Dieting vs. Exercise vs. Dieting and Exercise

Timshel_

Adjust calories and eating to lose, maintain, or gain weight.
Exercise daily.

Do both each day for health.

victoria_1024

I like food. Initially I started exercising so I could eat more. That grew into an actual enjoyment of being active. Now I live an active lifestyle and I get to eat a bit more to support that, which is an added bonus but not my primary reason for doing it anymore.

Lenala13

Exercise is a key tool for me in staying healthy and losing weight and then maintaining that weight loss. Honestly, it makes the whole thing a lot more manageable and fun. When I'm active and exercise, I tend to make better/healthier food choices as well and don't snack as much, so the two habits reinforce each other for me.

ASKyle

Diet for weight, exercise for health, both for body composition.

Amazon has cheap scales.

lorrpb

I've never been able to lose weight without BOTH calorie counting and exercise. Plus I need the exercise for my health and fitness. Fitness improvements help keep me on track in the kitchen. Otherwise, counting calories gets boring!

dbashby

Emmaprocopiou has it exactly right. Many good things that come from exercise a list I won't rehash here, weight loss though, just isn't one of them. If you believe in the energy balance equation and most scientist do (as well as most people), you almost by default believe this, which most people for some reason don't. I've said this before and it always causes indigestion but it is 100% true. Exercise does not cause weight loss, only the under consumption of calories from your TDEE does that. Yes that extra 500 calories you burned off running will create a bigger deficit where you will lose weight but only if you don't eat back the calories and that in any language is a diet, so while you might associate the weight loss with the exercise it really has come from under consumption of calories. This by the way is much harder than one would think as it ignores the elephant in the room APPETITE which most assuredly will increase as your exercise level increases. Though it is worth noting that just like it is easier for men to lose weight than women, it is also easier to lose weight when exercising, than when your not. Just like in the men/women analogy you have more calories available to you, to be able to under eat especially when measured in percentage terms (percentage of calories being under eaten declines as TDEE increases). That said, ultimately I find my appetite/hunger has an unbelievably close relationship in terms of calories to the amount to the amount of exercise I do (basically a caloric balance is what rings true for me). This where the Keto/Paleo people step in and say appetite is driven by hormones (not necessarily an empty stomach, although this does create a situation where Ghrelin (the hunger hormone) will be released) and only by controlling these hormones will you be able to sustain weight loss in turn your consumption of carbs (especially refined carbs) will have to be reduced and protein and fat allowed back into the diet. It looks like this has a lot of merit as the Gov't has removed its fat recommendation at the beginning of this year. Plus you and I both know if your hungry you can fight that battle and win periodically but that is a war that you can never win. Anyway back to the exercise, I have lost a significant amount of weight and trust me I wish I could just go outside and run off a dinner but the amount of calories one burns off in even a hour of exercise is miniscule. If you are capable of burning off 500 calories in an hour, which means you likely have some size to you or are in top shape or a combo of both. One package (2) of Pop Tarts is 410 calories which can be eaten easily in under two minutes just wiped out 48 minutes of that hour workout (this breaks my heart btw because I love Pop Tarts) essentially 80% of your hard work wiped out by 2 Pop Tarts. If your like most people, the most you can give on a daily basis to exercise is one hour, I mean can you turn around and give another hour of your day to this? especially knowing it can be undone in a few minutes, not likely, you have other pressures on your time. This is why your diet has to be the primary focus. If you have a professor tell you 90% of the test is on this part of the information and the other 10 percent comes from that other part. It is a no brainer where the bulk of your effort/time should be spent right? One last thought though and the studies bare this out. While exercise doesn't cause weight loss it is a very strong marker for keeping the weight off. I like to say it is a correlative behavior. The science behind this next part doesn't exist but I don't think its much of a leap, basically the person who continues to exercise is the same person who is likely still watching what they eat. When they give up that exercise that is usually a marker for giving up on the diet as well. Like I said that last part is my commentary but really its just a reminder you can't throw it all out as there is some relationship.