Exercise and weight loss

feefee84

Wow thank you all for taking the time to respond to my post

feefee84

It's been a real eye opener, I'm currently 5/6 stone overweight , I've always been a big girl but fell pregnant and never shifted the weight. My own fault!

feefee84

Any tips / advice, words of wisdom greatly appreciated. I do HIIT training x 3 a week and MFP says to have 1360 calories

Christine_72

TimothyFish wrote: »

Exercise isn't required and yet I seriously doubt that I could have lost weight if I hadn't incorporated it into my routine. There were days when I was so hungry I could think of little else. I would reach the end of my set calorie goal and I wanted more. But after going for an hour long bicycle ride I had more calories. And yes, there were times I ate every last one of them. I still exercise and I enjoy it more now than when I was overweight. But now, it isn't that I have to exercise to stay within my goal, but because I do exercise I can get by with the occasional piece of cake after dinner or a donut that someone brings in to work even though I've already had breakfast. I can't eat just anything and everything, but I have more flexibility.

I agree with this.

Technically exercise is not needed to lose weight. But earning those extra calories makes losing weight a hell of a lot easier.

JaydedMiss

I did practically 0 exercise for my first 50 pounds. Now i only walk (admittedly alot), And do occasional weight lifting at work.

Definatly dont need to exercise, But i find the extra steps letting me eat more delicious and worth it.

Plus bonus now my legs are pretty toned and sexy XD Never expected that as a short pasty white girl with stupid fat thighs XD Exercise is for stuff like that, Food and calories are for weight loss

CafeRacer808

Chunkahlunkah wrote: »

Well you've been around these here parts far longer than I have, and I trust your take on what you witness. But to me, those comments indicate a lack of grasping CICO, so education needed on the concept. But I wouldn't want to teach those people that exercise/CO doesn't have a big impact on weight or that it's just for fitness. It can make a huge difference in weight loss and maintenance. It depends on the individual and what their CI and CO currently look like.

"Can" being the operative word here.

All the exercise in the world won't make a bit of difference vis-a-vis weight loss if a person eats more than they burn. We see this all the time in the forums. People come here with the belief that all they have to do is exercise and they'll lose weight. They then post about how frustrated they are that they're not losing any weight. And 99 times out of a 100, they reveal to us that they're not paying attention to their intake.

Conversely, it's entirely possible to lose weight simply by controlling intake. We see this quite often in the forums as well. Thousands of people here have lost a considerable amount of weight without adding any exercise to their diet plan.

This is why we say CI is more important than CO. It's also why dieting tropes like "Weight loss is 80%, 20% exercise," and "You can't outrun a bad diet" exist. Because broadly speaking, they're true.

Chunkahlunkah

feefee84 wrote: »

Any tips / advice, words of wisdom greatly appreciated. I do HIIT training x 3 a week and MFP says to have 1360 calories

Hi Feefee - You could just go straight to following what MFP prescribes for you. So that would mean getting as accurate a reading as you can on how many calories you burn during HIIT, entering them into your diary on those days, and eating 1360 + calories burned. Since it's hard to get a totally accurate reading on how much is burned, some people only eat back a %age of what was burned, like half for example. In theory though, this system is based on accurately eating back what was burned.

1360 sounds like a low calorie level for the amount of weight you're looking to lose. Did you pick to lose at a pace of 2 pounds a week? If you pick a lower pace, like 1 pound a week, you'll get more daily calories to eat.

So that's the gist of MFP.

To get the big picture about weight management though, I'd rec learning about TDEE (if you don't know about it yet). There are different calculators, but I've found this site very accurate for myself. https://mytdee.com/

There, you can estimate what calorie level you were likely consuming at your starting weight. To do this, enter in that weight, plus your activity level when at it (i.e., pre-HIIT). The calorie level it gives you to "maintain" is theoretically what you were consuming.

You could then check out what calorie level it would take to maintain your goal weight at the same activity level.

So now you'll have an idea of what calorie level it takes to sustain your goal weight and how far off you were. From there, you can assess how *you* can best construct your goal weight's calories. You may want to just cut calories, you may want to do that and add in exercise. Imagine how you'll want to live long term. If you weren't off by much, just 200 calories or so, that surplus can easily be made up with exercise (so long as you'll stick with it!). Most people are probably off by more than that though, so need to cut calories too.

Chunkahlunkah

CafeRacer808 wrote: »

Chunkahlunkah wrote: »

Well you've been around these here parts far longer than I have, and I trust your take on what you witness. But to me, those comments indicate a lack of grasping CICO, so education needed on the concept. But I wouldn't want to teach those people that exercise/CO doesn't have a big impact on weight or that it's just for fitness. It can make a huge difference in weight loss and maintenance. It depends on the individual and what their CI and CO currently look like.

"Can" being the operative word here.

All the exercise in the world won't make a bit of difference vis-a-vis weight loss if a person eats more than they burn. We see this all the time in the forums. People come here with the belief that all they have to do is exercise and they'll lose weight. They then post about how frustrated they are that they're not losing any weight. And 99 times out of a 100, they reveal to us that they're not paying attention to their intake.

Conversely, it's entirely possible to lose weight simply by controlling intake. We see this quite often in the forums as well. Thousands of people here have lost a considerable amount of weight without adding any exercise to their diet plan.

This is why we say CI is more important than CO. It's also why dieting tropes like "Weight loss is 80%, 20% exercise," and "You can't outrun a bad diet" exist. Because broadly speaking, they're true.

I can only imagine how tedious it must be repeatedly encountering that level of ignorance!

They're clearly wrong that they don't need to keep their CI at whichever point results in weight loss with their CO. That's a given.

And for people who are consuming a very large number of calories, they'll have to reduce that. No healthy weight will allow them to consume that b/c the CO to compensate would be unreasonable for the average person to sustain (if not impossible!).

But activity level can make a substantial difference for some people and is why blanket statements about WL being 80% diet aren't helpful for everyone.
Example, me. Eating the same number of calories: 1722
If sedentary, I'd be 157 pounds. Obese at my height.
If lightly active, I'd be 115 pounds. Healthy weight at my height.

That's a huge difference from activity level alone and holding CI constant.

Now, I could instead achieve that lower weight by eating on average 1500 cals a day when sedentar. But I know from experience that the level I intuivitely eat is in the 1700s. That's held steady for me as an adult. Instead of setting myself up for a lifetime of watching and restricting what I eat, for me it makes more sense to just not be a lazy *kitten*.

I'm not a special snowflake. A reasonable increase in activity while holding cals steady could help others too, could make the difference between a healthy weight and an overweight one.

jenilla1

feefee84 wrote: »

Any tips / advice, words of wisdom greatly appreciated. I do HIIT training x 3 a week and MFP says to have 1360 calories

Just remember it's 1360 PLUS exercise calories. That's the beauty of exercise (at least one of the benefits, anyway) - you get to eat more calories if you exercise!

ETA: Just make sure you don't overestimate your exercise calories. Some people just eat back a certain percentage like 50% or 75%. I usually eat most of mine back, and that works for me.