, and I maintained my light weight and fitness level for almost 2 decades."

I was cycling in the neighbourhood of 10,000 kilometres/year + walking about 750 kilometres/year + cross country skiing + snowshoeing + weightlifting + cycling indoors during the winter.

I actually had trouble keeping weight on ... eating anything over about 3000 calories in a day was just a pain. I like food, but I don't like food that much. I'd roam the grocery store looking for small but calorie dense foods so I didn't have to eat so much quantity.


(Unfortunately when the activity level drops suddenly ... like when you develop DVT after a long-haul flight ... it is difficult to readjust the eating adequately.)

mccindy72

Weight loss can be 100% diet, in that you don't need to exercise at all to lose weight. As long as you are eating in a calorie deficit, you will lose weight.
Exercise really is for fitness. As far as for weight loss, it does add to the calorie deficit, because by increasing activity, you naturally burn more calories (increase TDEE). People tend to depend on that too much, however, if they are thinking 'if I exercise I will lose weight' as a stand alone thought.
A person in a wheelchair can lose weight by eating in a calorie deficit, as can a person who is bedridden. You shouldn't need any further proof than that, that it's 100% diet.
Exercise is just another potential tool.

999tigger

cdahl383 wrote: »

Right. I could exercise and burn 500 calories from that every day, but if I was eating around a 500 calorie surplus per day, I would still lose no weight and possibly gain some weight.

And what would happen if you were eating at maintenance?

cdahl383

So it's more like exercise can help you lose weight, but it in of itself does not make you lose weight.

I agree that you can lose weight with 100% diet only, I just don't agree with the statement that exercise does not help you lose weight because it can provided you are not overeating.

Ironmaiden4life

80% diet, 10% working out, 10% genetics

tomatoey

In addition to supporting adherence/motivation with dieting, some kinds of cardio can reduce appetite in some people.

And for fitness, not even a question, do what you can.

OldAssDude

I have to disagree and say that fitness is just as (if not more) important than diet. I know I will be attacked for this, but I just cannot agree.

Fitness is key to weight control. If a person is at a good fitness level, they would have to literally be a glutton to become over weight. In addition, the more over weight a person is, the lower their fitness level.

Let the attacks begin...