In a calorie deficit, scale isn't moving, Split
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This discussion was created from comments split from: In a calorie deficit, scale isn't moving.
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I find mself in complete agreement with that. When will people learn to accept that lowering energy intake to below expenditure on a consistent basis is the ONLY way to lose fat? The only exceptions to that would be: 1. an unknown disease that somehow leads to fat destruction at an abnormal rate, a condition that, to the best of knowledge is purely imaginary and 2. fat removal surgery, which is just about the most ill-advised procedure a human could undertake.tomcustombuilder wrote: »Lol @ 5-7 year deficit plan. Sorry.
What’s with all these lengthy responses? OP is just taking in too many calories.0 -
autobahn66 wrote: »BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »
That reasoning is not wrong, but it does not take into account that the vast majority of people lose significant amounts of weight in the first few days to the first week of starting a diet, There are several reasons for this, but the fact that the OP does not experience this, does indicate that food intake is too high. For example, when starting a diet, one typically reduces intake, which will lead to a significant weight reduction because less food is coming in, while older, digested food that was taken in during the day or two before the diet started is still being excreted at the old rate.autobahn66 wrote: »damage_inc74 wrote: »Right after Christmas, I started lifting 5X a week (from 3X.)
I have been in a 500+ calorie deficit or more every day for the last three weeks (I'm taking what my Apple Watch says I'm burning and taking 15% off of that for my burn)
I weighed 348 lbs the day after Christmas. I weighed in today and the scale hasn't budged.
What's going on here??
Have I become confused? Everyone in this thread is acting like there is some long plateau here and that there must be no caloric deficit.
It hasn't even been three weeks: 18 days since Christmas.
In my book that is too short a time to see significant changes, particularly given the relatively modest deficit of 500/3500 (compared to TDEE).
At this deficit, you might see about a pound a week off - so looking at a maximum of 3lbs of actual weight loss: that could totally be masked by other factors. (My daily variability of weight is 2-3lbs at 220lbs)
Also, unless you have your energy use measured in a room calorimeter, numbers such as TDEE are extremely unreliable, and even if you did (which is highly unlikely) they are still less than reliable. We are not robots made in a factory. We are biological creatures, essentially chemical soups, and we are all very different.
As for daily variability, yes, that exists. Here is mine, for example:
The highest daily fluctuation (difference between highest and lowest weight on the same day) I had in this graph was 3.5 kg.
Sure.
A 500 kcal deficit is 85ml of oil. 80g.
We don't know what the OP did to reduce their calorie intake, but if they were eating at maintainance before then the amount of food intake may be as little as 80g a day less. And maybe they're eating a bunch of veggies now? Lots of bulk.
Now I know when I eat less fat, I eat more salt, and this holds water. And maybe the OPs holding onto a bit of water due to increasing exercise.
They also only gave two data points. Who knows what their true weight is?
I also think it's likely that OP is in a smaller deficit than they think, mainly because they quote their calories burned based on an Apple watch, and are likely over-counting calories burned in exercise. But that's a guess based on pretty minimal information.
Im saying that most of the advice here is premature, and based on too little information to be useful. It's very easy to say cut calories further now, and obviously that will accelerate weight loss, but we have no sense on how this will actually impact the OP, or how they are managing at even this deficit.
To the OP:
I do a 7 and 14 day rolling average of my weight. This is done by weighing every day, at the same time and putting it into an excel sheet, but apps like Libra scale also do something similar.
This will give you a sense of your weight is stable or falling.
I would give it another week or two before making further cuts in your calories. You definitely have room to cut further but that depends on how you are feeling and how stable your situation is. My experience is that you can easily burn out by pushing super hard at the start.
I've been actively managing my weight for 18 months (after many failed attempts). Lost a bunch in the first 6 months. On a 1000kcal deficit, but then maintained for the next year or so. I found 1000kcal deficit tough, and made decent exercise all but impossible. (As a proportion of my daily calories a deficit of 1000 would be about a deficit of 1300 for you, but YMMV)
I have little argument with this, except that you seem not to have read that I wrote "the vast majority of people", I did not write "all people". And yes, your example of a few grammes of oil is correct but be honest: that is at the same level of reasoning as that of people who say that BMI is useless because it is consistently too low for amputees.1 -
Many do indeed, and the problem with that is that BMR is different for everybody and it can vary quite considerably. Just one example: in my own case, MFP claims my BMR is 1407 kcal a day. In reality, that is actually higher than my TDEE and an intake at that level makes me gain weight, which is not exactly what I need.kshama2001 wrote: »Sometimes trackers include BEE (basal energy expenditure)/BMR (basal metabolic rate) when what you want for MFP is just exercise calories.
Your experience may (and almost certainly will) be different. Just don't attach too much importance to any of these numbers and abbreviations. Except in a scientific context, they have no practical value because we are unable to determine them. Google "room calorimeter" to get an idea to what it takes to measure these things as precisely as possible and then realise that even these very expensive methods are highly unreliable. They are just the best (or the least bad) we can possibly hope for at this stage of our technological evolution.
Also, while logic dictates that exercise does consume extra calories, and it really does, clinical evidence also shows that these values are quite small, and virtually undetectable (unless in a lab setting, and even there the values are less than reliable, for a multitude of reasons ... biology is a messy business).
Your best bet remains this: track your energy intake as precisely as you can and limit it to a certain number, any number really, but numbers provided by calculators are as reasonable a start as any. I'd suggest the NIH body weight planner at https://www.niddk.nih.gov/bwp as the least unreliable of all of them. It is still highly unreliable (in my own case quite ridiculously so), but it has the benefit of having been created by experts, and of being based on evidence, and not by some hapless alternologist who has never seen a biology textbook up close.
Next, follow this diet for about one month and look at the results by weighing yourself at least daily (and preferably several times a day) and tracking the lowest weight of every day. See when you had your lowest weight, continue tracking and one month later, look at the result: if it is higher, your intake is almost certainly too high. If it is unchanged, you probably just discovered your maintenance level and if it is lower, you found a way to lose weight. In the first two cases, lower your intake by a certain number (500 kcal is standard, but this is not a requirement, just a customary value). In the latter case, see how fast you are losing. If it is more than 3 to 4 kgs, you are arguably going too fast, unless so directed by a medical doctor. Depending on how much too fast, adjust your intake upwards. A reasonable estimate for that would be to take the weight loss exceeding 3 kgs, calculate its caloric value, divide it by the number of days and increasing your daily intake by that number.
As an aside, you can see a room calorimeter in action on the CBC website at:
https://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/features/enter-the-calorimeter-a-chamber-that-measures-how-many-calories-your-body-n
It is surprisingly hard to find any videos online. This is the only one I have seen so far. The interesting part is that the subject is Tim Spector who is now branding himself as an energy disbeliever by claiming that calories are rubbish. That is a nonsensical claim and he knows that as well as anyone.0 -
@BartBVanBockstaele
MFP doesn't provide BMR, it provides NEAT. Non-exercise activity thermogenesis, not basal metabolic rate. If you don't do much exercise, your NEAT will be close to your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure).
I'm not sure how you can say exercise, or any activity, uses a "virtually undetectable" amount of energy. Even something as basic as walking will use energy. Many people have been tracking energy consumption and expenditure for quite some time on MFP and keeping close tabs on how fueling our bodies over time affects our mass. It is not in dispute that many fitness machines, like treadmills or elliptical trainers, will overestimate calorie expenditure, it is far from "virtually undetectable." There's some folks here who do lots of vigorous exercise, and their caloric requirements can be HUGE beyond both BMR and NEAT.
Strength training burns a lot fewer calories than many people assume; it does burn some. Walking, swimming, cycling, running, SCUBA diving, paddling a canoe or kayak, or even dancing all can use a significant amount of calories if done long enough. It's also easy to eat back far more than they burn, but that's another issue.
Exercise uses a detectable amount of energy.
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Possibly. It is not what MFP claims:@BartBVanBockstaele
MFP doesn't provide BMR, it provides NEAT. Non-exercise activity thermogenesis, not basal metabolic rate. If you don't do much exercise, your NEAT will be close to your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure).
Maybe somebody should tell them the information they provide is wrong?
What I also said was this:I'm not sure how you can say exercise, or any activity, uses a "virtually undetectable" amount of energy.
=> unless in a lab setting, and even there the values are less than reliable
Sure. Most Americans know about "the Biggest Loser" by now. No one will dispute that these people lost oodles of weight, helped in part by exercising incredibly intensely for time periods almost no one is able to sustain. How many people in the modern era are able do that? And I am not talking about weight regain afterwards, because that is irrelevant to weight loss. People regain weight afterwards because they start overeating again, not because the weight loss was imaginary or the diet didn't work or something silly like that.There's some folks here who do lots of vigorous exercise, and their caloric requirements can be HUGE beyond both BMR and NEAT.
I didn't claim otherwise, only that it is essentially only detectable in a lab setting and that it is unreliable even there. Think of it carefully: how many people are losing weight by exercising and NOT adjusting their intake? You are dealing with confounding factors here, and reality is that in almost 100% of those who lose weight, it is the reduced energy intake that makes for most of the weight loss. The fact that there *are* exceptions to that, does not negate the fact that this is true for the vast majority of people.Strength training burns a lot fewer calories than many people assume; it does burn some. Walking, swimming, cycling, running, SCUBA diving, paddling a canoe or kayak, or even dancing all can use a significant amount of calories if done long enough. It's also easy to eat back far more than they burn, but that's another issue.
Exercise uses a detectable amount of energy.
Think about it carefully and calculate it. 1 kg of body has pretty much been established as representing 7700 kcal. Assuming for the sake of argument that 1 hour or walking creates an additional energy consumption of 100 kcal, you have to effectively walk for 77 hours to lose 1 extra kg. That is the equivalent of walking for 2h30m every single day of the month. How often can you do that? And what will it look like in reality? If you can, all the power to you, but I'd like to see what percentage of the population can actually do that while also having a full-time job, a boyfriend/girlfriend/neuterfriend/wife/husband/children/family...
And for convenience sake, let's ignore the fact that most people don't even track their food intake properly, no matter how hard they try. Yet, that is so much easier to do.
I think that, in the end, this is largely a discussion about the difference between "always" and "mostly" and the difference between "never" and "almost never". They *are* different, and that difference is a meaningful one.0 -
BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »I didn't claim otherwise, only that it is essentially only detectable in a lab setting and that it is unreliable even there.
You said that calories: 'Also, while logic dictates that exercise does consume extra calories, and it really does, clinical evidence also shows that these values are quite small, and virtually undetectable'
That is just factually untrue. Calories burned in exercise, based on exercises that can be done in a lab, are pretty easy to measure, and the data are fairly consistent. And the values for calories burned can be quite high.
Accuracy in measurement is not particularly difficult in a research environment using open circuit indirect calorimetry, which has a well defined inaccuracy of 1-2% (and not in a specific direction - so may over or under estimate). A closed system (i.e. room) is not strictly necessary for estimation of energy burned during a specific period of exercise.
What is unknown, and actually highly variable, is the personal response to exercise in terms of reciprocal calorie intake and reduction in NEAT. Further, reference values are adjusted according to body weight (frequently using METs): there is substantial inaccuracy as body composition makes a big difference to the actual energy balance of exercise.BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »Think about it carefully and calculate it. 1 kg of body has pretty much been established as representing 7700 kcal.
This is one of the most nonsense 'facts' out there. 7700kcal is the absolute amount of energy that could be obtained from a kg of fat. That assumes a 100% efficiency in depositing and accessing that energy. But we know there are a bunch of steps which cause this to be inefficient. This study
looked at actual weight gain: mean of 84000kcal surplus over 84 days led to a mean of 8.1kg weight gain. But a range of 4.1-13kg. Further, body composition after mass gain was highly variable, but more similar between twins than between pairs of twins.
(if 1kg = 7700kcal, weight gain should be approx 11kg)
Equally in this study: a fixed deficit with additional exercise led to huge differences in mass loss, and in particular, fat mass loss and muscle mass retention. So 7700kcal deficit = 1kg fat loss is not at all reliable.BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »Assuming for the sake of argument that 1 hour or walking creates an additional energy consumption of 100 kcal, you have to effectively walk for 77 hours to lose 1 extra kg.
Sure. But we can make up numbers and make it look unreasonable. We can't just use made up numbers.
Using published metabolic equivalent data: a 70kg person walking at 2mph on a flat, even surface - so an extremely leisurely walk on an easy surface of a 'normal' weight person for 1 hour burns about 200kcal (vs 70kcal for sitting watching TV). So we've got a difference of 130kcal for the absolutely easiest form of walking in someone who is not obese.
Let's factor in obesity: bump that weight up to my weight - and we've got an energy surplus of 180kcal.
Let's make it exercise that would actually get your HR up: 1-5% grade, 3.5 mph. Now we've got an additional deficit of 430kcal per hour
Lets think about what I do each week: 50-70km per week. I exercise about 5 times a week, and takes 1-1.5 hours each time (not a totally unreasonable amount of exercise). METS estimate an additional deficit of 5500kcal each week, or 2.9kg per month using your calculation above.
In practice: I cannot sustain that degree of deficit in addition to any substantial deficit in TDEE - exercise. I will eat if I run that much. The challenge is then to eat the right amount back. The hunger induced by running is very difficult to manage. Equally I can push through and sustain a massive caloric deficit: but it is terrible for how I feel and how I manage with other aspects of life.
Let's take it back to the OP: at their weight, walking at an easy pace for 1 hour gives a deficit of over 200kcal. What they burn lifting is super hard to estimate without more detail, but they will build muscle and increase their TDEE.
I am continually frustrated that there is a general acceptance that, in spite of substantial variability and inaccuracies of calories in, it is always recommended that people to be really careful about recording as closely as possible, but when it comes to calories burned in exercise it is common to see recommendations that one should just ignore them, because they are hard to measure accurately. They are just another part of the equation, and should be considered when formulating your weight loss.
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@BartBVanBockstaele
You REALLY need to do some research on terms. BMR, yes, myfitnesspal will give you a BMR number if you go search for a BMR number - but it's based on Mifflin St Jeor, and BMR is not the only number myfitnesspal uses to calculate your Goals if you are using myfitnesspal to set up your Goals. Research what Mifflin St Jeor actually calculates.
I am quoting the entire article below because you continue to make inaccurate claims. There are many links imbedded in this article, go to the actual thread and read them too:
https://support.myfitnesspal.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032625391-How-does-MyFitnessPal-calculate-my-initial-goals-How does MyFitnessPal calculate my initial goals?
When you create your profile, we ask you for your age, height, weight, sex, and normal daily activity level. We use these factors to determine the calories required to maintain your current weight. We also ask how much weight you would like to lose or gain per week, and with this goal in mind we subtract calories (for weight loss) or add calories (for weight gain) to determine your daily calorie and nutrient goals.
We ask for your goal weight when you create your profile, but this is only for purposes of reporting how many pounds remain until you meet your goal. Your goal weight does not affect your initial calorie calculations.
Additionally we also account for weekly exercise goals (which should not be included in your initial activity level), in order to provide an incentive for you to reach. However, we do not account for additional exercise outside of your reported daily activity level, until you actually perform and log exercise to your diary under the "Cardiovascular" section. Please see this article to understand why we do not currently calculate calories via strength exercises.
Because your daily calorie goal already accounts for your intent to gain or lose weight at a particular rate, you can achieve your goal by eating the specified number of calories per day, with no additional exercise required. If you do exercise, your daily calorie goal will then increase for the day, to stabilize your weight loss or weight gain at the rate you initially specified.
We set your daily calorie goal in Net Calories which we define as:
Calories Consumed (Food) - Calories Burned (Exercise) = Net Calories
This means if you exercise, you will be able to eat more for that day. For example, if your Net Calorie goal is 2000 calories, one way to meet that goal is to eat 2,500 calories of food, but then burn 500 calories through exercise.
Think of your Net Calories like a daily budget of calories to spend. You spend them by eating, and you earn more calories to eat by exercising. We do not recommend women consume fewer than 1200 calories per day, or men fewer than 1500 calories per day. Eating too little can produce negative health effects.
As you continue with the program, if your weight changes, your goals may also change. Please see this article for more information on how your goals will update.
While the calorie goals we calculate for you are based on statistical averages, our millions of users have demonstrated these goals are accurate enough to provide positive results for almost anyone. For real member success stories please visit our success forums.
If you would prefer a calorie goal that responds to your specific daily activity level, we suggest looking into our third party integrations. Several of our integrations offer solutions for monitoring your calorie burn over the course of the day, and can update your MyFitnessPal calorie goals based on this information.
On the site you can find out more about our integrations here. In our Android and iOS apps, tap "Apps & Devices" in the Menu (or "More" page).
If you are following a guided plan from your doctor or nutritionist, or if you have data you believe is more accurate than our estimated goals, please see this article for information about customizing your goals. You may also wish to consider upgrading to MyFitnessPal Premium, which allows advanced users or users with very specific nutritional goals to customize their nutrition plan with even greater control.
I lost 80 pounds 15 years ago as a 55 YO 5'7" retired woman eating 1800-1900 calories per day including 300 from purposeful exercise. 60-90 minute walks daily. If I had not exercised the calories would have been 1500-1600. I still eat 300 extra calories per day for exercise in Maintenance, and I have done so for 15 years. I eat around 2200-2300 per day total for 140-145 pounds of body weight.
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It is really simple: if it makes a difference for you, great. It does not make a difference for the vast majority of people. If it was making a difference, we would know. There have never been more gyms than in the last years or so, there have never been more fat people either. If someone would like to be as dishonest as those who accuse the food industry, that person could even claim that exercise makes people fat. It does not. But it makes precious little difference. Sure, IF you are an athlete AND you exercise two hours a day for almost every single day, it WILL make a difference, possibly even a measurable and identifiable one. How many people are there who are capable of doing it?autobahn66 wrote: »BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »I didn't claim otherwise, only that it is essentially only detectable in a lab setting and that it is unreliable even there.
You said that calories: 'Also, while logic dictates that exercise does consume extra calories, and it really does, clinical evidence also shows that these values are quite small, and virtually undetectable'
That is just factually untrue. Calories burned in exercise, based on exercises that can be done in a lab, are pretty easy to measure, and the data are fairly consistent. And the values for calories burned can be quite high.
Accuracy in measurement is not particularly difficult in a research environment using open circuit indirect calorimetry, which has a well defined inaccuracy of 1-2% (and not in a specific direction - so may over or under estimate). A closed system (i.e. room) is not strictly necessary for estimation of energy burned during a specific period of exercise.
What is unknown, and actually highly variable, is the personal response to exercise in terms of reciprocal calorie intake and reduction in NEAT. Further, reference values are adjusted according to body weight (frequently using METs): there is substantial inaccuracy as body composition makes a big difference to the actual energy balance of exercise.BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »Think about it carefully and calculate it. 1 kg of body has pretty much been established as representing 7700 kcal.
This is one of the most nonsense 'facts' out there. 7700kcal is the absolute amount of energy that could be obtained from a kg of fat. That assumes a 100% efficiency in depositing and accessing that energy. But we know there are a bunch of steps which cause this to be inefficient. This study
looked at actual weight gain: mean of 84000kcal surplus over 84 days led to a mean of 8.1kg weight gain. But a range of 4.1-13kg. Further, body composition after mass gain was highly variable, but more similar between twins than between pairs of twins.
(if 1kg = 7700kcal, weight gain should be approx 11kg)
Equally in this study: a fixed deficit with additional exercise led to huge differences in mass loss, and in particular, fat mass loss and muscle mass retention. So 7700kcal deficit = 1kg fat loss is not at all reliable.BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »Assuming for the sake of argument that 1 hour or walking creates an additional energy consumption of 100 kcal, you have to effectively walk for 77 hours to lose 1 extra kg.
Sure. But we can make up numbers and make it look unreasonable. We can't just use made up numbers.
Using published metabolic equivalent data: a 70kg person walking at 2mph on a flat, even surface - so an extremely leisurely walk on an easy surface of a 'normal' weight person for 1 hour burns about 200kcal (vs 70kcal for sitting watching TV). So we've got a difference of 130kcal for the absolutely easiest form of walking in someone who is not obese.
Let's factor in obesity: bump that weight up to my weight - and we've got an energy surplus of 180kcal.
Let's make it exercise that would actually get your HR up: 1-5% grade, 3.5 mph. Now we've got an additional deficit of 430kcal per hour
Lets think about what I do each week: 50-70km per week. I exercise about 5 times a week, and takes 1-1.5 hours each time (not a totally unreasonable amount of exercise). METS estimate an additional deficit of 5500kcal each week, or 2.9kg per month using your calculation above.
In practice: I cannot sustain that degree of deficit in addition to any substantial deficit in TDEE - exercise. I will eat if I run that much. The challenge is then to eat the right amount back. The hunger induced by running is very difficult to manage. Equally I can push through and sustain a massive caloric deficit: but it is terrible for how I feel and how I manage with other aspects of life.
Let's take it back to the OP: at their weight, walking at an easy pace for 1 hour gives a deficit of over 200kcal. What they burn lifting is super hard to estimate without more detail, but they will build muscle and increase their TDEE.
I am continually frustrated that there is a general acceptance that, in spite of substantial variability and inaccuracies of calories in, it is always recommended that people to be really careful about recording as closely as possible, but when it comes to calories burned in exercise it is common to see recommendations that one should just ignore them, because they are hard to measure accurately. They are just another part of the equation, and should be considered when formulating your weight loss.
Exercise for weight loss is largely a hoax. It is great for health, no sane person will dispute that, but there is next to no evidence of the weight loss claims. If there is, by all means, make it public to benefit everyone. But remember this: if evidence is this rare and this unreliable, it is a precious good indication, there is not very much to it.
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I was told that MFP does NOT give you BMR. I showed that whis was not true. That MFP ALSO gives other numbers does NOT negate the fact that it DOES give a BMR.cmriverside wrote: »@BartBVanBockstaele
You REALLY need to do some research on terms. BMR, yes, myfitnesspal will give you a BMR number if you go search for a BMR number - but it's based on Mifflin St Jeor, and BMR is not the only number myfitnesspal uses to calculate your Goals if you are using myfitnesspal to set up your Goals. Research what Mifflin St Jeor actually calculates.
I am quoting the entire article below because you continue to make inaccurate claims. There are many links imbedded in this article, go to the actual thread and read them too:
https://support.myfitnesspal.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032625391-How-does-MyFitnessPal-calculate-my-initial-goals-How does MyFitnessPal calculate my initial goals?
When you create your profile, we ask you for your age, height, weight, sex, and normal daily activity level. We use these factors to determine the calories required to maintain your current weight. We also ask how much weight you would like to lose or gain per week, and with this goal in mind we subtract calories (for weight loss) or add calories (for weight gain) to determine your daily calorie and nutrient goals.
We ask for your goal weight when you create your profile, but this is only for purposes of reporting how many pounds remain until you meet your goal. Your goal weight does not affect your initial calorie calculations.
Additionally we also account for weekly exercise goals (which should not be included in your initial activity level), in order to provide an incentive for you to reach. However, we do not account for additional exercise outside of your reported daily activity level, until you actually perform and log exercise to your diary under the "Cardiovascular" section. Please see this article to understand why we do not currently calculate calories via strength exercises.
Because your daily calorie goal already accounts for your intent to gain or lose weight at a particular rate, you can achieve your goal by eating the specified number of calories per day, with no additional exercise required. If you do exercise, your daily calorie goal will then increase for the day, to stabilize your weight loss or weight gain at the rate you initially specified.
We set your daily calorie goal in Net Calories which we define as:
Calories Consumed (Food) - Calories Burned (Exercise) = Net Calories
This means if you exercise, you will be able to eat more for that day. For example, if your Net Calorie goal is 2000 calories, one way to meet that goal is to eat 2,500 calories of food, but then burn 500 calories through exercise.
Think of your Net Calories like a daily budget of calories to spend. You spend them by eating, and you earn more calories to eat by exercising. We do not recommend women consume fewer than 1200 calories per day, or men fewer than 1500 calories per day. Eating too little can produce negative health effects.
As you continue with the program, if your weight changes, your goals may also change. Please see this article for more information on how your goals will update.
While the calorie goals we calculate for you are based on statistical averages, our millions of users have demonstrated these goals are accurate enough to provide positive results for almost anyone. For real member success stories please visit our success forums.
If you would prefer a calorie goal that responds to your specific daily activity level, we suggest looking into our third party integrations. Several of our integrations offer solutions for monitoring your calorie burn over the course of the day, and can update your MyFitnessPal calorie goals based on this information.
On the site you can find out more about our integrations here. In our Android and iOS apps, tap "Apps & Devices" in the Menu (or "More" page).
If you are following a guided plan from your doctor or nutritionist, or if you have data you believe is more accurate than our estimated goals, please see this article for information about customizing your goals. You may also wish to consider upgrading to MyFitnessPal Premium, which allows advanced users or users with very specific nutritional goals to customize their nutrition plan with even greater control.
I lost 80 pounds 15 years ago as a 55 YO 5'7" retired woman eating 1800-1900 calories per day including 300 from purposeful exercise. 60-90 minute walks daily. If I had not exercised the calories would have been 1500-1600. I still eat 300 extra calories per day for exercise in Maintenance, and I have done so for 15 years. I eat around 2200-2300 per day total for 140-145 pounds of body weight.
For the rest, what you is what you do and that is fine. What I do is what I do and that is fine too. An anecdote is exactly that: an anecdote.
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BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »
<snip>
It is really simple: if it makes a difference for you, great. It does not make a difference for the vast majority of people. If it was making a difference, we would know. There have never been more gyms than in the last years or so, there have never been more fat people either. If someone would like to be as dishonest as those who accuse the food industry, that person could even claim that exercise makes people fat. It does not. But it makes precious little difference. Sure, IF you are an athlete AND you exercise two hours a day for almost every single day, it WILL make a difference, possibly even a measurable and identifiable one. How many people are there who are capable of doing it?
Exercise for weight loss is largely a hoax. It is great for health, no sane person will dispute that, but there is next to no evidence of the weight loss claims. If there is, by all means, make it public to benefit everyone. But remember this: if evidence is this rare and this unreliable, it is a precious good indication, there is not very much to it.
I am reneging on my statement that I was done.
If I wrote what I really think, the censor on MFP would turn it into a kitten. It involves a male cattle, elk, or sea lion and the excrement that comes out of them many hours after they eat.
You are conflating things. Nobody here has suggested that you can manage weight only through exercise. Clearly, as you know and have written about repeatedly - we must be in a calorie deficit. It's an energy balance. The laws of thermodynamics must be obeyed; we have no choice.
What you claimed above in this thread is that "clinical evidence also shows that these values [calories expended during exercise] are quite small, and virtually undetectable" You wrote that. You wrote "virtually undetectable." We are disagreeing with that statement. You seem to be standing by that statement.
I don't think anyone disagrees that you can undo all of that detectable and often SIGNIFICANT calorie expenditure very easily by eating too much.
What am I missing?
In the case of the OP, @damage_inc74, as has been stated and probably lost, there's a few things that MIGHT be going on.- You could be logging the wrong things from the database.
- You could be measuring what you eat inaccurately (use a scale, not cups and spoons).
- You could be missing some things you are logging with your 500 calorie per day deficit.
- There could be some increased water weight from your body repairing itself from increased lifting.
- Your scale might be broken.
Main thing @damage_inc74 is keep sticking to it and keep observing how your body and the scale respond. Make small changes, and mostly STICK TO IT!
8 -
BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »It is really simple: if it makes a difference for you, great. It does not make a difference for the vast majority of people. If it was making a difference, we would know.......... Sure, IF you are an athlete AND you exercise two hours a day for almost every single day, it WILL make a difference, possibly even a measurable and identifiable one. How many people are there who are capable of doing it?
Exercise for weight loss is largely a hoax. It is great for health, no sane person will dispute that, but there is next to no evidence of the weight loss claims. If there is, by all means, make it public to benefit everyone. But remember this: if evidence is this rare and this unreliable, it is a precious good indication, there is not very much to it.
I love the success you've found so far and I love that you're starting to prepare for a transition to maintenance. But I don't know where you're getting some of the ideas you're discussing directly contradicting some of your own resources.
In a recent post you brought up the body weight planner for example. It is clearly in line with most actual research which seems to NOT support the idea that activity is *irrelevant*.
Rather most research I've seen seems to support the idea that caloric control tends to be easier to achieve, and with less adaptations to boot, if you engage in a two prong approach involving both food intake control AND activity.
That "recipe for success" is also similar to the survey findings from the (US only) National Weight Control Registry, which I think are of particular interest to people such as you and I who started in the obese range.
Specifically: 98% of Registry participants report that they modified their food intake in some way to lose weight. 94% increased their physical activity, with the most frequently reported form of activity being walking.
I mean it is NOT proof. And for specific situations where the option is just not available the lack of availability does NOT prohibit the possibility of success.
But if I am playing a game that I know is rigged against me, and I know that certain avenues have a slightly higher probability of success, and I DO have the option to play there... well I think it would make sense for me to do so!
So yeah... when evaluating the life trade offs I was willing to make to lose weight and maintain the loss, I DID take into consideration that the 94% discussed above was factoring in at least an hour of physical activity a day. At maintenance. On average. Which I was NOT engaged in when I was starting out.
So, even if a week's worth of activity can disappear with a $15 box of cookies (inflation, plus NOT US dollar!), this doesn't mean that it is not relevant. Or desirable. Or that it doesn't have to be accounted for.
As you transition to maintenance you may want to observe whether your maintenance calories will adjust upwards, from some of the numbers you've quoted, as some of your long time at deficit adaptations resolve. You may also want to proceed very cautiously, and slowly, because hormonally induced rebound over-eating may just also become a thing once you stop pushing downwards.
(P.S. while 78% eat breakfast everyday... I don't. As I implied above, being aware of what MAY have worked for others could help, especially if you have both the ability and desire to implement it, but it doesn't pre-ordain your results)7 -
BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »
Many do indeed, and the problem with that is that BMR is different for everybody and it can vary quite considerably. Just one example: in my own case, MFP claims my BMR is 1407 kcal a day. In reality, that is actually higher than my TDEE and an intake at that level makes me gain weight, which is not exactly what I need.kshama2001 wrote: »Sometimes trackers include BEE (basal energy expenditure)/BMR (basal metabolic rate) when what you want for MFP is just exercise calories.
Your experience may (and almost certainly will) be different. Just don't attach too much importance to any of these numbers and abbreviations. Except in a scientific context, they have no practical value because we are unable to determine them. Google "room calorimeter" to get an idea to what it takes to measure these things as precisely as possible and then realise that even these very expensive methods are highly unreliable. They are just the best (or the least bad) we can possibly hope for at this stage of our technological evolution.
Also, while logic dictates that exercise does consume extra calories, and it really does, clinical evidence also shows that these values are quite small, and virtually undetectable (unless in a lab setting, and even there the values are less than reliable, for a multitude of reasons ... biology is a messy business).
Your best bet remains this: track your energy intake as precisely as you can and limit it to a certain number, any number really, but numbers provided by calculators are as reasonable a start as any. I'd suggest the NIH body weight planner at https://www.niddk.nih.gov/bwp as the least unreliable of all of them. It is still highly unreliable (in my own case quite ridiculously so), but it has the benefit of having been created by experts, and of being based on evidence, and not by some hapless alternologist who has never seen a biology textbook up close.
Next, follow this diet for about one month and look at the results by weighing yourself at least daily (and preferably several times a day) and tracking the lowest weight of every day. See when you had your lowest weight, continue tracking and one month later, look at the result: if it is higher, your intake is almost certainly too high. If it is unchanged, you probably just discovered your maintenance level and if it is lower, you found a way to lose weight. In the first two cases, lower your intake by a certain number (500 kcal is standard, but this is not a requirement, just a customary value). In the latter case, see how fast you are losing. If it is more than 3 to 4 kgs, you are arguably going too fast, unless so directed by a medical doctor. Depending on how much too fast, adjust your intake upwards. A reasonable estimate for that would be to take the weight loss exceeding 3 kgs, calculate its caloric value, divide it by the number of days and increasing your daily intake by that number.
As an aside, you can see a room calorimeter in action on the CBC website at:
https://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/features/enter-the-calorimeter-a-chamber-that-measures-how-many-calories-your-body-n
It is surprisingly hard to find any videos online. This is the only one I have seen so far. The interesting part is that the subject is Tim Spector who is now branding himself as an energy disbeliever by claiming that calories are rubbish. That is a nonsensical claim and he knows that as well as anyone.
@springlering62 I was just inspired by reading your post about how "I was maintaining at 32-3500 (60, female, 5’7”) early last year, pre-travel, at a slightly higher exercise level" and thought you would get a kick (or something) at reading how exercise burns "virtually undetectable" calories.5 -
BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »It is really simple: if it makes a difference for you, great. It does not make a difference for the vast majority of people. If it was making a difference, we would know.......... Sure, IF you are an athlete AND you exercise two hours a day for almost every single day, it WILL make a difference, possibly even a measurable and identifiable one. How many people are there who are capable of doing it?
Exercise for weight loss is largely a hoax. It is great for health, no sane person will dispute that, but there is next to no evidence of the weight loss claims. If there is, by all means, make it public to benefit everyone. But remember this: if evidence is this rare and this unreliable, it is a precious good indication, there is not very much to it.
I love the success you've found so far and I love that you're starting to prepare for a transition to maintenance. But I don't know where you're getting some of the ideas you're discussing directly contradicting some of your own resources.
In a recent post you brought up the body weight planner for example. It is clearly in line with most actual research which seems to NOT support the idea that activity is *irrelevant*.
Rather most research I've seen seems to support the idea that caloric control tends to be easier to achieve, and with less adaptations to boot, if you engage in a two prong approach involving both food intake control AND activity.
That "recipe for success" is also similar to the survey findings from the (US only) National Weight Control Registry, which I think are of particular interest to people such as you and I who started in the obese range.
Specifically: 98% of Registry participants report that they modified their food intake in some way to lose weight. 94% increased their physical activity, with the most frequently reported form of activity being walking.
I mean it is NOT proof. And for specific situations where the option is just not available the lack of availability does NOT prohibit the possibility of success.
But if I am playing a game that I know is rigged against me, and I know that certain avenues have a slightly higher probability of success, and I DO have the option to play there... well I think it would make sense for me to do so!
So yeah... when evaluating the life trade offs I was willing to make to lose weight and maintain the loss, I DID take into consideration that the 94% discussed above was factoring in at least an hour of physical activity a day. At maintenance. On average. Which I was NOT engaged in when I was starting out.
So, even if a week's worth of activity can disappear with a $15 box of cookies (inflation, plus NOT US dollar!), this doesn't mean that it is not relevant. Or desirable. Or that it doesn't have to be accounted for.
As you transition to maintenance you may want to observe whether your maintenance calories will adjust upwards, from some of the numbers you've quoted, as some of your long time at deficit adaptations resolve. You may also want to proceed very cautiously, and slowly, because hormonally induced rebound over-eating may just also become a thing once you stop pushing downwards.
(P.S. while 78% eat breakfast everyday... I don't. As I implied above, being aware of what MAY have worked for others could help, especially if you have both the ability and desire to implement it, but it doesn't pre-ordain your results)
There are a few nice arguments here, but a full reply is not possible at least not in one reply, so I will limit myself to two points. That will be far more than long enough.
Let me start with the one I like the most, because that is something that seems to confuse many people, despite the fact that this is not my intention. First off, I am not trying to "win the debate". In fact, I am utterly uninterested in winning any debate. My position is the one that is best expressed in Boileau's saying "du choc des idées jaillit la lumière". I am of the opinion that progress is made more difficult when there is no debate. As such, I will sometimes, perhaps even often, use sources that do not necessarily agree with me on all things, but for which there are solid reasons to see them as credible.
In the case of the NIH body weight planner, my own case is completely different from what they say. But that is utterly unimportant. MY experience has zero or at least vanishingly little relevance to anyone else. Furthermore, the people at the CDC/NIH are not hapless idiots who vaguely remember some poetry they once read in an alchemy textbook from the 1400s. They know what they are talking about, and short of starting to study hundreds of clinical studies, and distilling information from them in a sound way yourself/myself, there is no more reliable resource. The information is available for free, a.k.a. paid by the taxpayer.
Where weight loss is concerned, read here what they say:
https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/physical_activity/index.html
Are such numbers detectable? As I said before, in a lab setting, yes. Are they reliable? No, and they say exactly that:
Note that they don't say *how much activity*. Logical, precisely because the numbers are all over the place. However, this page does have some numbers. These numbers are not reliable, and they say so, albeit without adding a 500 page précis on what it all entails. To quote this particular page: "Calories burned per hour will be higher for persons who weigh more than 154 lbs (70 kg) and lower for persons who weigh less." That is as precise as they get here.How much physical activity do I need?
When it comes to weight management, people vary greatly in how much physical activity they need. Here are some guidelines to follow:
To maintain your weight: Work your way up to 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity, 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity, or an equivalent mix of the two each week. Strong scientific evidence shows that physical activity can help you maintain your weight over time. However, the exact amount of physical activity needed to do this is not clear since it varies greatly from person to person. It’s possible that you may need to do more than the equivalent of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity a week to maintain your weight.
To lose weight and keep it off: You will need a high amount of physical activity unless you also adjust your diet and reduce the amount of calories you’re eating and drinking. Getting to and staying at a healthy weight requires both regular physical activity and a healthy eating plan.
That said, let's take one number, which just happens to be one of two that I particulary like:
They do not mention here whether or not this is total energy expenditure or additional energy expenditure. I suspect the former, but that may be due to my own experience, it is conjecture on my part, nothing more and let's ignore what I think and assume that this is additional energy, not total energy, i.e. I am trying to destroy my argument.
Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that a person does a one hour walk, without slowing down, without stopping. A solid 1 hour walk at exactly that speed, and let's assume that number is correct and only includes additional energy burned, not total energy. In that case, this person would use up an extra 280 kcal during that walk. Note that there are a lot of conditions here.
The NIH does not seem to have a BMR calculator, so I used the MFP's for a weight of 154 pounds in order to be consistent with the CDC numbers. Since no height and age is mentioned, I used my own data: 171 cm and 61 years old. The result produced by the MFP BMR calculator is 1468 kcal a day. Note that BMR is, in principle, the absolute minimum one needs for life functions to not deteriorate, since any activity at all, will result in an increase. This is therefore a ridiculously low number and no sane person would ever consider this. Well, except me perhaps. At that intake I actually gain weight, but that is just me. I am an outlier. But, if I don't want to be a liar, I have to admit that.
Now the point: if a 154 lb person uses 1468 kcal a day and walks for precisely one full hour at precisely the speed shown and if the numbers are reliable, that person would now use up 1748 kcal, an increase of 19%. This would allow the person to consume 280 kcal extra. It is fairly well established that there are approximately 7700 kcal in one kg of body fat. 280 kcal is 3.6% of 1 kg of body fat or 36.36 g. The above person weighs 154 pounds, that is 70 kg. If the person does not "eat back" these calories, this person has now lost 36.36 g of body fat and weighs 69.964 kg.
Note that you cannot round these numbers because if you do, the difference disappears, but that is not the point I am making here. The point that I am making is that you will not be able to measure that difference. You can detect it in a lab under very controlled conditions, but you cannot detect it at home. In fact, I have a classical medical scale that is significantly more precise and accurate than a household scale and I cannot measure this difference. The measurement markings are in 50 g. That means that this weight loss is within the error margin of my scale and that is not even taking into account that it is impossible to always weigh in precisely the same way, not even taking into account accuracy and precision issues, but simply taking into account the visual problems associated with precise measuring, which is why medical students learn to make several measurements and calculate an average value of all these measurements.
A different but fun way to look at the above number is that this person's weight has changed by 0.05% and the only reason this change is so high (!) is that I used the supposedly absolute minimum that person would use up without being dead.
That is what is behind what I say. If anyone is able to tell me how to weigh in a more precise way on a scale at home, I would LOVE to hear that. I have never heard of such a method, I am unaware of its existence, but just because I do not know something, does not mean it does not exist. But, until someone can figure it out, my point stands. I would love it to be not so, but wishing for something to be different, does not make it so.
I did not talk about the other points that touch me on a more personal level, and are therefore far more interesting to me personally, because those are unimportant in the debate. Yes, I have lost a relatively large amount of weight. So do many people. I find nothing remarkable in that. Once I got rid of the problem that made me fat: unbearable hunger, stomach pains, nausea and vomiting, all I had to do was apply the very simple and basic science behind weight loss and maintain the willpower to say no to temptation. So there really isn't any particularly formidable accomplishment here.0 -
BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »
Many do indeed, and the problem with that is that BMR is different for everybody and it can vary quite considerably. Just one example: in my own case, MFP claims my BMR is 1407 kcal a day. In reality, that is actually higher than my TDEE and an intake at that level makes me gain weight, which is not exactly what I need.kshama2001 wrote: »Sometimes trackers include BEE (basal energy expenditure)/BMR (basal metabolic rate) when what you want for MFP is just exercise calories.
Your experience may (and almost certainly will) be different. Just don't attach too much importance to any of these numbers and abbreviations. Except in a scientific context, they have no practical value because we are unable to determine them. Google "room calorimeter" to get an idea to what it takes to measure these things as precisely as possible and then realise that even these very expensive methods are highly unreliable. They are just the best (or the least bad) we can possibly hope for at this stage of our technological evolution.
Also, while logic dictates that exercise does consume extra calories, and it really does, clinical evidence also shows that these values are quite small, and virtually undetectable (unless in a lab setting, and even there the values are less than reliable, for a multitude of reasons ... biology is a messy business).
(snip)
Now that this is split to an appropriate place - not a ridiculous digression from the former OP's actual scenario - I'm in. I was eye-rolling at some of the thread.
The bolded, as others have said, is just wrong.
We don't need perfect, precise measurements of exercise calorie expenditure to calorie count. As with all of the other factors involved, we just need workable estimates. There are various ways to get workable estimates for exercise calories. The mere fact that there are so many people here on MFP succeeding with a base calories + exercise approach ought to suggest that that's so, as a practical matter. (Obviously, it's not the only workable method, but it's one workable method.)
I just finished a stationary bike workout. This is a bicycle ergometer, so it gives a reasonably accurate measurement of average watts, measured at the flywheel. (Power meters for actual bicycles do similar measurements.) There's a reasonably good formula for estimating biking calories from average watts. There's a bit of approximation involved, because efficiency of biking can differ among people, but as it happens, the range is quite narrow for biking, per research. Also, where the watts are measured matters a little, but as I said, we just need a workable estimate, not a precise one.
So, average watts times hours times 3.6 is a reasonable approximation of biking calories.
I spent an hour on the bike, averaged 101W. One hour x 101W x 3.6 = 363.6 calories: That's a pretty reasonable estimate. It might've been more (if I moved in ways that didn't put power into the flywheel), but we know that energy didn't creep in out of the air, so really the only issue is that efficiency factor and some minor measurement error potential. It's plenty close enough for my purposes, and much closer than using zero.
Is it a trivial amount of calories? Now, obviously my self-estimated TDEE is also an approximation, but with the exercise in there, today's TDEE was probably around 2300 +/-. That would make 363 calories around 15% of my TDEE, which doesn't seem trivial to me.
Is it possible that the bike ride was so very fatiguing that it will bleed calories out of my daily life activity? Can't be sure, of course. But 101W isn't remotely gangbusters intense, and I'm pretty accustomed to workouts of that nature, so I'm guessing there isn't major impact that way. (Long term weight management results tend to bear that out.)
Is an hour too much time to spend, for the average person? Hard to say. Surveys suggest the average person spends 1-4 hours a day watching TV, which might give us a hint. Also, in my specific case, I spent most of tonight's bike time watching videos for an online class I'm taking, so I can't really count the time as just for exercise myself.
As an aside, we can critique the METS method of estimating exercise calories in various ways, but it does often rely on research that used reasonably accurate calorimetry. At the very least, the research-based METS tables ought to give us a hint that it's not unusual for common forms of exercise to burn calories that are several multiples of BMR/RMR. That seems fairly significant to me, even in half-hour increments.
You may simply argue for TDEE method (rather than BMR+NEAT+EAT), and that's probably fine for someone with consistent exercise load. But TDEE also includes exercise calories, just averaged in, not added separately. Personally, I think either route can work, and which to choose is a matter of personal preference and context (such as variability of one's exercise schedule).
Not considering exercise calories in fueling plans for reasonable intensity/duration exercise - somehow - is a fool's game. For sure, under-fueling (i.e., more than moderate weight loss) will hinder exercise performance, limit fitness progress, and quite possibly increase health risk. In the long run, if nothing else, not eating for exercise (somehow) is a maintenance fail.BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »
It is really simple: if it makes a difference for you, great. It does not make a difference for the vast majority of people. If it was making a difference, we would know. There have never been more gyms than in the last years or so, there have never been more fat people either. If someone would like to be as dishonest as those who accuse the food industry, that person could even claim that exercise makes people fat. It does not. But it makes precious little difference. Sure, IF you are an athlete AND you exercise two hours a day for almost every single day, it WILL make a difference, possibly even a measurable and identifiable one. How many people are there who are capable of doing it?autobahn66 wrote: »BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »I didn't claim otherwise, only that it is essentially only detectable in a lab setting and that it is unreliable even there.
You said that calories: 'Also, while logic dictates that exercise does consume extra calories, and it really does, clinical evidence also shows that these values are quite small, and virtually undetectable'
That is just factually untrue. Calories burned in exercise, based on exercises that can be done in a lab, are pretty easy to measure, and the data are fairly consistent. And the values for calories burned can be quite high.
Accuracy in measurement is not particularly difficult in a research environment using open circuit indirect calorimetry, which has a well defined inaccuracy of 1-2% (and not in a specific direction - so may over or under estimate). A closed system (i.e. room) is not strictly necessary for estimation of energy burned during a specific period of exercise.
What is unknown, and actually highly variable, is the personal response to exercise in terms of reciprocal calorie intake and reduction in NEAT. Further, reference values are adjusted according to body weight (frequently using METs): there is substantial inaccuracy as body composition makes a big difference to the actual energy balance of exercise.BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »Think about it carefully and calculate it. 1 kg of body has pretty much been established as representing 7700 kcal.
This is one of the most nonsense 'facts' out there. 7700kcal is the absolute amount of energy that could be obtained from a kg of fat. That assumes a 100% efficiency in depositing and accessing that energy. But we know there are a bunch of steps which cause this to be inefficient. This study
looked at actual weight gain: mean of 84000kcal surplus over 84 days led to a mean of 8.1kg weight gain. But a range of 4.1-13kg. Further, body composition after mass gain was highly variable, but more similar between twins than between pairs of twins.
(if 1kg = 7700kcal, weight gain should be approx 11kg)
Equally in this study: a fixed deficit with additional exercise led to huge differences in mass loss, and in particular, fat mass loss and muscle mass retention. So 7700kcal deficit = 1kg fat loss is not at all reliable.BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »Assuming for the sake of argument that 1 hour or walking creates an additional energy consumption of 100 kcal, you have to effectively walk for 77 hours to lose 1 extra kg.
Sure. But we can make up numbers and make it look unreasonable. We can't just use made up numbers.
Using published metabolic equivalent data: a 70kg person walking at 2mph on a flat, even surface - so an extremely leisurely walk on an easy surface of a 'normal' weight person for 1 hour burns about 200kcal (vs 70kcal for sitting watching TV). So we've got a difference of 130kcal for the absolutely easiest form of walking in someone who is not obese.
Let's factor in obesity: bump that weight up to my weight - and we've got an energy surplus of 180kcal.
Let's make it exercise that would actually get your HR up: 1-5% grade, 3.5 mph. Now we've got an additional deficit of 430kcal per hour
Lets think about what I do each week: 50-70km per week. I exercise about 5 times a week, and takes 1-1.5 hours each time (not a totally unreasonable amount of exercise). METS estimate an additional deficit of 5500kcal each week, or 2.9kg per month using your calculation above.
In practice: I cannot sustain that degree of deficit in addition to any substantial deficit in TDEE - exercise. I will eat if I run that much. The challenge is then to eat the right amount back. The hunger induced by running is very difficult to manage. Equally I can push through and sustain a massive caloric deficit: but it is terrible for how I feel and how I manage with other aspects of life.
Let's take it back to the OP: at their weight, walking at an easy pace for 1 hour gives a deficit of over 200kcal. What they burn lifting is super hard to estimate without more detail, but they will build muscle and increase their TDEE.
I am continually frustrated that there is a general acceptance that, in spite of substantial variability and inaccuracies of calories in, it is always recommended that people to be really careful about recording as closely as possible, but when it comes to calories burned in exercise it is common to see recommendations that one should just ignore them, because they are hard to measure accurately. They are just another part of the equation, and should be considered when formulating your weight loss.
Exercise for weight loss is largely a hoax. It is great for health, no sane person will dispute that, but there is next to no evidence of the weight loss claims. If there is, by all means, make it public to benefit everyone. But remember this: if evidence is this rare and this unreliable, it is a precious good indication, there is not very much to it.
The bolded is ridiculous, not on your straw man's part, but on yours. Those are not things that one can rationally correlate. More gyms have little to do with the percentage of people who are fat. That's like blaming the obesity crisis on a food pyramid or low-fat eating recommendation that (statistically speaking) very few people ever followed.
It could be relevant to consider whether regular gym-goers are equally likely to be as fat as non-gym-goers. I don't have data, just anecdote, but while I see some fraction of fat people at the gym, it's fewer than I see at the grocery store, let alone the doctor's office.
If you don't choose to exercise because you don't consider it meaningful, or don't choose to estimate it separately, that's your choice. I gather from other posts that you do quite an amount of walking, a thing at which humans are pretty efficient, but little else. Walking is great, I'm not dissing that.
But convincing others that exercise lacks weight management impact or value is a disservice, IMO. For me, living with my calorie goal plus exercise is much pleasanter than living on less, even though my reasons for being active are about having fun and staying healthy/strong rather than about burning calories. Weight management with good performance and decent fitness is better, for my taste, than simply getting thin. Getting to eat a little more is just a nice bonus.7 -
BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »It is really simple: if it makes a difference for you, great. It does not make a difference for the vast majority of people. If it was making a difference, we would know.......... Sure, IF you are an athlete AND you exercise two hours a day for almost every single day, it WILL make a difference, possibly even a measurable and identifiable one. How many people are there who are capable of doing it?
Exercise for weight loss is largely a hoax. It is great for health, no sane person will dispute that, but there is next to no evidence of the weight loss claims. If there is, by all means, make it public to benefit everyone. But remember this: if evidence is this rare and this unreliable, it is a precious good indication, there is not very much to it.
I love the success you've found so far and I love that you're starting to prepare for a transition to maintenance. But I don't know where you're getting some of the ideas you're discussing directly contradicting some of your own resources.
In a recent post you brought up the body weight planner for example. It is clearly in line with most actual research which seems to NOT support the idea that activity is *irrelevant*.
Rather most research I've seen seems to support the idea that caloric control tends to be easier to achieve, and with less adaptations to boot, if you engage in a two prong approach involving both food intake control AND activity.
That "recipe for success" is also similar to the survey findings from the (US only) National Weight Control Registry, which I think are of particular interest to people such as you and I who started in the obese range.
Specifically: 98% of Registry participants report that they modified their food intake in some way to lose weight. 94% increased their physical activity, with the most frequently reported form of activity being walking.
I mean it is NOT proof. And for specific situations where the option is just not available the lack of availability does NOT prohibit the possibility of success.
But if I am playing a game that I know is rigged against me, and I know that certain avenues have a slightly higher probability of success, and I DO have the option to play there... well I think it would make sense for me to do so!
So yeah... when evaluating the life trade offs I was willing to make to lose weight and maintain the loss, I DID take into consideration that the 94% discussed above was factoring in at least an hour of physical activity a day. At maintenance. On average. Which I was NOT engaged in when I was starting out.
So, even if a week's worth of activity can disappear with a $15 box of cookies (inflation, plus NOT US dollar!), this doesn't mean that it is not relevant. Or desirable. Or that it doesn't have to be accounted for.
As you transition to maintenance you may want to observe whether your maintenance calories will adjust upwards, from some of the numbers you've quoted, as some of your long time at deficit adaptations resolve. You may also want to proceed very cautiously, and slowly, because hormonally induced rebound over-eating may just also become a thing once you stop pushing downwards.
(P.S. while 78% eat breakfast everyday... I don't. As I implied above, being aware of what MAY have worked for others could help, especially if you have both the ability and desire to implement it, but it doesn't pre-ordain your results)
There are a few nice arguments here, but a full reply is not possible at least not in one reply, so I will limit myself to two points. That will be far more than long enough.
Let me start with the one I like the most, because that is something that seems to confuse many people, despite the fact that this is not my intention. First off, I am not trying to "win the debate". In fact, I am utterly uninterested in winning any debate. My position is the one that is best expressed in Boileau's saying "du choc des idées jaillit la lumière". I am of the opinion that progress is made more difficult when there is no debate. As such, I will sometimes, perhaps even often, use sources that do not necessarily agree with me on all things, but for which there are solid reasons to see them as credible.
In the case of the NIH body weight planner, my own case is completely different from what they say. But that is utterly unimportant. MY experience has zero or at least vanishingly little relevance to anyone else. Furthermore, the people at the CDC/NIH are not hapless idiots who vaguely remember some poetry they once read in an alchemy textbook from the 1400s. They know what they are talking about, and short of starting to study hundreds of clinical studies, and distilling information from them in a sound way yourself/myself, there is no more reliable resource. The information is available for free, a.k.a. paid by the taxpayer.
Where weight loss is concerned, read here what they say:
https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/physical_activity/index.html
Are such numbers detectable? As I said before, in a lab setting, yes. Are they reliable? No, and they say exactly that:
Note that they don't say *how much activity*. Logical, precisely because the numbers are all over the place. However, this page does have some numbers. These numbers are not reliable, and they say so, albeit without adding a 500 page précis on what it all entails. To quote this particular page: "Calories burned per hour will be higher for persons who weigh more than 154 lbs (70 kg) and lower for persons who weigh less." That is as precise as they get here.How much physical activity do I need?
When it comes to weight management, people vary greatly in how much physical activity they need. Here are some guidelines to follow:
To maintain your weight: Work your way up to 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity, 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity, or an equivalent mix of the two each week. Strong scientific evidence shows that physical activity can help you maintain your weight over time. However, the exact amount of physical activity needed to do this is not clear since it varies greatly from person to person. It’s possible that you may need to do more than the equivalent of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity a week to maintain your weight.
To lose weight and keep it off: You will need a high amount of physical activity unless you also adjust your diet and reduce the amount of calories you’re eating and drinking. Getting to and staying at a healthy weight requires both regular physical activity and a healthy eating plan.
That said, let's take one number, which just happens to be one of two that I particulary like:
They do not mention here whether or not this is total energy expenditure or additional energy expenditure. I suspect the former, but that may be due to my own experience, it is conjecture on my part, nothing more and let's ignore what I think and assume that this is additional energy, not total energy, i.e. I am trying to destroy my argument.
Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that a person does a one hour walk, without slowing down, without stopping. A solid 1 hour walk at exactly that speed, and let's assume that number is correct and only includes additional energy burned, not total energy. In that case, this person would use up an extra 280 kcal during that walk. Note that there are a lot of conditions here.
The NIH does not seem to have a BMR calculator, so I used the MFP's for a weight of 154 pounds in order to be consistent with the CDC numbers. Since no height and age is mentioned, I used my own data: 171 cm and 61 years old. The result produced by the MFP BMR calculator is 1468 kcal a day. Note that BMR is, in principle, the absolute minimum one needs for life functions to not deteriorate, since any activity at all, will result in an increase. This is therefore a ridiculously low number and no sane person would ever consider this. Well, except me perhaps. At that intake I actually gain weight, but that is just me. I am an outlier. But, if I don't want to be a liar, I have to admit that.
Now the point: if a 154 lb person uses 1468 kcal a day and walks for precisely one full hour at precisely the speed shown and if the numbers are reliable, that person would now use up 1748 kcal, an increase of 19%. This would allow the person to consume 280 kcal extra. It is fairly well established that there are approximately 7700 kcal in one kg of body fat. 280 kcal is 3.6% of 1 kg of body fat or 36.36 g. The above person weighs 154 pounds, that is 70 kg. If the person does not "eat back" these calories, this person has now lost 36.36 g of body fat and weighs 69.964 kg.
Note that you cannot round these numbers because if you do, the difference disappears, but that is not the point I am making here. The point that I am making is that you will not be able to measure that difference. You can detect it in a lab under very controlled conditions, but you cannot detect it at home. In fact, I have a classical medical scale that is significantly more precise and accurate than a household scale and I cannot measure this difference. The measurement markings are in 50 g. That means that this weight loss is within the error margin of my scale and that is not even taking into account that it is impossible to always weigh in precisely the same way, not even taking into account accuracy and precision issues, but simply taking into account the visual problems associated with precise measuring, which is why medical students learn to make several measurements and calculate an average value of all these measurements.
A different but fun way to look at the above number is that this person's weight has changed by 0.05% and the only reason this change is so high (!) is that I used the supposedly absolute minimum that person would use up without being dead.
That is what is behind what I say. If anyone is able to tell me how to weigh in a more precise way on a scale at home, I would LOVE to hear that. I have never heard of such a method, I am unaware of its existence, but just because I do not know something, does not mean it does not exist. But, until someone can figure it out, my point stands. I would love it to be not so, but wishing for something to be different, does not make it so.
I did not talk about the other points that touch me on a more personal level, and are therefore far more interesting to me personally, because those are unimportant in the debate. Yes, I have lost a relatively large amount of weight. So do many people. I find nothing remarkable in that. Once I got rid of the problem that made me fat: unbearable hunger, stomach pains, nausea and vomiting, all I had to do was apply the very simple and basic science behind weight loss and maintain the willpower to say no to temptation. So there really isn't any particularly formidable accomplishment here.
I will answer your question by approaching it from a slightly different angle.
It doesn't matter if we start from BMR where you never get out of bed or even roll over in bed or some other arbitrary point. Still, I will use the numbers you provided. If your one-hour walk got you out of bed and moved your daily calorie expenditure from 1468 to 1748, that is 280 calories as you say.
I'm going to work in pounds because I'm from a less advanced country than you are, and we still insist on dividing things by two instead of multiplying by ten. It's OK; I hear we're all going metric by 1982. I think we agree that eating a surplus of about 3500 calories would lead to a gain of one pound of fat, and a deficit of 3500 calories would lead to a loss of that pound. If you did not change the amount of food you ate, and you got out of bed every day to walk for an hour, you would have a deficit of 3500 calories in less than two weeks. Twelve and a half days actually.
One pound in less than two weeks would be a loss rate of slightly more than a half pound per week. This is a safe rate of weight loss for someone who is close to their goal weight. I would not call that loss "quite small, and virtually undetectable."
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BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »It is really simple: if it makes a difference for you, great. It does not make a difference for the vast majority of people. If it was making a difference, we would know.......... Sure, IF you are an athlete AND you exercise two hours a day for almost every single day, it WILL make a difference, possibly even a measurable and identifiable one. How many people are there who are capable of doing it?
Exercise for weight loss is largely a hoax. It is great for health, no sane person will dispute that, but there is next to no evidence of the weight loss claims. If there is, by all means, make it public to benefit everyone. But remember this: if evidence is this rare and this unreliable, it is a precious good indication, there is not very much to it.
I love the success you've found so far and I love that you're starting to prepare for a transition to maintenance. But I don't know where you're getting some of the ideas you're discussing directly contradicting some of your own resources.
In a recent post you brought up the body weight planner for example. It is clearly in line with most actual research which seems to NOT support the idea that activity is *irrelevant*.
Rather most research I've seen seems to support the idea that caloric control tends to be easier to achieve, and with less adaptations to boot, if you engage in a two prong approach involving both food intake control AND activity.
That "recipe for success" is also similar to the survey findings from the (US only) National Weight Control Registry, which I think are of particular interest to people such as you and I who started in the obese range.
Specifically: 98% of Registry participants report that they modified their food intake in some way to lose weight. 94% increased their physical activity, with the most frequently reported form of activity being walking.
I mean it is NOT proof. And for specific situations where the option is just not available the lack of availability does NOT prohibit the possibility of success.
But if I am playing a game that I know is rigged against me, and I know that certain avenues have a slightly higher probability of success, and I DO have the option to play there... well I think it would make sense for me to do so!
So yeah... when evaluating the life trade offs I was willing to make to lose weight and maintain the loss, I DID take into consideration that the 94% discussed above was factoring in at least an hour of physical activity a day. At maintenance. On average. Which I was NOT engaged in when I was starting out.
So, even if a week's worth of activity can disappear with a $15 box of cookies (inflation, plus NOT US dollar!), this doesn't mean that it is not relevant. Or desirable. Or that it doesn't have to be accounted for.
As you transition to maintenance you may want to observe whether your maintenance calories will adjust upwards, from some of the numbers you've quoted, as some of your long time at deficit adaptations resolve. You may also want to proceed very cautiously, and slowly, because hormonally induced rebound over-eating may just also become a thing once you stop pushing downwards.
(P.S. while 78% eat breakfast everyday... I don't. As I implied above, being aware of what MAY have worked for others could help, especially if you have both the ability and desire to implement it, but it doesn't pre-ordain your results)
There are a few nice arguments here, but a full reply is not possible at least not in one reply, so I will limit myself to two points. That will be far more than long enough.
Let me start with the one I like the most, because that is something that seems to confuse many people, despite the fact that this is not my intention. First off, I am not trying to "win the debate". In fact, I am utterly uninterested in winning any debate. My position is the one that is best expressed in Boileau's saying "du choc des idées jaillit la lumière". I am of the opinion that progress is made more difficult when there is no debate. As such, I will sometimes, perhaps even often, use sources that do not necessarily agree with me on all things, but for which there are solid reasons to see them as credible.
In the case of the NIH body weight planner, my own case is completely different from what they say. But that is utterly unimportant. MY experience has zero or at least vanishingly little relevance to anyone else. Furthermore, the people at the CDC/NIH are not hapless idiots who vaguely remember some poetry they once read in an alchemy textbook from the 1400s. They know what they are talking about, and short of starting to study hundreds of clinical studies, and distilling information from them in a sound way yourself/myself, there is no more reliable resource. The information is available for free, a.k.a. paid by the taxpayer.
Where weight loss is concerned, read here what they say:
https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/physical_activity/index.html
Are such numbers detectable? As I said before, in a lab setting, yes. Are they reliable? No, and they say exactly that:
Note that they don't say *how much activity*. Logical, precisely because the numbers are all over the place. However, this page does have some numbers. These numbers are not reliable, and they say so, albeit without adding a 500 page précis on what it all entails. To quote this particular page: "Calories burned per hour will be higher for persons who weigh more than 154 lbs (70 kg) and lower for persons who weigh less." That is as precise as they get here.How much physical activity do I need?
When it comes to weight management, people vary greatly in how much physical activity they need. Here are some guidelines to follow:
To maintain your weight: Work your way up to 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity, 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity, or an equivalent mix of the two each week. Strong scientific evidence shows that physical activity can help you maintain your weight over time. However, the exact amount of physical activity needed to do this is not clear since it varies greatly from person to person. It’s possible that you may need to do more than the equivalent of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity a week to maintain your weight.
To lose weight and keep it off: You will need a high amount of physical activity unless you also adjust your diet and reduce the amount of calories you’re eating and drinking. Getting to and staying at a healthy weight requires both regular physical activity and a healthy eating plan.
That said, let's take one number, which just happens to be one of two that I particulary like:
They do not mention here whether or not this is total energy expenditure or additional energy expenditure. I suspect the former, but that may be due to my own experience, it is conjecture on my part, nothing more and let's ignore what I think and assume that this is additional energy, not total energy, i.e. I am trying to destroy my argument.
Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that a person does a one hour walk, without slowing down, without stopping. A solid 1 hour walk at exactly that speed, and let's assume that number is correct and only includes additional energy burned, not total energy. In that case, this person would use up an extra 280 kcal during that walk. Note that there are a lot of conditions here.
The NIH does not seem to have a BMR calculator, so I used the MFP's for a weight of 154 pounds in order to be consistent with the CDC numbers. Since no height and age is mentioned, I used my own data: 171 cm and 61 years old. The result produced by the MFP BMR calculator is 1468 kcal a day. Note that BMR is, in principle, the absolute minimum one needs for life functions to not deteriorate, since any activity at all, will result in an increase. This is therefore a ridiculously low number and no sane person would ever consider this. Well, except me perhaps. At that intake I actually gain weight, but that is just me. I am an outlier. But, if I don't want to be a liar, I have to admit that.
Now the point: if a 154 lb person uses 1468 kcal a day and walks for precisely one full hour at precisely the speed shown and if the numbers are reliable, that person would now use up 1748 kcal, an increase of 19%. This would allow the person to consume 280 kcal extra. It is fairly well established that there are approximately 7700 kcal in one kg of body fat. 280 kcal is 3.6% of 1 kg of body fat or 36.36 g. The above person weighs 154 pounds, that is 70 kg. If the person does not "eat back" these calories, this person has now lost 36.36 g of body fat and weighs 69.964 kg.
Note that you cannot round these numbers because if you do, the difference disappears, but that is not the point I am making here. The point that I am making is that you will not be able to measure that difference. You can detect it in a lab under very controlled conditions, but you cannot detect it at home. In fact, I have a classical medical scale that is significantly more precise and accurate than a household scale and I cannot measure this difference. The measurement markings are in 50 g. That means that this weight loss is within the error margin of my scale and that is not even taking into account that it is impossible to always weigh in precisely the same way, not even taking into account accuracy and precision issues, but simply taking into account the visual problems associated with precise measuring, which is why medical students learn to make several measurements and calculate an average value of all these measurements.
A different but fun way to look at the above number is that this person's weight has changed by 0.05% and the only reason this change is so high (!) is that I used the supposedly absolute minimum that person would use up without being dead.
That is what is behind what I say. If anyone is able to tell me how to weigh in a more precise way on a scale at home, I would LOVE to hear that. I have never heard of such a method, I am unaware of its existence, but just because I do not know something, does not mean it does not exist. But, until someone can figure it out, my point stands. I would love it to be not so, but wishing for something to be different, does not make it so.
I did not talk about the other points that touch me on a more personal level, and are therefore far more interesting to me personally, because those are unimportant in the debate. Yes, I have lost a relatively large amount of weight. So do many people. I find nothing remarkable in that. Once I got rid of the problem that made me fat: unbearable hunger, stomach pains, nausea and vomiting, all I had to do was apply the very simple and basic science behind weight loss and maintain the willpower to say no to temptation. So there really isn't any particularly formidable accomplishment here.
I will answer your question by approaching it from a slightly different angle.
It doesn't matter if we start from BMR where you never get out of bed or even roll over in bed or some other arbitrary point. Still, I will use the numbers you provided. If your one-hour walk got you out of bed and moved your daily calorie expenditure from 1468 to 1748, that is 280 calories as you say.
I'm going to work in pounds because I'm from a less advanced country than you are, and we still insist on dividing things by two instead of multiplying by ten. It's OK; I hear we're all going metric by 1982. I think we agree that eating a surplus of about 3500 calories would lead to a gain of one pound of fat, and a deficit of 3500 calories would lead to a loss of that pound. If you did not change the amount of food you ate, and you got out of bed every day to walk for an hour, you would have a deficit of 3500 calories in less than two weeks. Twelve and a half days actually.
One pound in less than two weeks would be a loss rate of slightly more than a half pound per week. This is a safe rate of weight loss for someone who is close to their goal weight. I would not call that loss "quite small, and virtually undetectable."
No it is not, and I am also not claiming that. In fact, I quoted verbatim what the CDC says about exercise:
It is also why I usually pull out the "Biggest Loser". That one is more contentious because there is a *lot* of diet involved, but no one who has had primary school physics would dare to claim that this exercise has no effect. I thought I made it clear that I am talking about "normal" exercise (whatever that means) and not about athletes and others who do tremendous amounts of high intensity.To lose weight and keep it off: You will need a high amount of physical activity unless you also adjust your diet and reduce the amount of calories you’re eating and drinking. Getting to and staying at a healthy weight requires both regular physical activity and a healthy eating plan.
The other point, that I usually talk about is about how often. How are you going to detect explicitly exercise-related weight loss if you go for, typically, a one hour walk three times a week, if you also do a diet that keeps you consistently at a deficit? I did not address that in my last response, because I don't want to write a textbook for weight loss studies, but the point is simply that unless you do not create an energy deficit with diet, i.e. that you eat exactly at maintenance and then add exercise to push you in a deficit, you have to do that for quite a while, even for "normal" dieting, periods of at least 3 to 4 weeks are used to determine with reasonable certainty that a diet is working.
In short, in order to detect exercise-induced weight loss, outside of a laboratory, this is what will allow you to detect an effect with reasonable (but far from certain, accurate and precise) plausibility:
Follow a maintenance diet *without* exercise for one month.
Maintain that diet precisely without changing anything to the food/drink intake plan and do whatever exercise you want to measure the effect of. Do only that exercise. Do that consistently for one month.
Follow the same maintenance diet *without* exercise for one month while maintaing the exact same food/intake plan.
While doing that, track your weight, preferably several times a day to get a feel for fluid-induced fluctuations. Track your intake precisely, track your exercise precisely.
At the end of the three months, plot a graph. You will then see what the effect of the exercise is. It is *unlikely* (but not impossible) that this will allow you to determine an approximate value of the fat loss this exercise brings. It is reasonably certain that you will be able to at least determine that the effect of the exercise is real.
Why so long and so draconian? Because biology is extremely messy. There are loads of confounding variables, many of which we don't even know about yet.
Am I exaggerating? No. This is exactly the type of thing Atwater did when he was figuring out how much energy we can extract from food. And guess what? His results were so imprecise that they are still heavily criticised now, more than a century later to the point that some scientists (admittedly, they are outliers, and usually not taken seriously by the scientific community) claim that calories are rubbish.
If it looks as though I am exaggerating, nope. I am not even remotely at the standard of quality science needs. This whole thing *is* an illustration of why science advances so unbelievably slowly, why there are so many scientists contradicting each other, why there are continuously new studies showing up that come to the opposite conclusion of other similar studies. In the spoiler you can read how I was fooled myself into thinking something that was very probably –but not certainly– completely wrong.On a personal note, just to illustrate how easy mistakes can be made, meaning this is *my* experience and nobody else's (at least not necessarily): I had a problem with extreme, debilitating hunger, unbearable stomach pains, nausea and vomiting when I tried to eat less than I did. It made me fat, very fat for someone with a small frame like me. I neverthelss managed to lose somewhere between 45 and 50 kg because I really did not want to be fat. I was so miserable, that I begged for euthanasia a few times. I obviously did not get it, but I did give up weight loss and was shooting up again.In the end, this is the thing: an energy deficit WILL lead to fat loss. The way to do that, is to reduce intake to below what is needed. I often call that "less than you need to stay alive" because at the only reason that you don't die is that you have fat storage, the very thing you want to reduce.
When I had regained about 25 kg, I was referred to an endocrinologist because diabetes was suspected. It turned out I did not have diabetes, but just to be on the safe side, he prescribed metformin and told me to "watch my carbs". Within a few weeks, about 3 months or so, I started to notice that while I was still hungry, it was less bad, and the pain, nausea and vomiting had almost completely disappeared, so I -very carefully- started to reduce my energy intake again. And what happened? The changes I had noticed, stayed. Encouraged, I continued and very gradually reduced intake further.
I was ecstatic. I was convinced it was the metformin. The problem with that? No study has ever shown an effect like that. Neverthelss, the effect was undeniable. I sang the praises of metformin for half a year or so, while I was continuing to lose weight. Then, the endocrinologist told me to halve the metformin. I was not happy, afraid that my misery would return. So, it was decided I would try, and that IF my misery returned, I should go back on the full dose right away. I was terrified. What happened? Nothing, everything stayed as it was. About half a year later, it was decided to stop metformin altogether, with the same premise that I would go back on it if symptoms returned. They did not.
Why this story? Because despite my science background, I allowed myself to be fooled by personal experience, a.k.a. an anecdote. Now, what did cause my problem, and what made it go away? The correct answer is: I do not know.
It is *still* possible that metformin was responsible, it is also possible that it was the lowER carb intake, it is even possible that it was a pure placebo effect. There is no way to know. The only thing that *is* known, is that the effect is real. One does not need to be a scientist to know that. A glance at my pictures shows that convincingly.
In fact, the only thing that my story illustrates with a high degree of certainty is that reducing ones energy intake to a level that represents a deficit, WILL lead to fat loss. However, it does not even prove that. We only know this with a high level of certainty because of the science that has been done on precisely that subject AND because we know that this hypothesis is compatible with established physics, chemistry, organic chemistry and biology... in that order, but exactly what made it possible to turn around my life remains what it was since the beginnng: a mystery.
Food energy content is relatively easy to measure but it is highly unreliable. One reason is simply that food is a natural product. Nothing in nature is constant. Look at an apple tree: no two apples are the same, no two apples look identical, no two apples taste exactly the same. Not even when they are hanging from the same branch. As a result, predicting how much fat one will lose in one day, is impossible and even over a few weeks, it is at best imprecise which is precisely why the tolerance margins on food labels are as high as they are.
The same is true for exercise. The numbers given may suggest precision but that is a false idea. The numbers are there because they are the result of experiments, but they are by no means precise, they are averages that indicate an idea of how much energy is consumed but nothing more.
I hope this whole epistle will give some type of an idea of what I mean by "undetectable".
Nobody denies that there is an effect, but you can say with almost absolute certainty that the effect is undetecable or unmeasurable or undeterminable.0 -
Let me address this one now. What you write, is precisely why I often say that there is no such thing as a "sustainable weight loss diet". A diet can be a weight loss diet and it can be a sustainable diet. It cannot possibly be both at the same time.As you transition to maintenance you may want to observe whether your maintenance calories will adjust upwards, from some of the numbers you've quoted, as some of your long time at deficit adaptations resolve. You may also want to proceed very cautiously, and slowly, because hormonally induced rebound over-eating may just also become a thing once you stop pushing downwards.
There can be weight loss diets that are sustained however. Those are diets that end in death. This is what happened in the concentration camps of World War II, among others.
Sustainable diets are just that: when sustained, they keep weight stable a.k.a. within a narrow range with fluctuations that are caused by fluids, and minor day-to-day random energy fluctuations.
A weight loss diet is not sustainable, if it does not end in death. At some poin, it stops being a weight loss diet and becomes a maintenance diet, when it is not changed. In order to lose more weight, one has to reduce the energy the diet provides, so it becomes a (n ever so slightly) different diet that leads to fat loss again. This is what Robert Baron calls the "forever diet": a diet that allows you to lose some or a lot of weight and almost imperceptably transitions into a sustainable diet.
In my own case, that was the original plan. It turns out I am an outlier. With that I mean that my intake should be far lower than that of most people. I hate that, but that feeling does not change the fact. What will happen is one of three things:
1. my weight loss will come to a halt when I am not yet at what seems to be my ideal weight
2. my weight loss will continue to below what seems to be my ideal weight
3. my weight loss will stop at about the level that seems to be my ideal weight
I think it is clear that 3 is what I prefer, but biology does what biology does, it does not listen to my wishes.
1 would mean I have to reduce further. I hope not, I would really hate it, but that does not preclude the possibility.
2 is the most likely outcome, or so it seems right now. I will calculate my current energy deficit based on the weight loss of the full preceding month subtract 100 kcal (or less, depending on how high that number is) and try for one full month. If weight remains stable, that will be great and I will be at maintenance. If not, I will make another iteration.
In short, I will do what everybody should do, nothing more, nothing less. Whatever the biological explanation for what I was/am/will be experiencing is essentially irrelevant. Fat weight is about energy balance. The rest is at most some skirmishes in the margin that are unimportant, as long, obviously, that there is no identifiable disease process going on.
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You are right here, and I don't remember how it ended up there in the form it did. I was trying to give an example of false reasoning and it was meant as an illustration of the equally ridiculous claim that carbs make people fat. The point was that there is no causal relation here, a comparison I have once made for an explanation of how misinterpretation of data can lead to ridiculous conclusions. This was the illustration:There have never been more gyms than in the last years or so, there have never been more fat people either.
[snip-snip]
The bolded is ridiculous, not on your straw man's part, but on yours. Those are not things that one can rationally correlate. More gyms have little to do with the percentage of people who are fat.
It is just another version of the claim by some FSM people that pirates are great for preventing global warming: more pirates => cooler planet, fewer pirates => warmer planet. They use it to show how religions try to fool people into thinking there is evidence for their claims.In 2000, 32.8 million Americans had a gym membership
In 2016, 57.3 million Americans had a gym membership
Source: https://gymdesk.com/blog/gym-membership-statistics/#chapter01
In 2000, 26.1% of Americans was obese
In 2016, 37.3% of Americans was obese
Source: https://ourworldindata.org/obesity#what-share-of-adults-are-obese
Conclusion: when gym memberships go up, obesity goes up.
I was playing around with it, but I don't remember how it ended up there.
As for your statement about fat: sure. All natural products have natural variation, often quite substantially so. There is not the slightest reason to assume this would suddently be not so for human fat.0 -
@BartBVanBockstaele
OK Bart. I am weary of you making a claim and then saying you didn't make that claim and then spinning yarns. You are being intentionally abstruse. You specifically said that exercise would have "quite small, and virtually undetectable" effect on weight management. Then you said you didn't say it. You did. You gave some numbers. I used your numbers and showed your error. Now you spin it differently. What the CDC said probably should be taken in context. In the absence of managing caloric intake, and assuming you're eating at a level that you are gaining, you will have to do a lot of exercise. Of course. Nobody disputes that. When you add exercise to a diet where you are already working on staying in a deficit, the exercise will provide a reasonable and noticeable effect.
I am done responding to you. My plea is for you to please stop trying to confuse people. There's a lot of people here who are just learning about calorie management, and your abstruse diatribes aren't helpful.
For anyone who doesn't know it, there is a setting that you can cease to see posts from a member. Click on their name in a post. A pop-up window will appear. If you click on "View Profile," you will see a little pull-down menu button not far from the top right of the page. If you click on that, you get the option to ignore the member's posts. Of course you'll still see it when people respond to that person, but just be aware that option exists.
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BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »(snip)
In the end, this is the thing: an energy deficit WILL lead to fat loss. The way to do that, is to reduce intake to below what is needed. I often call that "less than you need to stay alive" because at the only reason that you don't die is that you have fat storage, the very thing you want to reduce.
Food energy content is relatively easy to measure but it is highly unreliable. One reason is simply that food is a natural product. Nothing in nature is constant. Look at an apple tree: no two apples are the same, no two apples look identical, no two apples taste exactly the same. Not even when they are hanging from the same branch. As a result, predicting how much fat one will lose in one day, is impossible and even over a few weeks, it is at best imprecise which is precisely why the tolerance margins on food labels are as high as they are.
The same is true for exercise. The numbers given may suggest precision but that is a false idea. The numbers are there because they are the result of experiments, but they are by no means precise, they are averages that indicate an idea of how much energy is consumed but nothing more.
I hope this whole epistle will give some type of an idea of what I mean by "undetectable".
Nobody denies that there is an effect, but you can say with almost absolute certainty that the effect is undetectable or unmeasurable or undeterminable.
Repeating myself: We don't need precision. We need a workable estimate.
Our BMR/RMR is an estimate (unless lab-measured, in which case it's still point in time, not invariant).
Our activity level from daily life is an estimate.
Our food logging, however meticulous, is - as you point out - essentially an estimate.
We just need workable estimates.
As far as I can tell - could be wrong - you don't exercise, outside of walking. Walking is a good exercise, but humans are quite efficient at it, so it's a relatively low calorie burner on the overall scale of common exercise. You've given no indication that you have any practical experience with more intense exercise in the context of weight management.
For exercise, as with the other factors, all we need is a workable estimate. Workable estimates are not out of reach, for many exercise activities, as a practical thing. Yes, the calories cannot be measured exactly outside a metabolic lab. Neither can any of those other things, in practical terms. We can succeed anyway, because workable estimates are plenty good enough.
As to whether normal, non-athlete people can exercise enough to be meaningful to what matters for weight loss - yes, energy deficit - there's ample evidence that they can. Even if we can't quantify the calories to the degree of exactitude you seem to want of exercise energy expenditure (but can't get for any other factor), there are ample indications from research that normal people can spend 10% or more of TDEE in half an hour to an hour of quite a few common exercises. That's a meaningful contributor to energy deficit (when losing weight) or to energy needs (when maintaining).
It is a disservice to say otherwise to others here, because that is misleading and inaccurate, when using normal, practical definitions of words like "undetectable".
I cannot "say with almost absolute certainty that the effect is undetectable or unmeasurable or undeterminable", because both my practical experience and my reading of research on the subject tell me that that is utterly untrue. "Unmeasurable" in the strictest sense, maybe. But capable of being estimated in a workable, practical, useable way.
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I have never seen a meta-analysis that showed that weight loss specifically ascribed to exercise was more than about a kg or so in six months to a year. You cannot detect that at home, unless you really are prepared to work hard for several months to get a tiny result that you can't even reliably see on a scale until several months after starting the exercise.BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »(snip)
In the end, this is the thing: an energy deficit WILL lead to fat loss. The way to do that, is to reduce intake to below what is needed. I often call that "less than you need to stay alive" because at the only reason that you don't die is that you have fat storage, the very thing you want to reduce.
Food energy content is relatively easy to measure but it is highly unreliable. One reason is simply that food is a natural product. Nothing in nature is constant. Look at an apple tree: no two apples are the same, no two apples look identical, no two apples taste exactly the same. Not even when they are hanging from the same branch. As a result, predicting how much fat one will lose in one day, is impossible and even over a few weeks, it is at best imprecise which is precisely why the tolerance margins on food labels are as high as they are.
The same is true for exercise. The numbers given may suggest precision but that is a false idea. The numbers are there because they are the result of experiments, but they are by no means precise, they are averages that indicate an idea of how much energy is consumed but nothing more.
I hope this whole epistle will give some type of an idea of what I mean by "undetectable".
Nobody denies that there is an effect, but you can say with almost absolute certainty that the effect is undetectable or unmeasurable or undeterminable.
Repeating myself: We don't need precision. We need a workable estimate.
Our BMR/RMR is an estimate (unless lab-measured, in which case it's still point in time, not invariant).
Our activity level from daily life is an estimate.
Our food logging, however meticulous, is - as you point out - essentially an estimate.
We just need workable estimates.
As far as I can tell - could be wrong - you don't exercise, outside of walking. Walking is a good exercise, but humans are quite efficient at it, so it's a relatively low calorie burner on the overall scale of common exercise. You've given no indication that you have any practical experience with more intense exercise in the context of weight management.
For exercise, as with the other factors, all we need is a workable estimate. Workable estimates are not out of reach, for many exercise activities, as a practical thing. Yes, the calories cannot be measured exactly outside a metabolic lab. Neither can any of those other things, in practical terms. We can succeed anyway, because workable estimates are plenty good enough.
As to whether normal, non-athlete people can exercise enough to be meaningful to what matters for weight loss - yes, energy deficit - there's ample evidence that they can. Even if we can't quantify the calories to the degree of exactitude you seem to want of exercise energy expenditure (but can't get for any other factor), there are ample indications from research that normal people can spend 10% or more of TDEE in half an hour to an hour of quite a few common exercises. That's a meaningful contributor to energy deficit (when losing weight) or to energy needs (when maintaining).
It is a disservice to say otherwise to others here, because that is misleading and inaccurate, when using normal, practical definitions of words like "undetectable".
I cannot "say with almost absolute certainty that the effect is undetectable or unmeasurable or undeterminable", because both my practical experience and my reading of research on the subject tell me that that is utterly untrue. "Unmeasurable" in the strictest sense, maybe. But capable of being estimated in a workable, practical, useable way.
As I have said multiple times, no one claims that it is impossible for exercise to have results, only that in order to get really good results, you need to keep up an exercise regimen, such as in the Biggest Loser, and keep that up for long enough. That is something only a lucky few have even the privilege to attempt. Nevertheless, I thank you for the reactions, it has motivated me to once again spend several hours looking for a good meta-analysis that showed clinically significant weight loss due to exercise. I did not find any.
It has also led me to find this funny guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCtn4Ap8kDM 0 -
As far as I can see, no one here is saying that exercise is the key to weight loss. We are saying that exercise calories can be a meaningful fraction of the calories a normal person (not super athlete) burns in a day, and that those calories need to be accounted for in managing one's energy balance.
I did lots of exercise (hundreds of calories per average day) for over a decade, and stayed fat. It was easy. I get that it's easy, that exercise alone doesn't produce miraculous weight loss results without considering calorie intake.
When I decided to lose weight by calorie counting, I didn't materially increase or decrease that exercise. I knew that I needed to account for those same average hundreds of calories daily - one way or another - in planning and accomplishing a sensible (adequate but not extreme) calorie deficit. That's simple common sense, I would think, for anyone who believes that energy balance is the key to weight loss.
The calorie burn from normal amounts of many common exercises is not a negligible number. It does not require "Biggest Loser" or super athlete amounts of exercise for the exercise calories to be a significant number.
Separately logging exercise calories, on top of a base calorie goal that already reflects a deficit, is one practical way of managing the calorie accounting in order to accomplish weight loss. Workable estimates for the exercise calories are achievable.
Speaking personally, because my exercise is variable, seasonal, and weather dependent, a fixed calorie goal every day is not as practical for me as logging exercise separately when I do it. Many people here on MFP have done this successfully, and continue to do this successfully. I am one.
The exercise calories I've accounted for in the past 365 days are unevenly distributed, but average out to around 240 calories per day. The exercise is not extremely lengthy or intense, it's in the normal range of things that average people can do, and many people do that much.
That's also around 10% of my TDEE, perhaps a bit more. That's a bit under half a pound a week of weight loss, if I don't eat those calories. In maintenance, I can't afford to lose nearly 26 pounds a year. Because my exercise in reality is quite unevenly distributed day to day, week to week, and season to season, I'd be under-fueling activity if I set a fixed calorie amount to eat every day. That would be likely to impair my exercise performance, and make me unhappy and possibly less healthy besides.
Exercise calories from normal people's normal exercise can make a material difference when planning a sensible calorie goal for weight loss and maintenance. You are misleading people here who are newly wrangling with these issues when you say or imply otherwise.
(Edited to correct minor error in arithmetic.)5 -
I am going to make a few statements I believe to be true.
TLDR: creating an additional energy deficit of 250 calories per day through exercise should lead to a fat/weight loss of about a half pound per week beyond what your loss rate may be currently.
First some definitions:- BMR = Basal Metabolic Rate. This is the energy your body uses just to be alive. If you were in a coma, you’d use this amount of energy. Your brain uses most of the energy required of your BMR.
- NEAT = Non-exercise activity thermogenesis. This is the number that MFP generates as your base calorie goal either from using the guided set-up or from you inputting it based on your experience. It is the energy your body uses including BMR but also to do the things you normally do, like walking to the kitchen to make coffee, getting the mail, riding your bike to work if you don’t count that as exercise, and contemplating your navel.
- TDEE = Total Daily Energy Expenditure. This is your NEAT plus any other energy you use, such as intentional exercise or things that aren’t part of your normal day, like running as fast as you can away from a charging bear or climbing Denali. Or just going for a swim. Or playing horseshoes.
- Calorie = a unit of energy. In the food world, it actually is 1000 calories. A calorie as a unit of energy is the amount of energy it takes to raise one gram of water (for water this is also one ml and also one cubic centimeter) one degree Celcius from standard temperature at atmospheric pressure. A Joule is another unit of energy that is an SI Unit (an internationally accepted unit of measurement). A joule is the energy required to produce one watt of power for one second. For food, a kilojoule, or kJ is about 0.239 “calories.”
- A calorie deficit = when the number of calories consumed is less than TDEE.
- A calorie surplus = when the number of calories consumed is greater than TDEE.
- A calorie deficit of 3500 calories should lead to the loss of one pound of fat; a surplus of 3500 calories should result in gaining a pound.
With that in mind:
It is generally a bad idea to consume fewer calories than your BMR. If you eat the same number of calories as your BMR, and if you do any activity at all, you should have at least a small deficit, and you should lose weight over time.
If you are using MFP to lose weight, you have set your daily calorie goal to be something lower than your TDEE. What you really did was likely to set your calorie goal to less than your NEAT with the expectation you would enter intentional exercise, and that would increase your goal. If you eat exactly the number of net calories (base plus intentional exercise), you will maintain the planned deficit and should lose about the intended rate.
The confounding factor is these are estimates. The energy your body uses for normal activity (BMR) and for non-exercise activity (NEAT) and for exercise (TDEE) may differ somewhat from these estimates. If you log completely and accurately for several weeks, you can adjust your goal to get to your intended loss (or gain) target. You can also observe how different levels of exercise impact your deficit and fine tune those.
If you are eating at your goal and you add some activity every day but don’t increase your caloric intake, your loss rate will be faster. If you do some activity, like walking for about an hour every day, that burns an additional 250 calories over whatever your loss rate is set to (or if you are maintaining), you should lose an ADDITIONAL half pound per week. If that puts you at an unhealthy weight loss rate, you should eat more calories! How many? Well, I’d say 250.
I really do think it’s that simple. Sorry it took so many words.
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BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »I have never seen a meta-analysis that showed that weight loss specifically ascribed to exercise was more than about a kg or so in six months to a year. You cannot detect that at home, unless you really are prepared to work hard for several months to get a tiny result that you can't even reliably see on a scale until several months after starting the exercise. As I have said multiple times, no one claims that it is impossible for exercise to have results, only that in order to get really good results, you need to keep up an exercise regimen, such as in the Biggest Loser, and keep that up for long enough. That is something only a lucky few have even the privilege to attempt. Nevertheless, I thank you for the reactions, it has motivated me to once again spend several hours looking for a good meta-analysis that showed clinically significant weight loss due to exercise. I did not find any
You would have been able to eat more food had you been both able and willing to spent that same amount of time out walking instead.
Walking, by the way, especially when done "for exercise" and at a faster pace IS moderate exercise and DOES count towards your exercise "quota" that provides health benefits to you when you perform such.
Did I mention more food? I mean... I'm on MFP. I am definitely food motivated. Call me a girl puppy but if you ring a bell and dangle chocolate... chances are good I'll show up!
My BMR per Mifflin, MFP, and Fitbit, is... drum-roll... 1536! This means that most estimates will have my sedentary TDEE at 1843, with MFP including a tiny bit more and setting me up at 1920 for sedentary maintenance.
And yet... and yet my TDEE is actually closer to 2900 based on my own estimations.
By the way, Fitbit for the past 31 days says I averaged 17814 steps a day, for a total of 1755 calories from activities and a total of 2981 Cal burned a day (which would include the 1755). Fitbit makes this info available via data export from their web-site.
You will note two things here. Fitbit thinks I burn a few more calories per day than *I* do based on my food intake logging prowess and scale evidence. Not a lot more. But a few.
And sailrabbit considers 2918 Cal to be the expenditure for someone "extremely active, very heavy physical work or exercise every day, Professional/Olympic athlete.
i am not going to deny that I leave my computer chair and seek to get some activity. And 17814 steps a day is well above the number performed by your average cat.
But Olympic Athlete? Yeah right!
A quick look at my first year on MFP says I averaged 17970 steps. That would be your no longer Class III by that time; but still Class II obese, 48+ yo "Olympic" athlete that a few months prior could NOT manage to consistently hit 5,000 steps a day for a full month. Took three full months to work up to that and I already HAD a dog!
This increased to 19597 in year two. Decreasing to 19104 in year three and 18813 in year four. Sorry. No easily accessible details for years five, six or seven, or the beginning of year eight... just the past 31 days from year eight.
I mean I don't think that everyone can have the luxury, as you put it, to be very active. Time and privilege excluded, many people have actual health challenges that would preclude that.
But many people also spend a good three plus hours a day watching TV. Or surfing the internet. Or reading a book. Or gaming. Or...
And a pace of 100 steps a minute (6,000 steps an hour) has been validated a couple of times as being in the realm of moderate exercise for many participants.
So, 20 minutes before work. 20 at lunch. 20 after work. 20 after dinner and you're already at 8000 steps. With another 2000 thrown in randomly during the day to go to the bathroom and you've hit 10000 and you're operating at the equivalent to MFP "active" if you were to not log any of that activity separately.
BUT, as you said: you DON'T **NEED** any of this to lose weight. Truly, the 1.3kg box of cookies you don't eat will have more of an effect on your weight than the 10,000 steps you do, or do not, take.
But, at the same time, I hope you will forgive me if I continue to enjoy more than 95% of the 2981 Cal that Fitbit thinks I burned. And that I limit any deficits I engage in to no more than 10% to 20% of that.
And that I continue to believe that the good 1000 Cal difference between my being active and not so active is of significance to me. Even though I am NOT dedicating my whole day to activity.
I admit, however, to being 100% TV deficient other than when visiting relatives! And that IS a choice I've made. While also choosing a method of activity/exercise that offers the fewest barriers to entry and requires the least amount of preparation and planning8 -
All these words aside...Bart doesn't want to exercise. He admits he lost his impressive amount of weight without doing "exercise." He likes to split hairs and define things in extreme ways - like "detectable."
Technically (for internet forums at least,) everyone is right. "Detectable" to Bart means, "Ya can't exactly pin down a precise number." BUT that is true for all the weight management numbers. We do the best we can. Bart just uses more words and is willing to debate with anyone and everyone.
It is cutting the lawn with fingernail clippers, one blade at a time.
If someone doesn't like exercise and doesn't want to do it and loses XXX pounds without it - he/she is going to use any and all arguments to say, "Exercise is not the key to weight loss." We all know that YouTube will also tell us the world is flat and that you catch Covid from the vaccines, so of course there are those videos.
Exercise calories may be a bit of a gray area but there are so many other benefits to exercise that I don't even care - not the least of which is the FACT that I can eat within my calorie goal very comfortably if I do exercise and I don't/can't stay within calories if I don't. That extra 300 calories per day is huge to me. It's the difference between gaining weight and maintaining weight. The difference between good mental health and anxiety. The difference for my entire body and feeling of well-being I get from regular moderate exercise cannot be overstated. Am I burning 200 or 400 calories? Maybe. Doesn't matter to me. Close enough is good enough for my 15 years of Maintaining my healthy weight.
If Bart can do the same without exercise? Well, I'm not even sure I'd be bragging about that. At some point the body needs to move. It was created that way by design. Plus, sugar and milk in my tea is better than no sugar and milk.
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. Call me a girl puppy but if you ring a bell and dangle chocolate... chances are good I'll show up!BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »I have never seen a meta-analysis that showed that weight loss specifically ascribed to exercise was more than about a kg or so in six months to a year. You cannot detect that at home, unless you really are prepared to work hard for several months to get a tiny result that you can't even reliably see on a scale until several months after starting the exercise. As I have said multiple times, no one claims that it is impossible for exercise to have results, only that in order to get really good results, you need to keep up an exercise regimen, such as in the Biggest Loser, and keep that up for long enough. That is something only a lucky few have even the privilege to attempt. Nevertheless, I thank you for the reactions, it has motivated me to once again spend several hours looking for a good meta-analysis that showed clinically significant weight loss due to exercise. I did not find any
This is my fave line on MFP ever! 🤣 I am totally nicking “girl puppy”!
5 -
I had a really wonderful boss when I started my last career. Not so much by the time I left; the good one retired.
That good boss always had something relevant to say. There was a time when I had been asked to give a presentation at an annual event. It was something I was an expert on. Another person I know and actually respect was going to be speaking in the same panel. That person actually asked me NOT to speak to a specific topic he was going to be speaking about. He was generally knowledgeable, he had a good intention, and he also had an agenda. He didn't want the people in the audience to hear conflicting information. His talk was going to say the opposite of what he knew I was going to say. I eveWn had data. Did I mention I was the local expert?
Anyway, before the event, I spoke to my boss about it. He smiled, looked me in the eyes and said, "Don't confuse me with the facts." I gave my talk as planned. People came and asked both of us questions. I don't think anyone was confused. What the other person had to say had validity, just not in all circumstances. In this case, our climate was such that what his agenda would have people do would not achieve the desired outcome. But it would feel good to do it.
I think that sometimes happens here.
Thank you @PAV8888 and @cmriverside for the well-reasoned and data-filled posts.
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Sure. I have nothing against the term "can". One "can" also win the lottery. Unfortunately, for every one person who actually wins it, there are millions who do not. I have yet to see credible studies that show meaningful weight loss demonstrably caused by exercise does actually happen in large-enough populations. How large, can be a matter for debate, what the meaningful weight loss can also be discussed, but as long as credible studies are no produced, weightloss by exercise will not be taken seriously by anyone in the field.We are saying that exercise calories can be a meaningful fraction of the calories a normal person (not super athlete) burns in a day, and that those calories need to be accounted for in managing one's energy balance.
We know diets work because we have the studies to show it. Surely, if something is effective, it cannot be hard to show it.
As for how detectable weight loss by exercise is, it is the same problem: no one is saying that it is impossible, but we know that it is al but undetectable. How do we know that? Because if it were easy to demonstrate, we would have the data that proves it, and hardly anyone would doubt it.
Carl Sagan once said that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I happen to disagree with that. Absence of evidence *is* evidence of absence, it is just not *proof* of absence.
The exercise claim reminds me of Dr. Oz who had to admit in the US senate that he had no proof for his claims but that he was giving people "hope". People are better off without hope and with proof or at elast evidence.0 -
There is enough in this thread, Bart, for those who read it to assess the usefulness and basis of your argument, my argument, that of others. I'm sure you're quite comfortable with your own opinion, from how strongly you argue it. I'm quite comfortable with mine.
At this point, I'll leave it to others who may read this thread to judge from these posts which view is the more reasonable and practical for them to follow as guidance.
When I'm convinced I'm wrong in a discussion, I will say so clearly, no goal-post moving or waffling. That I'm leaving this where it sits now should not be mistaken for such a statement.12
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