Exercise to lose weight MYTH? (or way overstated)

SirZee

.....

This isn't exactly a new discovery. If you eat fewer calories than you expend, you will lose weight.

AND, your edit hits the nail on the head "just not worrying about quantity so much" <<<- HERE'S YOUR SIGN.

I know right!. Sad that it took 10 years of following the conventional advice "Exercise more to lose weight" 'till I saw the sign.

kaetra

I think it depends on the person. My friend lost 50 pounds and didn't change her diet at all. She just runs outside now for about an hour every morning. I've watched the just weight melt right off her over the past few months, while she eats great big Chipotle burritos for lunch.

I don't know if that would work for me though. Of course an hour running outside in the winter burns a ton of calories!

Jennyisbusy

I think it depends on the person. My friend lost 50 pounds and didn't change her diet at all. She just runs outside now for about an hour every morning. I've watched the just weight melt right off her over the past few months, while she eats great big Chipotle burritos for lunch.

I don't know if that would work for me though. Of course an hour running outside in the winter burns a ton of calories!

Yeah but you said her diet didn;t change at all - as in she has always ate giant Chipotle burritos which means that she is creating a deficit from the exercise. The article was saying that a bunch of the people added a burrito as a post work out treat and that is why they gain or only maintain.

Jeff92se

Well if she's averaging a 11 min mile pace, she's running 5.5 miles every day. You're talking about 800 calories every day that she can work with.

nikkylyn

Both are equally important I think. If you lose weight with no exercise, you wont gain muscle. Lean muscle mass is important the more muscle you have the more calories you burn at rest alone. So yes exercise is important when it comes to weight loss.

You can lose weight just by dieting---but why lose weight if you wont gain any muscle. Muscle is what makes you appear smaller, more cut, lean, etcc.. ( whatever word you wanna use).

Dave198lbs

is the point of this post to convince someone they dont have to exercise or to give yourself an excuse to not exercise? I dont understand.

exercise is what our bodies were meant to do (or do physical work)

Joannie30

I don't by any means speak for everyone but I have a friend who lost OVER 140LBS last year and she did NO exercise! No gym, none of it. Just eating.

Jennyisbusy

is the point of this post to convince someone they dont have to exercise or to give yourself an excuse to not exercise? I dont understand.

exercise is what our bodies were meant to do (or do physical work)

Nah, just a reminder that going to the gym isn't a fix-all. If you need to lose you will still have to work at the food part.

omma_to_3

why lose weight if you wont gain any muscle. Muscle is what makes you appear smaller, more cut, lean, etcc..

Well, LOTS of reasons. Seriously, do you really think this? Weight loss is good for you. Exercise is too, but losing excess weight, even without exercise VASTLY improves your health. And, the lack of fat also makes you look 'smaller' and 'more cut' because there actually are muscles under all that fat, after all.

jenlb99

I spent two years in the gym working out like a fiend and lost inches and sizes but no real weight. After I hit a certain size, I simply maintained.

I ate like CRAP but worked out like crazy, but at the same time, I created a love of working out and I am super fit...under the flab, that is.

All I have to worry about now is my diet; my workouts are still 6 days a week and super intense, but the portion control is shedding the fat rather nicely.

Pounds really are lost in the kitchen -- too bad it took me two years to figure that out, or I would have been at my goal a year and a half ago!!

SirZee

is the point of this post to convince someone they dont have to exercise or to give yourself an excuse to not exercise? I dont understand.

exercise is what our bodies were meant to do (or do physical work)

Neither. The point is that exercise as central part of a weight loss effort is doomed to failure. The article meticulously supports it with research (and I experienced the same over 10 years of being a gym-rat), and lays out the plausible argument on how our bodies were NOT designed to be stressed at a high level for short duration . The far subtler point is that as a society we are sheep, tend to follow not-so-smart advice, and then wonder why we fail.

My point was to share the fascinating things I learned in the article, because it exactly supports what we here know. It's the FOOD!

yesthistime

bump

hiker282

Eat well to lose weight, exercise to look good naked. Pretty simple.

Sweet_Potato

Ha, I read this article earlier and it made me think, "If the author was logging all their food they would not have this problem!"

In my experience intense workouts are necessary to lose weight, but I can maintain a slender figure just by being generally active and keeping track of what I eat.

harebearva

For me, changing my diet made me lose the weight. Exercise will ensure that I never gain it back. But it is indeed a very individual thing.

SirZee

bump

Woo hoo, my first bump ever. TY

jenlb99

Both are equally important I think. If you lose weight with no exercise, you wont gain muscle. Lean muscle mass is important the more muscle you have the more calories you burn at rest alone. So yes exercise is important when it comes to weight loss.

You can lose weight just by dieting---but why lose weight if you wont gain any muscle. Muscle is what makes you appear smaller, more cut, lean, etcc.. ( whatever word you wanna use).

I'm with you completely, but we all have our own goals. Mine is to shed fat, increase muscle mass, and look HOT and nicely cut without looking like a man -- and to KEEP the excess fat off my body.

My cousin doesn't want to see ANY muscle definition at all; she likes the "skinny fat" look, and as long as she sheds the fat healthfully, I don't care what she looks like. Too bad all she's worried about is the number on the scale, though...

sevencallmemom

I could not have lost 119 in 13 months if it weren't for working out...not because of the calorie burn necessarily, but because working out makes me feel amazing and makes me WANT to eat better. No way I'm wasting all that effort on junk food.

preisler

I also fall into the category of being able to have flexibility in my food intake only because I go to the gym. If I don't exercise my weight spikes and I'm always hungry (besides not sleeping well and feeling lousy). Exercise also make me want to eat healthier food and not waste those hours in the gym or on the bike on junk food.

Huffdogg

Diet makes you lose weight. Exercise makes you healthy.

Cassia

Exercise is an integral part of my weight loss because if I didn't exercise, I would feel deprived food wise. I am able to eat more BECAUSE I exercise and I know from past experience that simply restricting calories to a level where I lose is too hard to maintain for long.

~Love this~

waffleflavoredtea

I think every person falls on a different place on the spectrum. For me, losing weight is 90% eating well. I almost see exercise as serving a different purpose entirely - for fitness and health, but not for weight loss. I lose pounds in the kitchen and inches in the gym, if you want to see it that way.

This!

Restricting calories will make you lose weight. Cardio exercise will make you more fit. Strength training will increase your muscle mass so you burn more calories at rest.

soo glad you cleared this up, this makes much more sense than saying exercise doesn't help at all. I may not have lost any weight since I started exercising much more regularly but I have abs and leg definition now, it really helps with my self image.

LilRedRooster

While it's obvious that caloric content is important for everyone, that's not the central aspect of weight-loss for everyone; it aways comes down to individuals. When I was running cross-country in high school and cross-training for my black belt, I ate crap foods (like donuts, pizza, Junior Mints), but I was running my butt off and training hard. I lost 15lbs in several weeks easily, because I was simply working out hard. But I didn't keep track, so I followed my body's cues and just ate when I was hungry, so apparently my body moderated itself to adjust to that strenuous shedule pretty well. Even now, as long as I'm working out and training hard, I can pretty much eat what I want (not stuffing my face, of course), and lose weight, because my body just responds really well to exercise.

TK266

it is all very simple: east less, move more.

k7n2w3

I know people that decide to start exercising but have no plan whatsoever to change how they eat. They get very disappointed pretty quickly.

I think weight loss is mostly due to eating. Excercise has a different purpose.

I used to exercise all the time, A LOT but exactly how this post says "never changed my eating". I gained 44 pounds and figured that i had a health issue since i exercised a lot.. actually went to do the Dr and asked for tests!!!... it def wasn't the large fries, chicken mcnuggets, 3 slices of pizza & m&ms I ate of course lol. Now that I've lost the 44 pounds and am ready to run a half marathon I realize the exercise is for myself and other reasons, the eating is for the weight maintenance. It's all about the calorie deficit.. no workout = less calories consumed that day.... 500 calorie deficit for 7 days = 1 pound lost however that deficit is done the formula is the same :-)


SW 155.1
GW and CW 112.0

ruby_red_rose

The article states that the *reason* exercise doesn't work is because people eat back all of the calories or more. That doesn't mean that for people who do *not* eat back all of the calories, it doesn't help. Upping my exercise (though not changing my eating, which was already reduced) helped break a plateau I was on for quite a while.

The article also states that exercise makes people hungrier. For me, I find that to be the opposite. I eat less and snack much less when I work out. On 'rest' days, I'm much more likely to give in to temptation or mindlessly snack if I'm not super vigilant.

Exercise is an suppresses my appetite too. I feel way more hungry on my rest days than I do on my exercise days.

Jeff92se

excercise makes your poop fluffy

LilRedRooster

The article states that the *reason* exercise doesn't work is because people eat back all of the calories or more. That doesn't mean that for people who do *not* eat back all of the calories, it doesn't help. Upping my exercise (though not changing my eating, which was already reduced) helped break a plateau I was on for quite a while.

The article also states that exercise makes people hungrier. For me, I find that to be the opposite. I eat less and snack much less when I work out. On 'rest' days, I'm much more likely to give in to temptation or mindlessly snack if I'm not super vigilant.

Exercise is an suppresses my appetite too. I feel way more hungry on my rest days than I do on my exercise days.

Ditto. I feel starving on my rest days, and not hungry at all on my heavy workout days.

jennifershoo

I think every person falls on a different place on the spectrum. For me, losing weight is 90% eating well. I almost see exercise as serving a different purpose entirely - for fitness and health, but not for weight loss. I lose pounds in the kitchen and inches in the gym, if you want to see it that way.

This!

Restricting calories will make you lose weight. Cardio exercise will make you more fit. Strength training will increase your muscle mass so you burn more calories at rest.

The article points this out. Converting 10 pounds of fat to muscle, a MAJOR accomplishment, only burns you extra 40 cal. Sure, 40cal is "more" but practically nothing when cast against a 2000 cal daily intake.

I wonder where they got their numbers. It should be higher than that. Or does it means that the many times we've read or heard about ''a pound of muscle burns 50 cals'' is a myth?

mustgetmuscles1

40 minutes of weightlifting and 20 minutes of cardio = -500 calories.

Stopping off at Wendy's and getting a burger and fries = +1200 calories


Watching those calories slowly tick off on the elliptical, the time, energy, sweat, soreness makes me REALLY picky about what i put back in my body.