Can I just skip the exercise? Confused by another thread...

LiminalAscendance

You're correct. If you eat back all your exercise calories, exercise becomes pointless, from a weight-loss standpoint.

Not to mention the fact that if you overestimate your caloric burn during your workout, you will actually be WORSE off than if you didn't exercise at all.

wrong.

I think these forums are giving you bad habits.

In the "real" world, you usually provide REASONS when disputing claims.

Note: Cute little gifs and snarky phrases (e.g. "lolwhat?") also don't count.

Just thought I'd offer some free advice, in case you try to debate someone on the outside.

perfect_storm

Exercise has been shown to help with depression. I don't really know why have no links to put here but I remember reading it in fitness magazine. You are on the right track, take it at your own pace and keep on going.....good luck to you.

Allonsee

If you've lost a few inches and can see definition, that YOUR results are positive. Those are the ones that matter.

cwolfman13

No exercise is useless or a waste of time...fitness is essential to overall health and well being. I think where you may be getting confused is that for most of us, it has been ingrained that you try to lose weight by working out...in reality, exercise is an extremely inefficient way of creating a calorie deficit...a much more efficient way of creating a calorie deficit for weightloss is with diet. That is the way MFP is set up and that is why you eat back calories with MFP.

You can lose weight with no exercise at all...all that is required is a deficit of calories. I lost my first 20 Lbs or so with no exercise whatsoever. That said, I wouldn't advise it at all. Exercise is essential to your overrall health and is going to actually change body composition. You can lose the weight with diet alone, but you ultimately will not look as good as someone else of comparable stats who exercised along the way.

Diet for weight control; exercise for fitness.

Mokey41

You're correct. If you eat back all your exercise calories, exercise becomes pointless, from a weight-loss standpoint.

Not to mention the fact that if you overestimate your caloric burn during your workout, you will actually be WORSE off than if you didn't exercise at all.

wrong.

I'm not getting what is wrong with that statement. It's pretty hard to be exact with exercise calories and if you're only burning 150 or so doing an exercise there really isn't any big need to eat them back. Most people over estimate their exercise and under estimate their food so leaving a buffer zone between calories eaten and exercise done makes perfect sense. That way you aren't back in a couple months complaining you've hit a plateau even though you're doing everything right.

S3r3knitty

I started 30ds recently and I am quite happy with it. Maybe it's too short and not strenuous enough if you are already quite fit but for me it was the perfect way to start my journey on getting healthier and fit. While I am not overweight I have a very sedentary job and I didn't do any exercising for 2 years. So 25 minutes is as much as I can handle right now.I couldn't imagine to workout for an hour right now.

It definitely helped me. I only do it 4 times a week, I am not overweight and I didn't change my food intake except that I drink more water but I lost a few inches and my small tummy is gone. I can put my belt one hole tighter and my slim jeans fits much better.
Beside 30ds I started to run but I am a beginner and only run 5x2mins with walking breaks in between.

Once I am fitter I will move on to longer workouts and I plan to enter a gym next month but I take one step at a time and exercising is never bad!

ETA: I am not eating back my exercise calories. When I still logged everything I ate between 1400 to 1700 cal/day except weekends when it might be less or more depending on my schedule. Before I started exercising this calorie intake put me at a stable 156lbs. Since exercising my weight dropped to 152lbs

cafeaulait7

I think I'm finally figuring out why exercise is the key for me keeping off (or losing!) the 30 lbs I struggle with. I do gain more muscle with the type I do, so there's that.

But this time I'm recognizing a hunger thing going on. At first, I was hungrier. After about 3 weeks, though, I am much less hungry than I usually am. I'm 5 weeks in to a strict commitment to exercise, and most days I have a hard time feeling like eating enough. Hmmmm. I do have some insulin metabolism issues, so maybe it has to do with blood sugar. Dunno, but that's a very nice side effect for me! I hate being hungry, lol.

For you, maybe try not eating back those exercise calories. If you aren't hungry and your daily numbers and macros are high enough, don't eat if you don't feel like it, imho. You could see how that goes, in any case.

edit: oh, I don't eat back my exercise calories unless I'm really hungry that day, btw.

NavyKnightAh13

bump

auddii

You're correct. If you eat back all your exercise calories, exercise becomes pointless, from a weight-loss standpoint.

Not to mention the fact that if you overestimate your caloric burn during your workout, you will actually be WORSE off than if you didn't exercise at all.

Ignore this^

But, if you're losing inches, it's obviously working for you. Lots of people have ideas of what is the "best" exercise. I like lifting and rowing and occasionally throw in a run since I got talked into doing a 5k. I think it's well rounded. For someone who hates those things, those are horrible exercises because they won't do them.

Find what you like and do it. I would suggest some kind of progressive resistance program. If you don't have money for a gym, look into things like convict conditioning and you are your own gym. Preserving muscle mass will help you look less flabby as you lose (if you lose a lot of muscle mass while losing the fat, you can end up still looking kind of flabby while still being smaller).

Mokey41

You're correct. If you eat back all your exercise calories, exercise becomes pointless, from a weight-loss standpoint.

Not to mention the fact that if you overestimate your caloric burn during your workout, you will actually be WORSE off than if you didn't exercise at all.

Is anyone really reading and comprehending this? Not that exercise is pointless but that if you eat all the calories back then it negates the calorie burn of the workout as far as weight loss goes. Not that exercise isn't going to help your fitness even if you eat those calories back.

Cindyinpg

I wouldn't skip the exercise. A bigger deficit does mean more food, :drinker: as long as you are being as accurate as possible with both your logging and your exercise calories. Not to mention all of the other benefits that come from improving your overall fitness, which have already been enumerated.

pcastagner

What I never can comprehend is people that say they exercise because it gives them more calories to eat. Exercise makes me FAMISHED for 5 times the calories it burns!

Eating less is all you need to lose weight.
Exercise strengthens your heart, lungs, bones, muscles, improves health, sculpts the body (So we don't just go from fat blob to skinny blob), it also improves our mental state, can help fight depression, make us feel like a beast, gives us confidence in a Zombie Apocalypse, and causes people to say, "wow, you can lift all that?? I can barely lift my trash bag up into the dumpster!"

I haven't had that experience, except with long cardio workouts.

Weights and 20 minute jump rope sessions make me hungry pretty much for maintenance cals. I have to tell myself to eat more than that for gaining

auddii

You're correct. If you eat back all your exercise calories, exercise becomes pointless, from a weight-loss standpoint.

Not to mention the fact that if you overestimate your caloric burn during your workout, you will actually be WORSE off than if you didn't exercise at all.

Is anyone really reading and comprehending this? Not that exercise is pointless but that if you eat all the calories back then it negates the calorie burn of the workout as far as weight loss goes. Not that exercise isn't going to help your fitness even if you eat those calories back.

That's not the point. If you are using MFP to determine your deficit (granted not everyone does), it gives you a deficit regardless of your exercise. Then, you log your exercise. So now you have calories eaten - deficit - exercise calories = much larger deficit. That isn't the best way to lose and can sometimes hinder weight loss. Because you already have the deficit built in, you eat back the exercise calories to maintain the deficit.

The only time you wouldn't do that is if you were eating at maintenance and only using exercise to create a deficit.

SLLRunner

You're correct. If you eat back all your exercise calories, exercise becomes pointless, from a weight-loss standpoint.

Not to mention the fact that if you overestimate your caloric burn during your workout, you will actually be WORSE off than if you didn't exercise at all.

No, because when you set up your profile on MFP, your calorie deficit to lose weight is already figured in.

laylaness

It's certainly not bad for you. I did it twice, and I lost a total of about 13 inches combined, but not a lot of pounds. If you like it, do it.

Mr_Knight

I'm not getting what is wrong with that statement. It's pretty hard to be exact with exercise calories and if you're only burning 150 or so doing an exercise there really isn't any big need to eat them back. Most people over estimate their exercise and under estimate their food so leaving a buffer zone between calories eaten and exercise done makes perfect sense. That way you aren't back in a couple months complaining you've hit a plateau even though you're doing everything right.

I agree. The #1 reason on MFP for stalled weight loss is not logging intake correctly, followed closely by eating back over-estimated calorie burns. The threads are littered with posts from clearly out of shape people who are logging more calories/hour on the elliptical than Lance Armstrong burned climbing the Alpe d'Huez.

Unless someone is rock solid accurate on both food and exercise logging, IMO a better course of action is to NOT eat back exercise calories until the body says you should - namely, too much weight loss and/or excessive fatigue.

Again, this is advice for the typical MFPer, not for those who are really good at logging/tracking and/or are extremely active.

cwolfman13

You're correct. If you eat back all your exercise calories, exercise becomes pointless, from a weight-loss standpoint.

Not to mention the fact that if you overestimate your caloric burn during your workout, you will actually be WORSE off than if you didn't exercise at all.

Is anyone really reading and comprehending this? Not that exercise is pointless but that if you eat all the calories back then it negates the calorie burn of the workout as far as weight loss goes. Not that exercise isn't going to help your fitness even if you eat those calories back.

Here's what you're missing...my MFP calorie goal to lose 1 Lb per week was 1,860 calories...this was based on a lightly active NEAT activity level (DOES NOT INCLUDE EXERCISE)....it includes a weight loss deficit already...my actual NEAT maintenance is 2,360. If I go out and do a 15 mile ride, I'll burn roughly 600 calories...given that my calorie goal is based on my NEAT (as per the MFP method), that exercise is completely unaccounted for. So if I don't eat them, I've now created a 1,100 calorie deficit when my goal was a 500 calorie deficit to lose 1 Lb per week. At no point during my weight loss did I ever have the fat stores necessary to sustain such a deficit.

I lost 40 Lbs averaging about 1 Lb per week loss all the while eat back exercise calories...so your notion that eating back exercise calories negates the weight loss benefits of exercise is completely and utterly invalid. It is only a valid assumption if you're actually trying to create a calorie deficit with exercise or are utilizing the TDEE method. If you're using MFP as designed (a NEAT method calculator) then it works just fine.

I honestly fail to see how something this simple is missed on so many people...it's really, really, really friggin easy and just basic mathematics....

bethannien

You're correct. If you eat back all your exercise calories, exercise becomes pointless, from a weight-loss standpoint.

Not to mention the fact that if you overestimate your caloric burn during your workout, you will actually be WORSE off than if you didn't exercise at all.

Is anyone really reading and comprehending this? Not that exercise is pointless but that if you eat all the calories back then it negates the calorie burn of the workout as far as weight loss goes. Not that exercise isn't going to help your fitness even if you eat those calories back.

IMHO, it's miopic to say exercise becomes pointless. Does it improve your weight loss for that day if you exercise and then eat some or all of those calories back? No. But, if the whole point of losing weight is for over all health and not just a number on the scale, then exercise is NEVER pointless.

Mr_Knight

If I go out and do a 15 mile ride, I'll burn roughly 600 calories...

This is not about people who are going out on 15 mile bike rides, this about people logging 400 calories from 20 minutes of Insanity because their HRM told them so.

The "eat it back" idea is correct in theory - but it has serious problems in actual practice. Well, it also has problems in theory, in that the % of TDEE you are eating varies significantly depending on your exercise level, but that's a topic for another thread.

bcattoes

I have never done 30 Day Shred. But I will tell you that exercise, mostly cardio, is 100% responsible for my 27 lb weight loss. I did not cut my calories. I created a deficit with exercise. I lost fat, lbs, inches and improved by BF%.

Now, this may not work for everyone. But for those of us that gained weight slowly over several years from a sedentary lifestyle, all you need to do is burn a few extra calories per day and you have a deficit.

Anyone that says any type of exercise is useless should be immediately discarded as a source of reliable information.