Fitness pros opinion needed please

Hello, so I've seen posts from some fitness trainers saying things like to lose weight for people fat, they should engage more in Cardio exercises, please how true is this?

Replies

  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    I've done 323 hours of cardio (cycling) so far this year - I haven't lost weight because I eat in a calorie balance.

    If I ate in a calorie surplus with the same amount of exercise I would get fatter, if I ate in a calorie deficit I would get thinner.

    Suggest you regard fitness trainers as experts in fitness and not in dieting and would echo the above - exercise is for health and fitness, not for weight loss.
  • Dogmom1978
    Dogmom1978 Posts: 1,580 Member
    If you need to exercise to help maintain a deficit while you work on adjusting your diet, you can do that. Or if exercising allows you to fit dessert in each night (that’s me 😊) you can do that.

    You do NOT need to exercise to lose weight. You need to eat in a calorie deficit to lose weight.

    As above, exercise is for health and fitness and calorie deficit is for weight loss.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    You can lose weight without exercise, it's all about calories. Like everybody is saying, because it's true. 🙂

    I do a lot of cardio and I eat more because of it, so it's not really affecting my belly size directly. But if I didn't exercise as much I couldn't eat as much, and that would be harder to stick to. So indirectly doing cardio helps me with my weight. Plus I don't bordom eat when I'm riding a bike or whatever.

    Cardio doesn't have to mean a machine at the gym. My cardio today was a long walk on a trail near the beach, it was good to get out and clear my head. Walking is really good, it burns some calories, it's healthy, it's even covid safe outside with a friend. Cycling, canoeing or kayaking if you're near a lake, hiking nature trails, all this stuff is cardio and so much more enjoyable than a treadmill. If you try a bunch of different options hopefully you can find one you enjoy, and then you never have problems with motivation.
  • AndreaTamira
    AndreaTamira Posts: 272 Member
    As everybody says, cardio is not needed to lose weight.

    It can be helpful. You can eat more and still lose weight which I highly appreciate (eating at 1260 calories as recommended by MFP to me right now is hard for me if I dont add a bit extra through moving more).

    It is good for your overall health. - both physical and mental. Endorphins are a great thing!

    It's something you can improve on even if your weight loss stalls for a while and that will help you be healthier than you were or stay as healthy as you have been, depending.

    But it is not needed for weight loss.