Exercise doesn't help you lose weight...say what?
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Overall deficit matters, not how you get there.
BINGO
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Is it safe to assume that those of you who claim that exercise is not helpful in losing weight don't bother tracking exercise when figuring out your daily deficit? If you claim that and do track calories burned through exercise, there's a bit of an an incongruity.
Nobody has said exercise is not helpful to lose weight. A lot of people have said that exercise is not essential. Maintaining a calorie deficit over time is essential. (i.e. CI < CO)
Actually the very first response said exactly that:
"From what I have learned here, your friends are correct."
And the friends of the OP stated exercise was not helpful. That's the entire premise of this thread, though it's obvious from many of the replies that not everyone understands that.
The OP didn't ask about what is "best" for our bodies, or what is "essential" for weight loss. The issue is whether exercise is helpful for weight loss.
Absolutely. People don't read.0 -
Traditionally we've been told that it's all about calories in calories out and you don't have to exercise to lose weight, but recently studies have revealed that exercise is more important in the weight loss journey than previously acknowledged.
So, of course, when you eat at a deficit you will lose weight. It turns out that a deficit is a deficit, no matter how you get there.
Also, when people complain they are not losing weight and they're eating at a deficit, it turns out they probably are not. If one is honest about their intake, they will find they actually eat more than they thing. That's why keeping a diary/log of what we eat is so important, as is weighing and measuring accurately.
Movement/activity/exercise/working out can add to a deficit. However, when people count activities of daily living, they tend to also overestimate how much effort it takes to do things. Which is why, again, keeping an accurate measurement of the calories expended is important.
This tendency to underestimate eating and overestimate calorie expenditure is something that must be addressed for ultimate success.0 -
I understand that some people feel diet is the only way but I got my skinniest treeplanting burning thousands of calories working 12 hour days and eating thousands of calories a day. It takes a lot to do it but if you overwork your consumption you lose. My two cents.0
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WaterBunnie wrote: »But the whole point is that the exercise burn is creating a calorie deficit isn't it?
It doesn't create a deficit if you are someone that eats their exercise calories back as many here on MFP do. Aside from the health benefits some just use exercise as a way to eat more. Nothing wrong with that method especially if it helps them be able to maintain their deficit through diet.
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kshama2001 wrote: »Weight loss happens in the kitchen, fitness happens in the gym. I love to exercise , but I don't need it to lose weight, I just need a calorie deficit.
Weight loss happens wherever you are able to create a calorific deficit. I really dislike the above saying SLL because it blurrs the issue, whilst pretending to be clear. All things being equal 500 calories not eaten is going to be the same as 500 calories burned in the gym.
Tiger, you are missing the point. The original conversation is about exercise being essential to losing weigh, not about whether exercise creates a deficit. Exercise is not requires to lose weight.
I think only one poster took the position that exercise was essential. The OP posited that it was helpful.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?
Actually, you are correct that I misread. However, the point is that you will lose weight whether or not you exercise as long as you are in a calorie deficit.0 -
I don't think this is a controversial topic really.
To lose weight you need to create a calorie deficit / negative energy balance. You can do so by:- diet alone
- exercise alone
- a combination of diet and exercise
Many people choose a combination of diet and exercise because it doesn't entail the greater time commitment of the exercise only approach or the greater reduction in food intake than the diet alone approach. However they can all be successful.
This!
Theoretical person has a sedentary TDEE of 2500 with normal daily activity (they don't currently work out). They want to lose 2lbs a week --> 1000 calorie a day deficit.
Any of these three methods will work, but I'm ranking them from hardest to easiet (IMO of course).
Hardest: Continue to eat 2500 calories a day, do 1000 calories a day of working out. Not easy to sustain that level of activity day in a day out.
Easier: Eat 1500 calories a day, no working out. Not too bad, but it's a little hard to work in treats regularly on 1500 calories so I would give up after a few months.
Easiest: Eat 1700 calories a day, do 200 calories of working out (or whatever level of working out is sustainable for you). You get to eat a little more, but aren't killing yourself with the workouts either. If you find that you want more calories, add extra workout time.
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Based on the positive effects that exercise gives me on an emotional and mental level, exercise is the very important thing in my weight loss plan. To each be their own, but I think the value of a good exercise plan has become undervalued and should not be ignored. Exercising on a regular basis changes the lazy habits that enables some of us to gain weight in the first place. Don't get me wrong, a person's diet has the greatest influence on fat loss, but I think the value ratio between diet/exercise should be 60%/40%. Anyone have any thoughts regarding my theory?0
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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?
Exercise is the CO part of CICO.
It is part of weight loss.
Many people early in the fitness journey can't exercise enough to burn off many calories.
It is a blend of both. Eat less and do more.
Those answers that seem to be extreme all or nothing type answers are often not true for most people.
There is no feelings part to the answer. It is just math.
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Cardio is better
Better than what? Sitting on your butt? With that I would agree.
Don't get me wrong...I tend to favor cardio but I also know that resistance training is just as important.
I am 62.
Cardio helps me be able to walk that 2 mile round trip to the grocery store...resistance training help me be able to carry a loaded backpack...another bag over the shoulder...and pull a load cart back home.
In my case at least...both are equally important...IMO.
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Exercise burns fat with oxygen. Metabolism increases even after exercising. It is a significant advantage. I can eat more and still get better results. I exercise during The morning and nite to keep my metabolism running. Also exercise is an appetite suppressor. You could go without exercise. But why make losing weight more difficult.0
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Exercise keeps your SKIN TIGHT, i know that much0
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I think a better argument would be "Not exercising does not prevent you from losing weight." As long as you are at a calorie deficit, you will lose weight. Most people find it easier to be in a deficit if you burn more. In order to burn more, you need to exercise.
Can you lose weight without exercise? Yes.
Does exercise help you lose weight? This depends on your diet.1 -
OP, you are correct. As you mentioned, there are two parts to the equation... What you consume and what you burn. As long as what you burn (which includes exercise obviously) is higher than what you consume, you lose weight.
A calorie burned has the same affect as a calorie not eaten. While you don't need to exercise to lose weight, it can certainly help. I have a MUCH easier time maintaining a deficit on days that I run.
To say that exercise doesn't help is to ignore half of the picture.
I agree.0 -
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?
diet for weight management; exercise for fitness.
it is not completely correct that exercise won't help in weight loss...it does in that it increases your calorie requisites which makes it easier to sustain a reasonable deficit...for example, without exercise if I wanted to lose about 1 Lb per week I'd be stuck with about 1800 calories or so...with exercise I can lose that same Lb per week eating around 2100 - 2200 calories...much more reasonable for me...
but really, what is being said is that your diet and intake is going to have a far greater impact on your weight loss than exercise...look at how many people you see in the gym working there butts off but they never seem to change...why? they are exercising, and that's great...but their diets are for *kitten*.
i ride about 60 - 80 miles per week...get in a 5K or two every week...lift 2-3x per week...walk my dog every other day...do a little hiking and a little swimming. I've lost weight, gained weight, and maintained weight doing all of these things...the difference between the three weight management objectives wasn't the exercise...it was my diet.
that is what your friends are trying to say...you can't out exercise a for *kitten* diet.0 -
SingRunTing wrote: »I don't think this is a controversial topic really.
To lose weight you need to create a calorie deficit / negative energy balance. You can do so by:- diet alone
- exercise alone
- a combination of diet and exercise
Many people choose a combination of diet and exercise because it doesn't entail the greater time commitment of the exercise only approach or the greater reduction in food intake than the diet alone approach. However they can all be successful.
This!
Theoretical person has a sedentary TDEE of 2500 with normal daily activity (they don't currently work out). They want to lose 2lbs a week --> 1000 calorie a day deficit.
Any of these three methods will work, but I'm ranking them from hardest to easiet (IMO of course).
Hardest: Continue to eat 2500 calories a day, do 1000 calories a day of working out. Not easy to sustain that level of activity day in a day out.
Easier: Eat 1500 calories a day, no working out. Not too bad, but it's a little hard to work in treats regularly on 1500 calories so I would give up after a few months.
Easiest: Eat 1700 calories a day, do 200 calories of working out (or whatever level of working out is sustainable for you). You get to eat a little more, but aren't killing yourself with the workouts either. If you find that you want more calories, add extra workout time.
Best analysis yet. That's why I consider exercise essential. I'm in this for the long haul. If I want to keep this up over the long term, I want to be just be watching what I eat and getting regular exercise, as opposed to exercising like a madman or obsessing over my calories to the Nth degree.0 -
SingRunTing wrote: »I don't think this is a controversial topic really.
To lose weight you need to create a calorie deficit / negative energy balance. You can do so by:- diet alone
- exercise alone
- a combination of diet and exercise
Many people choose a combination of diet and exercise because it doesn't entail the greater time commitment of the exercise only approach or the greater reduction in food intake than the diet alone approach. However they can all be successful.
This!
Theoretical person has a sedentary TDEE of 2500 with normal daily activity (they don't currently work out). They want to lose 2lbs a week --> 1000 calorie a day deficit.
Any of these three methods will work, but I'm ranking them from hardest to easiet (IMO of course).
Hardest: Continue to eat 2500 calories a day, do 1000 calories a day of working out. Not easy to sustain that level of activity day in a day out.
Easier: Eat 1500 calories a day, no working out. Not too bad, but it's a little hard to work in treats regularly on 1500 calories so I would give up after a few months.
Easiest: Eat 1700 calories a day, do 200 calories of working out (or whatever level of working out is sustainable for you). You get to eat a little more, but aren't killing yourself with the workouts either. If you find that you want more calories, add extra workout time.
Best analysis yet. That's why I consider exercise essential (ALONG with counting calories). I'm in this for the long haul. If I want to keep this up over the long term, I want to be just be watching what I eat and getting regular exercise, as opposed to exercising like a madman or obsessing over my calories to the Nth degree.0 -
it blows my mind that so many people are so blind as to believe that exercise is an absolute must for weight loss. Again, a disabled person does not have to exercise to lose weight. A calorie deficit alone is enough to achieve that goal. Maintaining a calorie goal at maintenance level will be enough to maintain weight without gaining weight back.
It's incredibly arrogant for able-bodied people to continue to argue that everyone must exercise to lose and maintain weight loss. Anyone doing so discounts the struggle of everyone who lives in a less than able state who continues to also work to live at a healthy weight.
I agree with this but would also include more in this group than someone that is disabled. Many senior citizens have lost and maintained without huge calorie burns. I exercise but I am very much aware that my calorie burns are not significant enough to achieve weight loss alone. I always just assume that it covers any errors in my logging.
I don't exercise for weight loss...I exercise to maintain functionality.
I believe that exercise can have benefits toward losing weight...I just don't think that it is necessary to lose or to maintain. Just makes it somewhat easier.
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Do you have a link to those studies?47Jacqueline wrote: »Traditionally we've been told that it's all about calories in calories out and you don't have to exercise to lose weight, but recently studies have revealed that exercise is more important in the weight loss journey than previously acknowledged.
So, of course, when you eat at a deficit you will lose weight. It turns out that a deficit is a deficit, no matter how you get there.
Also, when people complain they are not losing weight and they're eating at a deficit, it turns out they probably are not. If one is honest about their intake, they will find they actually eat more than they thing. That's why keeping a diary/log of what we eat is so important, as is weighing and measuring accurately.
Movement/activity/exercise/working out can add to a deficit. However, when people count activities of daily living, they tend to also overestimate how much effort it takes to do things. Which is why, again, keeping an accurate measurement of the calories expended is important.
This tendency to underestimate eating and overestimate calorie expenditure is something that must be addressed for ultimate success.
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Faithful_Chosen wrote: »bcalvanese wrote: »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...
Not attacking, but it's incorrect. Say I go all out and mountain bike trails for four hours. That will burn me about 2150 calories (and I'd be dead, but that's besides the point. I would also burn 1350 just by being my awesome self. So, I have an awesome 3500 calories to burn that day! And my maintenance is at about 2000, so make that 5500! Wow, awesome!
Now, I go home and I am starving! I already had a big breakfast to give me a bit of fuel to burn (eggs, bacon, some veggies, etc for about 600 cal) and I grazed on trail mix while out biking (700). While cooking myself up some baked potatoes and sausages (1000), I demolish a bag of crisps because I am starving (1200). I go out for McDonald's in the evening and gorge because I am still hungry! 2000 calories. Some ice-cream, a nice beer or two, some chocolate, yum! 500 cal. So, math done, I am over maintenance and although I worked out like crazy and I will feel awesome for doing it (and thus justified in binging), I would still gain--especially if I did this every day. You can't out exercise a bad diet. Period.
So true. When the weather is not 100+ I like to do 2 or 3 hours hikes. I get back home...for about an hour I am just too tired to eat. Then all of a sudden...I am so hungry I could eat everything in the house...and still be hungry!
So much for hiking to burn a few extra calories...
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WaterBunnie wrote: »But the whole point is that the exercise burn is creating a calorie deficit isn't it?
It doesn't create a deficit if you are someone that eats their exercise calories back as many here on MFP do. Aside from the health benefits some just use exercise as a way to eat more. Nothing wrong with that method especially if it helps them be able to maintain their deficit through diet.
Therefore protecting the deficit you've set here that you might otherwise have eaten in to... I think we're on the same page. Exercise allows you to eat more but still lose at your preset rate.
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it blows my mind that so many people are so blind as to believe that exercise is an absolute must for weight loss. Again, a disabled person does not have to exercise to lose weight. A calorie deficit alone is enough to achieve that goal. Maintaining a calorie goal at maintenance level will be enough to maintain weight without gaining weight back.
It's incredibly arrogant for able-bodied people to continue to argue that everyone must exercise to lose and maintain weight loss. Anyone doing so discounts the struggle of everyone who lives in a less than able state who continues to also work to live at a healthy weight.
Did you even read the thread? Pretty sure no one said that, much less "so many people". Maybe next time skim the posts before you start berating people?0 -
DeguelloTex wrote: »
LOL. No, seriously. It actually made me laugh out loud.
You already know the "why".
It's the reason resistance training while in a deficit is widely regarded as a Good Thing.
So now you want to compare the differences in 500 calories lost through cardio v 500 lost through resistance? Its not what the OP was asking.
Ah, no.
It's about body composition. How you make your deficit affects your body composition which affects the size of the deficit at any given caloric intake level.
"All calories are equal" is only true in a naive, superficial sense. Which means all deficits are not, in fact, the same.
If I lift and have, say, a 500 calorie deficit what, exactly, do you see as the meaningful difference in body composition between a deficit achieved by eating 500 calories less versus eating 300 calories less and exercising for 200 calories? Let's presume I'm getting enough protein and fat and the 300 diet deficit comes from cutting intake above those points.
You can't "let's presume enough protein", because presuming that is precisely what invalidates the original claim. The moment you need to "presume" anything about the diet is the moment you acknowledge not all calories are equal, and not all deficits are equal.
Congratulations - you are agreeing with me.
:drinker:
LOLing indeed.0 -
Pretty much it's true. Of course there is some overlap between exercise and diet, but when you separate them out it makes sense and it WORKS until you get to elite athlete body fat levels where the overlap is greater.
Exercise (especially lifting) to build and maintain lean body mass.
Diet (amount of food) to control the level of body fat.
It's a little too simple, and of course there are unique complications for each person, but in general for the average person who is over weight it holds true. Some people feel they need "exercise calories" and some don't, and in the end it really doesn't matter because as long as the body is dropping body fat the method they use is working. Who's to argue with "What is actually working"?0 -
I see a lot of people here don't understand the laws of physics...2
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Is it safe to assume that those of you who claim that exercise is not helpful in losing weight don't bother tracking exercise when figuring out your daily deficit? If you claim that and do track calories burned through exercise, there's a bit of an an incongruity.
Nobody has said exercise is not helpful to lose weight. A lot of people have said that exercise is not essential. Maintaining a calorie deficit over time is essential. (i.e. CI < CO)
Actually the very first response said exactly that:
"From what I have learned here, your friends are correct."
And the friends of the OP stated exercise was not helpful. That's the entire premise of this thread, though it's obvious from many of the replies that not everyone understands that.
The OP didn't ask about what is "best" for our bodies, or what is "essential" for weight loss. The issue is whether exercise is helpful for weight loss.
Absolutely. People don't read.
Except, you are absolutely wrong.0 -
Except, you are absolutely wrong.
Explain then how exercise isnt helpful.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?0 -
For weight loss purposes, your diet is more important. It's a lot easier to make up for lack of exercise by eating fewer calories than it is to try to out-exercise a diet too high in calories. But, in theory, you're right in saying that you can create a deficit by eating less and/or exercising more. The problem is that exercise doesn't burn nearly as many calories as some people like to think.
A person that eats 1600 calories per day and doesn't exercise will lose the same amount of weight as a person that eats 2000 calories and burns 400 calories per day, without fail, from exercise.
For fitness purposes, I find that both are extremely important. 50/50, I'd say. You need to have your calories/macros in check in order to heed the best results from all of your work in the gym.0 -
I need to save up some money. I want to get a part-time job to earn extra income, but my friend says the only way to save money is to spend less, and that working more won't help you get extra money.0
This discussion has been closed.
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