Exercising for health not weight loss

burtonv3

Anyone else here like me who finds it easier to exercise when its for stress release, health or fun? When someone suggest to me to exercise for weight loss it stresses me out and makes me want to stop. What are your thoughts?

Countandsubtract

Yuup.

Also I've heard that diet is more likely to get the weight off, excercise and diet keep the weight off (though the later seems to be based on coorelation, which is always a slippery slope). The general idea seems to be if you're eating 2000 calories over your budget and working out for an hour to burn 300 calories, you're still gaining weight.

Weight loss takes way too long for my taste but athleticism seems to progress somewhat often. Maybe it's a little more rewarding?

ninerbuff

Been exercising for health more now than ever based on my reduction of resistance amount I use because of aging. I never really liked running (intervals) on a treadmill, but do it now a couple of times a week. Exercise is my daily regimen and if I don't do it, I feel that I shorted myself.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

NorthCascades

I love cycling. I don't consider hiking to be fun, it's still enjoyable, I love doing it. I love doing a lot of things that involve being active, and do them for their own sake, or for the enjoyment they bring me. I'm leaving work early to swim in the lake again today.

glassyo

I exercise for food.

AnnPT77

I exercised (a good lot) for a dozen years or more, mostly for fun, while remaining class 1 obese. I did pretty much the same exercise type/amount during weight loss, for the same reasons. I still do it now while maintaining a healthy weight (actually, probably do more now, but still mostly for fun and to feel good).

In my individual case, the concept of exercising for weight loss doesn't even really make sense. Exercise didn't much change, fat to thin. Eating changed. 🤷‍♀️

Xellercin

My body's need for exercise doesn't change based on my weight, so why would exercise have anything to do with my weight??

I exercise because I have to if I don't want my body and mental health to fall apart.

ToffeeApple71

I started off doing it for weight loss. Burning 400-500 calories a day (I was way overweight) helped with the deficit. But I've always enjoyed it. Now, I do it because I hate that "blah" feeling I get when I don't exercise. I enjoy feeling physically tired after a run. I also bike to work (saving lots of $$ rather than burning calories) but any reason to get out there and exercise is a good reason! Mentally and physically. As a perimenopausal female, I also need the strength training and resistance training to keep strong.

age_is_just_a_number

100% agree!

I exercise for stress relief and for overall health.
I do not exercise for losing weight. To lose weight you need to be at a caloric deficit.

azuki84

endorphins fly through the roof when I do my 3am strength training, then take extremely slow walks (20 min/mile) at 5am when everything is still dark and no one else is around, and just listening to chill podcasts

88olds

Exercise is overrated as a weight loss tool. Fact is I can undo an hour at the gym in 5 min with a fork in my hand. But exercise does great stuff for our bodies including our brains.

Can’t exactly explain this but at some point the issue did a 180, instead of exercising to lose weight, I was losing weight to improve my workouts. Fitness is a lot more than the number on the scale. I would have saved myself a lot of grief figuring that out sooner.

cwolfman13

I've never exercised specifically for weight management. I started in competitive athletics when I was in 3rd grade all the way through high school. After high school I joined the military and regular exercise (PT) was just a daily thing. In college I was just a very active person. I didn't own a car for much of that time so I walked or road my bike everywhere. I also did a lot of hiking with my buddies and played quite a bit of Ultimate Frisbee and worked in landscape construction and warehouse retail. The only time in my life that I haven't been an active person was for the 8 or so years right after I graduated and started my corporate climb and was working 60-80 hours per week and traveling 25 weeks out of the year and just never made time to get out and have fun.

I'm not much of a "workout" person, but I'm active. I enjoy cycling and mountain biking as my primary forms of regular exercise, but also do some hiking, kayaking, swimming, some rock climbing here and there and I walk my dog most days.

MsCzar

When I was very obese, I couldn't climb a flight of stairs without gasping for breath and a racing heart rate. That was at the very beginning of the pandemic and I was frightened that Covid could surely take unhealthy me out; so not dying was my initial diet and exercise motivator.
86lbs/6+ stone later, I now exercise daily to maintain healthy cardio, BP and lung function. Plus I like the way my toned body looks. Weight loss/maintenance is nice, but not my primary motive.

IAmTheGlue

I exercise for my health, both physical and mental.

I think that humans as a species are meant to burn off stress through physical exercise. For example getting chased by a predator or whatever… stress hormones were raised and the actual fight or flight reduced them. That’s just my opinion. I go on my treadmill to “run away from my problems” sometimes and it works. 👍

I do need to lose weight, but I try to accomplish that with my diet.

BrianSharpe

If I'd fixated on weight loss I would have thrown in the towel years ago. I exercise for health & fitness as well as training for races (running & triathlon). I do recognize that my race performance would improve if I shed some weight but I'm not losing any sleep over it.

bojaantje3822

I've always exercised a lot and managed to get to very, very obese (bmi 43ish) while exercising a lot. Then the pandemic hit and I stopped exercising but felt I needed to do something so I taught myself to eat fruit regularly as opposed to the 1-2 fruits every 1-2 weeks I was eating before. Since I restarted exercise last september, my weight started dropping. I actually had to adjust my calories upwards so I wouldn't lose weight too fast.
Now I eat at approx. sedentary maintenance, which is coincidentally maintenance at goal weight if I keep up my current amount of exercise.

It was never about my weight. I just really like to exercise (but not by myself, as illustrated by my behaviour during the pandemic).

littlegreenparrot1

Exercise helps me feel better, so I take better care of myself.
I only do things I like doing so its not a chore, I like the feeling of achievement it gives me, and it keeps me busy. Because I care about the achievement I will eat better to fuel it better, which has a positive impact on my weight, and so it goes round.

I'm a bit weird though, if I'm doing it because I want to I will often end up doing a lot. As soon as anyone starts telling me I have to, I won't. I do not respond well to the typical trainer motivational talk 'you can do more' etc. I get to decide that, not them, how do they know anyway? etc etc

AlexandraFindsHerself1971

I have to separate the two. I have exercise intolerance due to a post-viral syndrome. So I can't exercise enough to burn any reasonable amount of calories without putting myself in bed for a week. Exercise for me is about being strong and healthy and being able to live my life in the best way possible. My diet is about losing weight/maintaining at a lower weight.

nossmf

When I first tried losing weight I lived on a treadmill, which took my childhood love of running and morphed it into sheer dread. When I discovered weightlifting, I discovered how therapeutic it can be to throw heavy pieces of iron around, lol. Lifting is a huge stress-reliever, helps my aging joints feel good, makes sure I will continue to be self-sufficient into old age, and makes all my clothes fit better, not to mention the admiring looks my wife gives me. The fact it burns calories is irrelevant...I'd continue to do it if it never burned a single calorie ever again.

sijomial

Predominantly I exercise because I enjoy it and enjoy living in a healthy, fit and strong body.
I've had periods of being either unhealthy, unfit or weak and it really affects my mood badly.
As I'm very self-competitive my choices of exercise also gives me a nice outlet and feelgood factor.

Nice bonus from doing a high volume of exercise (and high activity level) is that I get to eat far more and that makes long term weight maintenance much easier.

After many years on MFP the sub-culture of don't eat back exercise calories, unpleasant/dull exercise routines to boost rate of weight loss, etc. always come across to me as quite sad and an indicator of likely failure to achieve long term success in losing and then maintaining at goal weight.

erprincipexoxo

I made a recent discovery about myself, if I postpone gym day for more than 4 days, I feel myself get depressed. It’s really weird. Negative thoughts start to accumulate in my head.

Alatariel75

I hate exercising for its own sake, I feel like a hamster in a wheel. I like my exercise to either be exercise disguised as fun (high energy entertaining activities like Ring Fit, hiking somewhere scenic, skating, dancing, going to the waterslides - 12 flights of stairs, 15 seconds of fun, rinse and repeat)) or in the process of learning something (martial arts, dance). I exercise for fun and for progress, definitely not for weight loss.

ExistingFish

I exercise because I enjoy it and it helps with my anxiety, and also for aesthetics.

I count my calories for weight management.

SuzanneC1l9zz

When I exercise regularly I have more energy, my sleep is better, my pain is better controlled, my mood is more stable... weight loss is the last of my priorities!