Exercise doesn't help you lose weight...say what?
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LyndseyLovesToLift wrote: »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.
That is only necessarily true for a brief moment. As soon as any weight is lost, it starts becoming un-true, based on the type of exercise and the choice of calories, because body composition is changing, and it is not only possible, but quite common for that 1600 to result in a smaller deficit than the 2000 + 400 exercising.
Think....skinny fat.
Exercise has more effect on weight loss than just letting you eat back a few calories...0 -
Yeah, you can presume it. You're the one trying to be disingenuous and taking "a calorie is a calorie" out of context.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.
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I put this to the test one year. I did not change my diet, but I went to the gym every single day (with rare exception). I lost 15 pounds that year. I had hoped to lose 50; it was a disappointment but proved that I most certainly can lose weight with exercise alone.
In contrast, I've been on calorie restriction for the past 6 weeks and have lost 15-16 pounds. I haven't been formally exercising, but I've been active with cleaning out my dad's house (he recently died).0 -
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...
Well, this is where it comes down to personal experience. I find, if I do more than 1 hour of moderate cardio in a day, I can't eat enough to cancel it out. I may be starving at first, but I get full before I reach anywhere near what I burned.
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I agree that nutrition/calories in is about 80% of the battle, people tend to overestimate how many calories they burn during exercise and eat those calories back and then some.
That said- exercise- to me- is a very important part of my weightloss journey. it makes me feel better about my body and gives me wiggle room in my tracking for any calories that i might be off (I think they say you're usually about 10% off in your calorie tracking or something like that) so if I walk briskly for an hour I can take care of any little miscalculations in my counting. Does that make sense?
I think that if some one is a serious athlete that does lots of strenuous exercising then they can eat more than some one that's sedentary, i don't think that is being disputed (or at least I hope not) but there's a difference between a triathlete and some one that goes for brisk walks (like me!).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?
I guess I wasn't replying to the right post. Carry on.0 -
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Now that everyone in North America has given their opinion, can we get some jpg's and gif's in here. You guys are slacking0
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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.
Agree, these are the ways to do it
Personally, though, I'd rank them in this order of preference:
- Eat more, exercise more - I like it because of the energy boost you get from working out & appetite suppressant effects (on me anyway). Like I eat enough for the workout but less ratio wise than I would not exercising at all
- Eat some, exercise some - This is probably the easiest, for me, right now, given I'm working around injuries. (Though personally would shoot for a 300 calorie burn at the minimum)
- Eat less, exercise less (or not at all) - I find this the most difficult! Appetite goes up, harder to restrict intake, energy is down, feel like less of a person
Also, have read studies showing that vigorous, moderate, and light exercise EACH have different effects on appetite for different people (so many permutations - women vs men, cardio vs resistance, overweight vs normal weight, HIIT vs LISS vs moderate exercise, etc etc - too many to list). All you can do is see what works for you0 -
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kshama2001 wrote: »
Nice. And Ditto.
Combine the usual effect that when you work more - you also have less time to spend more - your savings can actually increase better.
Like if you are exercising instead of sitting in chair, less chance of eating more.0 -
MakePeasNotWar wrote: »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?
The way my nutritionist said it was: "exercise alone will not help you lose weight. You must reduce your calories otherwise there are still too many to burn off." Exercise is essential in losing weight in order to increase the metabolism, however, the kind of exercise will determine how quickly and where the fat comes off. Weight lifting and "burst training" are the best methods to burn more fat, more quickly and over a longer period of time during the day, even when you're not exercising. Look up the new statistics for burst training weight loss. We have more sophisticated machines now that can measure this kind of exercise, despite it being around since the Greek Olympics.
And a few posts after this, there's another one where the comment is, and I quote, 'your friend is an idiot'. Meaning the person who says that diet is 100% of weight loss is the idiot, and wrong. I had read every post up to my post, thank you very much. And I 'berated' no one, specifically, simply spoke my mind about people in general.0 -
LyndseyLovesToLift wrote: »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.
That is only necessarily true for a brief moment. As soon as any weight is lost, it starts becoming un-true, based on the type of exercise and the choice of calories, because body composition is changing, and it is not only possible, but quite common for that 1600 to result in a smaller deficit than the 2000 + 400 exercising.
Think....skinny fat.
Exercise has more effect on weight loss than just letting you eat back a few calories...
No, exercise has more effect on FITNESS than that. If a person's goal is to lose weight and they don't really care if they retain or gain muscle mass (i.e. way too many women trying to lose weight), then what I said is always true. We're talking about weight loss, not fitness, or even fat loss. Just seeing the number go down on the scale. Of course exercise is important for body composition, but plenty of people are perfectly content with skinny fat, as long as they're no longer overweight. None of my business if that's what they want. But for weight loss, it's all about calories in vs. calories out.0 -
All of MFP in one sentence:
"Lift weights because exercise doesn't matter for weight loss, and eat lots of protein because a calorie is a calorie."
Never change, MFP....
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For me it was probably 95% CICO, 5% exercise. The benefits from exercise are amazing but I would never rely on it 100% unless I was training for an Ironman or something.
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LyndseyLovesToLift wrote: »LyndseyLovesToLift wrote: »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.
That is only necessarily true for a brief moment. As soon as any weight is lost, it starts becoming un-true, based on the type of exercise and the choice of calories, because body composition is changing, and it is not only possible, but quite common for that 1600 to result in a smaller deficit than the 2000 + 400 exercising.
Think....skinny fat.
Exercise has more effect on weight loss than just letting you eat back a few calories...
No, exercise has more effect on FITNESS than that. If a person's goal is to lose weight and they don't really care if they retain or gain muscle mass (i.e. way too many women trying to lose weight), then what I said is always true. We're talking about weight loss, not fitness, or even fat loss. Just seeing the number go down on the scale. Of course exercise is important for body composition, but plenty of people are perfectly content with skinny fat, as long as they're no longer overweight. None of my business if that's what they want. But for weight loss, it's all about calories in vs. calories out.
QFT0 -
Why quibble over percentages? The only factor of importance is operating in deficit. Whether it be CI or CO, it's the difference that matters.0
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Controlling intake (dieting) helps you lose FAT. Exercise gives a little more wiggle room in the diet, but does not DIRECTLY affect weight loss. Very often after exercise goes UP, weight goes UP too. Not fat; weight. Probably water weight.
To maintain my weight loss I much prefer to monitor my exercise than my weight, because I feel that is much more under my control. I witness strength and mobility gains, direct benefits from my changing lifestyle.
How many times do we see a poor determined soul, start a strict diet regimen AND an hour or more exercise a day, only to see the scale do NOTHING or even go UP? They wonder if all that effort was worthwhile? Not understanding that, even if they may have successfully budged some fat, the weight will take some time to drop off?
I think this is why Weight Watchers focuses on calorie (point) counting for the first few weeks, before it suggests that the dieter include exercise in to their routine. Nothing is more deflating than an early "failure".0 -
I think statements like this are merely meant to suggest that you can't out exercise a bad diet...and then people take it out of context because derp...0
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Being active helps me. More active = can eat more = happy me = sticks to it.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?
Someone needs to tell the military, because we've been doing it all wrong.0
This discussion has been closed.
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