Why do people say weight loss is all about diet?

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  • RCottonRPh
    RCottonRPh Posts: 148
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    Hours worth of working out can be nullified with one sandwich, doughnut, or frappucino. It's not that exercise isn't important, just that diet is much more so in the grand scheme of things.
  • DavPul
    DavPul Posts: 61,406 Member
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    weight loss is all about lifestyle change. Diet denotes a temporary state in which you are deprived of certain foods, carbs, etc.

    Watch the movie forks over knives.

    why would i want to watch that propaganda?
  • yuckidah
    yuckidah Posts: 290 Member
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    I just think, for most people, it's easier to not eat those 500 calories, than it is to burn them. I know it is for me.

    Couldn't agree more.
  • DavPul
    DavPul Posts: 61,406 Member
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    Lets say you are fat and eat 3000 calories a day. Then say you start doing exercise everyday and burn 500 cals a day. You will eventually start losing weight right?

    Depends on your Total Daily Energy Expenditure. If it's below 2500 and you're eating 3000, then no, burning 500 calories per day through exercise won't help you lose weight. That's why weight-loss depends mostly on diet. Exercise can increase your TDEE and allow you to eat more, but there is still a calorie threshold. Eat above it, you gain. Eat below it, you lose.

    But if you burned 750 calories per day, you WILL lose weight.

    so will you continue this math until someone has to burn 2000 calories per day to lose weight? or they could stop killing themselves on the elliptical and just not order fries with the burger
  • AllTehBeers
    AllTehBeers Posts: 5,030 Member
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    This is the hardest workout I've done in 6 months. My ticker isn't lying.

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  • j6o4
    j6o4 Posts: 871 Member
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    i w ont lose weight eating 3000 calories ........ and burning 500 um no...........
    everyone is different
    noone should be eating 3000 calories

    I'm eating 3200 calories so i guess this doesn't concern me =D. You can't exercise yourself out of a bad diet.
  • bluefox9er
    bluefox9er Posts: 2,917 Member
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    i w ont lose weight eating 3000 calories ........ and burning 500 um no...........
    everyone is different
    noone should be eating 3000 calories
    Olympic Gold Medalist Michael Phelps reports having eaten 8,000-10,000 calories a day. If you move enough, you can do it.


    did he find time to swim every now and again??
  • bluefox9er
    bluefox9er Posts: 2,917 Member
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    eat less, move more.

    i'll let everyone else do the science.
  • Railr0aderTony
    Railr0aderTony Posts: 6,803 Member
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    weight loss is all about lifestyle change. Diet denotes a temporary state in which you are deprived of certain foods, carbs, etc.

    Watch the movie forks over knives.

    Is it better than Police Academy 4?

    tumblr_inline_mksrio0Qex1qz4rgp.gif

    I loved them movies.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,867 Member
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    i w ont lose weight eating 3000 calories ........ and burning 500 um no...........
    everyone is different
    noone should be eating 3000 calories

    3,000 is right around my maintenance number...

    OP...you can build a deficit into your diet with exercise alone...problem is that it is not necessarily all that efficient...it's much more efficient to build it into your diet. People who try to go with just the exercise route tend to over-train, don't take rest day, and often end up injured. If you're injured...good luck burning your 500 calories per day.

    I don't workout for calorie burn...I exercise for fitness. Because of this, I don't necessarily burn 500 calories or whatever per day...it varies day to day...some days are high intensity and I burn a ton...others aren't much more than a bunch of walking around...and I have my one rest day per week. Exercising for the sake of calorie burn is ****in' boring.
  • Zangpakto
    Zangpakto Posts: 336 Member
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    Yea... because you know... the saying that abs are built in the kitchen and not the gym... yea...

    That is why...

    Eating alone wont get you good abs as wont build muscle, however even if you trained like a demon, without proper nutrition you will NEVER have abs no matter how you train...

    The kitchen is where being lean is made.. not the gym... The gym helps, but isn't the factor that decides it...
  • michellekicks
    michellekicks Posts: 3,624 Member
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    My average TDEE is 2850 calories. I can easily eat over 3000 calories in a day... and I'm a girl. And not fat.
  • TheEffort
    TheEffort Posts: 1,028 Member
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    Depends on your Total Daily Energy Expenditure. If it's below 2500 and you're eating 3000, then no, burning 500 calories per day through exercise won't help you lose weight. That's why weight-loss depends mostly on diet. Exercise can increase your TDEE and allow you to eat more, but there is still a calorie threshold. Eat above it, you gain. Eat below it, you lose.

    This.

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  • BrianSharpe
    BrianSharpe Posts: 9,248 Member
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    i w ont lose weight eating 3000 calories ........ and burning 500 um no...........
    everyone is different
    noone should be eating 3000 calories

    I have days when I'll eat 3,000 cal and still be below my target...

    Surprisingly, everyone is not "different" other than the amount of fuel they need (barring a metabolic disorder or medical condition). The laws of thermodynamics apply to all of us.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1032429-you-re-not-special
  • twinketta
    twinketta Posts: 2,130 Member
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    Having just spent 10 days in Orlando to visit Disney and seeing all the obese/overweight adults and children stuffing their faces at the parks and in the hotel breakfast buffet, not to mention the buffet in the Golden Corrall.

    Children above the age of 3 and 4 years old being pushed around in strollers, adults taking mobility scooters to get around.

    Then I would categorically state a lot of it is to do with `diet`

    I think exercise for a lot of people comes way down the list of things to do
  • KeithAngilly
    KeithAngilly Posts: 575 Member
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    i w ont lose weight eating 3000 calories ........ and burning 500 um no...........
    everyone is different
    noone should be eating 3000 calories

    There are plenty of people that routinely eat 3000 calories due to their fitness goals and routine.
    Lets say you are fat and eat 3000 calories a day. Then say you start doing exercise everyday and burn 500 cals a day. You will eventually start losing weight right? So there you go, exercise equals weight loss. And you still eat the same 3000 cal diet. Some people might get hungrier because of the exercise and eat back the cals but I think its a hell of a lot easier than doing no exercise and trying to eliminate calories every which way. Thats where people break down mentally.
    Just a thought I had

    Because in the absence of exercise, you can still lose weight but even with exercise, without proper calorie calculating, you can still gain weight.

    Exercise can aid weight loss but only eating can cause weight gain AND loss depending on calorie intake.

    good posting!

    btw...today, counting excercise, my intake is supposed over 3000. 8 miles in very humid conditions will do that. :o)
  • sarahc001
    sarahc001 Posts: 477 Member
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    It all depends on the person. If you are maintaining at 3000 cal, you will lose weight if you create a 500 calorie daily deficit through exercise, to the tune of about 1lb/week.

    Sadly (or not,) as your body adapts to the exercise and you lose weight, you burn less for comparable exercise and therefore lose less. Right now I burn about 72 calories/mile when I run, (70-75 depending on effort per my HRM.) That means that if I run 50 miles, I only use about 3600 calories. When I started running my heart rate was higher (ie I had to work harder) and I burned more.

    If your weight is higher or you have not been exercising, it will require more effort to move the same amount as someone who is lighter and/or has been exercising and has become stronger/more efficient. Using Phelps (or any elite athlete) is beside the point- the volume of training they do on a daily/weekly/monthly basis is more than most of us could wrap our heads around. Swimmers notoriously burn more than any other athlete, (according to the tour guide at the USOTC in Colorado Springs where I took my competitive figure skaters, who incidentally burn among the least of elite athletes. :) )
  • castelluzzo99
    castelluzzo99 Posts: 313 Member
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    I am a classic example of why exercise is less than 20% of weight loss and diet is 80%. Two years ago I started P90X. I didn't finish because I got pregnant and morning sickness pretty much ended all exercise. But I worked out hard, improved in performance, felt like a million bucks. I wasn't taking measurements or weekly pictures, so I'm not sure how things went that way, but the scales barely budged. Maybe a couple of pounds in 2 months. I think it was because I upped my calories. I wasn't following the eating plan.

    Then this year I started the Move It Mom program. At first, I didn't do the eating plan either, or count calories or anything. I just incorporated the exercises. Pretty much no change. I wasn't losing the inches I wanted to lose. So about half way through, I joined MFP and started counting calories. I started losing inches like crazy. Not so many pounds, but then, I also started working hard on strength (not heavy lifting, but body weight counts), and in the last month I lost about 4% body fat, gained a little LBM, and dropped several pounds of fat. I probably could have been more faithful with my deficit, but hey, I made progress and I'm happy with it. I've dropped a couple of sizes since I joined MFP, and I credit it to just not overeating, which I did too frequently before.

    So really, when they say diet is 80% of weight loss, it's true. Because as others have pointed out, simply adding exercise might just make you hungrier and then you eat more and net back at maintenance or above.
  • michellekicks
    michellekicks Posts: 3,624 Member
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    For real, though, it's all about diet because it doesn't matter if you exercise or not. What matters is that you eat less than you burn... so no matter what you burn, whether active or from being sedentary, eat less and you will lose weight. Eat a LITTLE less, and you will lose mostly fat and a tiny bit of lean mass. Eat a LOT less, and you will lose a higher percentage of lean mass, but also lose fat.
  • LexiAtel
    LexiAtel Posts: 228 Member
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    People are just lazy! Seriously... they DON'T want to exercise. Even if you ate a bunch of crappy foods and exercised(I did this accidentally when I was younger), you'd be skinny, but no one wants to do this.

    All I ever see is people trying to lose the weight fast, with no exercise and no "diet". Well sorry... it wont happen, something's gotta go to get this to work. And you can't lose it over night, you just can't.

    Anyway, when I started this "diet", it was right after my birthday (May 12th), I had eaten like a king, like a pig, you name it. I probably consumed like 4,000 calories that day... maybe more.

    On the 17th, I weighed myself. 187. I weighed myself continuously through out the "month", ending on June 17th. I weighed 182. One time I weighed 181, and one time I weighed 190(!!!) (between May 17th and June 17th). The only thing I did was have a 1200 calorie intake. I didn't exercise. I ate fast food, but I proportioned it, ate junk food, you name it. I lost 5lbs between May 17th and June 17th.

    This cycle, I started exercising. 3 days out of the week I do a 20 minute strength exercise, and each week I walk (at least) 2 hours with each session being at least 20 minutes long. In just the first week (June 17th - June 24th), I lost 3lbs. On June 26th, I had lost another 2lbs. This can't be TOO accurate, but tomorrow I will weigh, and I am pretty sure at least 2lbs will be off.

    I don't usually feel faint, but I do notice the day after I weight lift I tend to want to eat more. This is fine. I go over my 1200 calorie limit with no worries, because I know 1200 calories is pretty low. In fact, I will likely to change the stats pretty soon if I keep this routine up much longer.

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