Exercising won’t help you lose weight. Only cutting calories REALLY makes the difference.

LindseyUtibe

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-exercise-paradox/

Or, free summary if you don’t want to pay for the publishers fee: https://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/why_physical_activity_does_little_to_control_weight

OldAssDude

mmmm k

jennifer_417

Because exercise burns calories, it contributes to a calorie deficit. It certainly does help, but it's not necessary for weight loss.

MelanieCN77

jennifer_417 wrote: »

Because exercise burns calories, it contributes to a calorie deficit. It certainly does help, but it's not necessary for weight loss.

QFT

mph323

That article is a hot mess. The author appears to be trying to support the assertion that a calorie deficit created by activity will not have the same weight loss results as the same deficit created by eating less. Throwing in the obligatory "of course CICO applies" just adds to the confusion.

NorthCascades

jennifer_417 wrote: »

Because exercise burns calories, it contributes to a calorie deficit. It certainly does help, but it's not necessary for weight loss.

This is simple and irrefutable math.

NorthCascades

It's kind of like saying your side business won't pay for your house. But it's still better to have an extra income.

jenilla1

That's absurd. Of course weight loss is all about the calories, and making sure you consume fewer than you burn. But if the calories I burn during exercise contribute to that deficit, then it does help. Sorry, that's just physics at work.

(Of course, if you do what I did during training for my first marathon years ago and eat all the calories you burned back plus extra, then yeah, exercise won't help you lose. LOL. )

TavistockToad

jenilla1 wrote: »

That's absurd. Of course weight loss is all about the calories, and making sure you consume fewer than you burn. But if the calories I burn during exercise contribute to that deficit, then it does help. Sorry, that's just physics at work.

(Of course, if you do what I did during training for my first marathon years ago and eat all the calories you burned back plus extra, then yeah, exercise won't help you lose. LOL. )

The runger is real!! :bigsmile:

Zablamba

Maybe you mean it's not essential, but it definitely helps. Also, if you become a slim model but sits all day long, you are still setting yourself up for a lot of future physical problems. So, yeah.. it's best to keep the body moving.

sijomial

"Exercising won’t help you lose weight. Only cutting calories REALLY makes the difference."

Please be very cautious about making absolute statements about people as just one example makes the statement false.

"Exercise might not help you lose weight" would be a true statement but the obverse "exercise might help you lose weight" is also true.

Some people do lose weight by exercising more and eating the same. Could even be many people - not everyone tracks calories, some deliberately exercise more or add more daily activity. Go to a gym in January and you might meet some of them!

Stockholm_Andy

Is it me or does the title of the article have nothing to do with what she actually studied?

Should the title not have been "Becoming a Hadza hunter-gatherer in Africa won't help you lose weight if you are still in a calorific excess".

Another article confusing the simple point of CI<CO and ignoring the clear health benefits of physical activity.

missysippy930

Exercise only helps lose weight if you are eating less calories than your body burns.
To lose weight, you need to be eating less calories than your body burns. Exercise is great for overall health, and definitely burns calories, but, if you eat more calories than your body burns, even exercising, you will gain weight.
Weight loss is all about eating less calories than your body burns.

Johnd2000

The basic premise is nonsense. Exercise increases calories out, which is half of the equation,

However, I would say that that CI is the easier side of the equation to count (reasonably) accurately. The CO figure is harder to work out accurately.

So when I wasn’t able to exercise i found getting my deficit spot on (not too little, not too much) was quite easy. When I started adding exercise, it got harder to hit a precise, predictable deficit, because of the extra question; “how many exercise cals should I eat back”. I still haven’t fully answered that question.

LivingtheLeanDream

You are preaching to the converted here CI/CO wins every time. Exercise can help with the deficit but as long as we eat less than we burn, we lose.

davidylin04

Under what parameters? Length of observation, control over subject eating? Without knowing what exactly this is talking about it's nearly meaningless.

jjpptt2

I'll take answers that are meaningless without context, for 1000 Alex.

sunfastrose

Stockholm_Andy wrote: »

Should the title not have been "Becoming a Hadza hunter-gatherer in Africa won't help you lose weight if you are still in a calorific excess".

Well damn. *cancels plane ticket*

Jruzer

"Getting a second job or working overtime won't help you pay down your debt. The only way to decrease debt is to take in more money than you spend."

There is a bit of an analogy here. If your second job causes you to spend more money on clothes, or take-out meals, then you may net less money than you expected - you may even lose money. But it certainly can be a good strategy to reduce your debt, if you pay attention to what you're spending and earning.

Just so with calories - if you exercise without paying attention to how much you're eating, you are prone to fail. That doesn't mean that exercise isn't an important part of an overall weight management strategy.

AnnPT77

Another side is that if you exercise to (near) exhaustion and with insufficient recovery for your fitness level, fatigue creates a caloric drain on your daily-life non-exercise calorie burn (you do less, and less energetically, at work, with chores, via leisure activities, maybe rest/sleep more).

In that scenario, total CO doesn't increase by the entire amount of the exercise calorie burn, especially when in a calorie deficit - the body tries to rest/conserve energy!

You can potentially counter this effect if you're aware of it, but it can be subtle - and fatigue drains your cognitive faculties a tad, too.

This is one reason I suggest new exercisers start with lower intensity workouts and more frequent rest days, and gradually increase as fitness improves, rather than immediately shooting for intense cardio every day, if their main goal is weight loss. The gradual ramp-up is likely to be better for overall weight loss, as well as less injury-prone, not to mention less likely to fuel the "exercise = misery" myth.

Although CICO is a simple formula, that doesn't mean there's no nuance in its real-world application. There is some tendency for bodies to seek comfortable equilibrium. (*Not* saying set-point is a thing, BTW!)

I agree the article is unhelpful, though.