MFP Mythbusters! Losing weight fast, exercise calories, girl

cjack19

bump for reading later

LorinaLynn

If you've plugged your weight loss goals into MFP, it already gives you a calorie deficit. So in theory, you don't need to exercise to lose weight. If it's for a half pound a week, that's 250 calories less per day than you'd need to maintain your weight, with just your normal daily activity not including exercise.

If you exercise and burn more, and don't eat the exercise calories, that creates a larger deficit. That might be ok if you have a lot to lose, but as you get closer to your goal, you won't have enough excess fat stores to support a larger deficit.

I think it's easier to just consider exercise for improved health and to reshape the body, and possibly even for fun, not as a way to increase the calorie deficit.

ConnieM20

Thanks a lot, this really cleared some things up. And you look fabulous!

yellowrose5321

A calorie deficit burns the fat. Cardio is good for your heart, but it's not necessary for weight loss or fat loss.

I think I'm going to have some trouble wrapping my mind around this - you get more of a deficit doing cardio than you do for weight lifting, don't you?

Yes and no. At the time of exercise, cardio burns more. But once you are done with cardio the burning stops (after 20 minutes or an hour). When you strength train, you do not burn that many calories during the workout, but you continue to burn all day after the workout is complete. So if you have more muscle, you will burn more calories doing nothing.

To get the maximum bang from your cardio do shorter interval workouts -- the "after burn" continues for hours after the workout. And then keep up with the strength training to keep burning when you sleep and for the rest of the day.

Think about it. If you've every had a husband/boyfriend/brother/some other male species who was trying to lose weight at the same time you were, who loses weight the fastest? The men do. Why? Because, in general, they have a higher percentage of muscle mass than women do.

I was a fitness instructor back in the day when everyone thought as Blueberry does -- keeping the heart rate down in the "fat burning zone" was the way to burn fat; you should do strength training, but just to tone up the muscles and make your life easier (carrying groceries, hauling kids around, etc). What they didn't take into account back then is that increasing the amount of muscle tissue you have makes your body burn more calories all day long -- not just an "after-burn" effect, but it increases your metabolism, so that you burn more calories no matter what your doing: folding clothes, driving your car, eating, sleeping, etc.

It also seems that extreme sessions of cardio (hours of cardio) end up actually breaking down and causing the loss of muscle tissue. I haven't had time to do a lot of research to find out why -- saw one article that said that once the body has used up all available glucose for energy (generally after about an hour of cardio), the body starts breaking down muscle for fuel (transforming fat to fuel takes too long for it to be available during the workout; the body uses fat to replenish energy stores during recovery). Look online for pictures of marathon runners vs. pictures of sprinters. Both groups run, but the difference in their bodies is amazing!