Calorie restriction versus increased activity
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Aaron_K123 wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »And then NEVER in your life get sick or injured. Then you'll be gaining again. Sorry to any losers that can't work out due to physical limitations, chronic illness, etc. You're doomed to be fat.
What person are you imagining that literally cannot increase their activity level? Why do you think it is impossible for them to improve their health through increased activity? I'm not being negative here I am being positive, I am saying you CAN do it...not you CANNOT do it.
I actually know a couple of people who are unable to increase their activity at this time.
Okay well then this doesn't apply to them then. I don't think I every said "This is what everyone should do" what I said was "How come so few people on this site approach weight loss through increased activity" Big difference there.
A lot of people who come to this site do have 100+ pounds to lose. Most of them need to focus on their eating habits. Just increasing their activity is not going to be enough. That is why so many focus on diet. I don't think you are wrong, but I thought that your orignal post came across as saying that people need to stop focusing on their eating and focus on their activity. I certainly didn't do any thing restrictive and I do think it is important to increase your activity. I just think that for a lot of people in the general diet and weight loss section their top priority is diet.1 -
MFP works by tracking calories, total in versus total out. Exercise, helps, but if you are eating 1000 calories a day over what you should that is alot of overcome. Who honestly burns 1500 calories a day? My opinion is that if you have a lot to lose the first thing to get in order is your eating habits. It's best to track all food and develop healthy eating habits. The most successful people seem to attack it in a holistic approach of eating and exercise from what I gather.
Me personally, MFP taught me how to track and eat properly. I generally eat close to maintenance then exercise. However in the beginning, I had to learn to eat a lot fewer calories.1 -
A few years ago, I lost about 50 lbs, just by walking 1/2 - 1 mile every other day, and lifting weights every other day. Granted, I'm disabled, and walk on crutches, so walking is considerably more effort for me, but I was able to create my deficit just by walking and lost over 2 summers, and kept it off. Still have about 20-25 to lose so I'm watching a little closer what I'm eating, and working out consistently. I've lost 10 lbs this year. So, yeah I agree with the OP that people can create enough deficit by working out, as long as they don't start eating more.2
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NorthCascades wrote: »rileysowner wrote: »The problem with simply increasing activity is that from the reading I have done, it doesn't work as well as a calorie deficit.
Increasing activity (but not food intake - like we're talking about in this thread) is a calorie deficit.
Thank you mister literal.2 -
I remember those early days on MFP when I was rolling around at nearly 300 pounds....
A lot of people who come to this site do have 100+ pounds to lose. Most of them need to focus on their eating habits. Just increasing their activity is not going to be enough. ...
Just walking down the driveway to get the mail was exercise...lol
Food intake was my major focus, and later, I decided to set goals related to optimal health and peak physical fitness.
FIRST THINGS FIRST
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Aaron_K123 wrote: »If I was trying to claim this is a solution for everyone I'd be daft. There is no one-way-fits-all solution to anything let alone weight loss.
That wasn't my point nor did I make that claim anywhere and if I somehow implied that let me say categorically that is not what I meant, My point is that there are TWO SIDES to the coin, TWO ways to approach weight loss but if you come to this forum really only one seems to be represented, and in my opinion it isn't the side that is really best for overall health fitness and well-being for the majority of people.
That was my point.
I dunno. I'm finding the emphasis on exercise and moving more to be about the same as the emphasis on eating less.
I can only go by personal experience but I tried the exercise only route for a while. I would do a lot of riding the stationary bike and go for walks. Yes, I stopped gaining weight but I either stayed the same or lost very little. I tried it for a couple of months but found the rate of weigh loss very demoralising. Hence why I'm relying more on a calorie deficit based on less food intake. Any extra I burn from moving more is the icing on the cake.
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Aaron_K123 wrote: »"But if you are obese then it will be difficult to create a big enough deficit through exercise alone."
Really? Because I'd think it would be the opposite. Calorie burn is all about respiration and respiration is all about heart rate. If you are obese it is often much easier to elevate your heart rate than if you are fit. I would think an obese person would have an easier time establishing a caloric deficit through increased activity than a non-obese or fit person would.
But an increased heart rate doesn't mean you burn more calories. If I go running at 40 degrees C my heart rate is much higher than when I go running at 15C, yet the calorie burn is about the same. If I'm completely unfit and my heart rate goes up big time due to that from cycling a certain distance then the calorie burn is still pretty much the same if I'm at the same weight but fitter and cycle the same distance yet my heart rate doesn't go up so much. If I take my asthma meds I get an elevated heart rate, yet it doesn't burn more calories. I would even go that far to claim that the calorie burn of an unfit man the same weight as Usain Bolt will burn a fairly similar amount of calories over a 100m distance, even if that unfit man elevates his heart rate much more and needs much longer over that distance.1 -
There you go
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/16/upshot/to-lose-weight-eating-less-is-far-more-important-than-exercising-more.html?_r=0
I wish people like you used some common sense. Exercise has very little influence on weightloss, for a variety of reasons.
Happy walking and tracking!
I didn't say you shouldn't track calories in order to maintain a caloric deficit, in fact I stated that was an important part of it. But if you think exercise isn't a possible way of establishing a TDEE deficit I'm not sure what to tell you, it should be obvious that it is as it is quite possible to increase your TDEE through exercise.
Comparing someone who tracks calories and eats less to establish a deficit to someone who just exercises but doesn't track calories is an apples to oranges comparison.1 -
Add an aside, I personally find the frequent devoting to weightlifting, and the greatly admired weightlifter physique, a little off-putting. But that's because I feel rather judged, not because weightlifting is bad or anything.
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3dogsrunning wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »3dogsrunning wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »Lets put it this way.
If you told me you want to lose weight and I told you sure, you can lose weight but you have to pick one of these two options.
Option 1: Never eat burgers again
Option 2: You can still eat burgers and on top of that you now have motivation to go for long walks around your town, explore it a bit, walk around your local park to meet your goal of weight loss.
How come 99% of people seem to go with option 1. That is the part that confuses me to no end.
If Garmin is to be believed, I can't really do option 2.
I'm a total believer in fuelling my exercise but extra steps just doesn't up it enough for me.
I still eat burgers, but it comes with balancing the rest of my foods and more activity than just taking some extra steps in a day.
I don't necessarily believe my fitbit but on the weekend I did a good amount of just walking and at the end of the day my Charge HR stated my TDEE to be 6,420 calories (it puts my BMR around 1800 so my burn from walking was about 4600. Do I believe that is accurate? Not really. But I doubt its off by 4-fold so we are still talking a thousand or more calories burned. I also enjoyed myself quite a bit and on that day ate a Dairy Queen Blizzard, a Jumbo Jack and a 4-entree Panda Express meal in addition to other things of course.
That's what you get. I don't get near that. My Garmin step activity is very conservative. Even on a 20,000 step day I'm not getting a DQ Blizzard unless a chunk of those steps were a run.
Never made the claim, never tried to make that claim. People keep reading into what I am saying. Where did I say "I burned X while walking therefore everyone can burn X while walking" I didn't say that. I posted that because the claim was made that one cannot burn enough just by walking and I was providing an example where that clearly was not the case based on my own experience.0 -
"Well, from my experience, increasing activity is not always the answer"
Never once claimed that it was. I'm getting frustrated because a lot of people seem to read my post like I was saying this:
"Being more active instead of eating less calories is what everyone should do, it will work for everyone and therefore that is the approach everyone should take"
I don't believe that, I never said that, that wasn't at all my point. I don't know how I can make that more clear because the majority of the posts responding seem to be directed as if I HAD said that. If I wasn't clear that is my fault and I apologize but my point is this:
Raising activity level is a viable way to lose weight for MANY (not ALL) people and yet it is not a way often described or discussed within MFPs weight loss forum and I find that is skewing the conversation. For those who do wish to commit to better health and make the time to do so I feel that increasing your TDEE via increased activity has many benefits that simply reducing calories do not. It IS harder, it IS more time commitment and not everyone can do it. But honestly it isn't a small minority that can do this, many can...and yet it is rarely the focal point for the weight loss plans of those who post here.
I keep saying that and the posts keep acting like I am claiming this is the solution for everyone and its this way or you are wrong. I never said that.2 -
CasperNaegle wrote: »It's all calories in vs burn. How you do that is just semantics.
I agree with this. I just felt like it wasn't a very healthy balance on the forum with too much focus on caloric restriction as if that was the only way. But perhaps I am mistaken, which is okay by the way. I'm not going to act like I must be right, I just hope to raise the point for discussion.0 -
I did not read all the posts, but there is a case in point just today.. there are those that could give a crap one about maintaining their muscle mass, or about doing it safely and healthy.. they really want to choose insane and unnecessary restriction to meet some sort of time line. I have seen several times posts that covers this alone in the past couple of days.
And there are those that simply do think that if they exercise their butts off and for example burn 1000 calories a day, that calorie burn should show as weight loss on the scale and usually they think pretty quickly like today or tomorrow.
Now there is also people that are in it to win it. And I mean weight loss, body composition, cardio health and actually having fun with it and wanting to live healthy happy lives in which their changes are going to bring about energy, health and some longevity. And there are plenty of these people do not get me wrong.
There are so many circumstances out there in real world. Whether you can, or can't, or won't or don't exercise or want to be more active, are all personal choices. There are million and one different cases out there. Cannot change the world or the world perception but we can try by responding to each case here in MFP one at a time.
i got long winded sorry.. I do hope some newbies will enter here and read all of this!
Those are the kind of posts (focus is on scale and calorie restriction not on health with dangerously low calorie goals) that stick in my mind the most and the reason I feel this way about the forum. I'm sure there is the opposite end, those who exercise like crazy but don't track calories and are confused as to why they aren't losing weight but so far I haven't seen those with nearly the frequency and in a lot of cases those are people who aren't meeting their goal but also aren't needlessly endangering their health so I'm not as incensed by it if you get my meaning.0 -
I personally do a combination of both and from what I have seen on the forums, this is very common.
I set my calorie burn to sedentary and I have a Fitbit that inputs my exercise calories. I eat back most if not all of my exercise calories. I aim to workout 6 days a week and some days I have high calorie burns so I end up getting to eat a lot and other days I don't. It's also worth pointing out that weight training has many useful benefits to health and body composition but it doesn't bring the huge calorie burns like cardio does. I personally like to weight train but this also means that I need to eat a little less then on days I go mountain biking. If I simply wanted high calorie burns to get a deficit I would probably have to forgo weight lifting. That's just not something I'm willing to do.0 -
Because of MFP's "eat back" method, many people tend to think in terms of "eating back" instead of creating deficit via activity. For some people intake ends up naturally at maintenance level or around it even if they don't explicitly say that they are creating their deficit through activity. To them, their initial allowance is set to restrict so that's how they look at it. Of course some people do it through calorie restriction alone, and others through a mix of both.
Both calorie restriction and increased activity (or some of both) have merit. In my unique situation I can't increase my activity past a certain point (if at all on some days) because of injuries. If it wasn't for that I would most certainly create most of my deficit through exercise. But that's just me, because I find moving more to be more pleasant than eating less. We have to acknowledge, however, that for some people this is not the case. Some find calorie restriction less stressful than increased activity.
Don't get me wrong, your topic is important. It's important that people know they have other options and dieting (in the sense of decreasing calorie intake) may not be necessary, but don't you think personal preferences and personalities make generalized solutions too mainstream and not practical for many?
Then there is the issue of people who are obese. I started at more than 300 pounds with a sedentary TDEE of 2700-2800. My goal weight puts me at a TDEE of 1700-1800, 2000 if I decide to maintain at a higher weight. If I never changed my eating habits, by the time I'm at goal weight I would need to maintain a daily burn of 800-1000 calories, and that's ignoring the increased appetite that comes with intense or prolonged activity. How long do you think I would be able to maintain this type of daily burn once I reach my goal weight, without rest days mind you, because if I have a couple of rest days that takes my daily burn requirements to 1200-1400 calories on exercise days. Would running half a marathon daily be reasonable or sustainable? Changing eating habits in some way to encourage lower calorie intake is important, especially if you have a lot to lose.2 -
rileysowner wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »rileysowner wrote: »The problem with simply increasing activity is that from the reading I have done, it doesn't work as well as a calorie deficit.
Increasing activity (but not food intake - like we're talking about in this thread) is a calorie deficit.
Thank you mister literal.
You're welcome. I wouldn't have to point that out if people didn't get it wrong in the first place, though. 1 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »And then NEVER in your life get sick or injured. Then you'll be gaining again. Sorry to any losers that can't work out due to physical limitations, chronic illness, etc. You're doomed to be fat.
What person are you imagining that literally cannot increase their activity level? Why do you think it is impossible for them to improve their health through increased activity? I'm not being negative here I am being positive, I am saying you CAN do it...not you CANNOT do it.
I actually know a couple of people who are unable to increase their activity at this time.
Okay well then this doesn't apply to them then. I don't think I every said "This is what everyone should do" what I said was "How come so few people on this site approach weight loss through increased activity" Big difference there.
A lot of people who come to this site do have 100+ pounds to lose. Most of them need to focus on their eating habits. Just increasing their activity is not going to be enough. That is why so many focus on diet. I don't think you are wrong, but I thought that your orignal post came across as saying that people need to stop focusing on their eating and focus on their activity. I certainly didn't do any thing restrictive and I do think it is important to increase your activity. I just think that for a lot of people in the general diet and weight loss section their top priority is diet.
I wasn't trying to be instructive and tell "everyone" what they should do, I was pointing out that I found it concerning that there are two sides of the equation for weight loss, decreasing your intake and increasing your TDEE, and the focus on this particular forum seems to be almost entirely on one side...even for 23 year olds with 15 pounds to lose.
That said if my post came across differently then that is my fault for my word choice or phrasing.0 -
MFP works by tracking calories, total in versus total out. Exercise, helps, but if you are eating 1000 calories a day over what you should that is alot of overcome. Who honestly burns 1500 calories a day? My opinion is that if you have a lot to lose the first thing to get in order is your eating habits. It's best to track all food and develop healthy eating habits. The most successful people seem to attack it in a holistic approach of eating and exercise from what I gather.
Me personally, MFP taught me how to track and eat properly. I generally eat close to maintenance then exercise. However in the beginning, I had to learn to eat a lot fewer calories.
Well, I do (burn 1500+ a day), but I'm not saying I'm the norm just saying there are people who approach weight loss through increasing TDEE while tracking calories because they want improved fitness more than they care specifically about their scale-weight.
I agree a holistic approach is best. Increase activity doesn't work for weight loss unless you at least track your caloric intake as well. I didn't mean to imply no one should calorie restrict or track calories, I chose to focus on activity because I feel like that side of the equation is more lacking here.0 -
Unfortunately though, it is way too easy to overestimate the calorie burn from exercise and underestimate the calories in the food we eat.
My personal fitness goals leave me enough time to do about 30 minutes of cardio 3-5 days per week and 30 minutes of strength. I want to improve my cardiovascular health and I also want to retain as much of my lean mass as possible as I lose weight. According to the elliptical trainer, I can burn, at most, about 350 calories in the 30 minutes I do. Multiply that by 5 and that's a weekly deficit of about 1750 calories per week. Barely enough to lose half a pound per week. And that's assuming the burn credited on the machine is accurate (they notoriously are not).
I do walk with my kids and my husband when I can but even on a day when I am walking 14,000 steps, I'm earning a few hundred extra calories and I'm exhausted and achy and it's just not something I can do every day at this point.
And to your other point, that the choices are give up burgers or move more, that's just not even remotely true. Those of us who are obese absolutely must reduce how much food we eat. We didn't get obese just because we were sedentary. In fact, the year after I had my first child, I didn't have a car and I literally walked everywhere. I would walk sometimes hours a day. That was also the year I hit my all time high weight. I stared going to the gym again and didn't change my eating habits at all. I lost maybe 3 pounds over the course of a few months.
You cannot outrun a bad diet. Physical fitness is important if that's a person's goal. But it has to go hand in hand with a reasonable eating plan. If you want to eat burgers, make sure they fit into your calorie allotment.1 -
"But an increased heart rate doesn't mean you burn more calories. "
Doesn't it though? Weight loss is largely through respiration and your heart-rate is a very good indication of your respiratory activity.
"If I go running at 40 degrees C my heart rate is much higher than when I go running at 15C, yet the calorie burn is about the same"
Are you sure about that?
"If I'm completely unfit and my heart rate goes up big time due to that from cycling a certain distance then the calorie burn is still pretty much the same if I'm at the same weight but fitter and cycle the same distance yet my heart rate doesn't go up so much. If I take my asthma meds I get an elevated heart rate, yet it doesn't burn more calories"
That isn't true at all. A person who is more fit will typically burn fewer calories than a person who is not fit carrying out a similar activity with all other things being equal. As you train and get fitter it actually becomes more difficult to burn calories with that activity. Your heart rate is harder to elevate, your muscle control and activation is better and more efficient.
An obese person walking a mile will burn a lot more calories than a thin person and a 200 pound male who walks 20 miles a day will likely burn less walking a mile than a 200 pound male who doesn't walk often walking a mile.
Heart-rate is very much tied to caloric usage and weight loss.0
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