Weight loss only by diet/calories control?

umer76

Has anybody lost over 70-80 lbs just by controlling the diet and without doing exercise or jogging? I am curious to know that people who are losing lots of weight is it always a combination of diet and exercise or we can lose 80 lbs by being consistent and honest with the calories control only. Please share your experiences.

Mrsbrandnewmeslimandtrim

I would like to know this also lol

honeyfirle2020

No I dont know anyone whose ever lost that much without exercise, unless they have had gastric bypass.

LuckyLeprechaun

The first 50 lbs I lost was all diet/calorie restriction, I did practically no exercise during that time. I have never had gastric bypass. I decided to start exercising in a more meaningful way (I was just walking, for about 15 minutes, a few times a week) because I wanted to be able to eat more. It worked! I exercise now about 3-4 times a week, mostly cardio, and I burn up 400-500 calories each time.

carld256

Not 70-80, but I lost about 40 pounds before I started exercising.

sonianic

So far all of my loss has been without exercise. I began at the start of January. I am now down 40 pounds. I make sure and eat a minimum of 1200 calories per day and try my best not to exceed my max calories for hte day. Most days I am closer to the 1200 than my max allotment. I also have been trying to eat lots of natural foods, up my fiber intake and lower my sodium. I have always been more active in the summer and we have a pool in the backyard so the diet alone thing will not be continuing. Which is good, I am now 22 pounds from goal and I think some exercise will help with toning.

umer76

I would like to know this also lol

Looks like you are looking for a shortcut:)

shaydon80

I've lost nearly 90lbs in the last year and a half and my experience has been that it's 80% diet and 20% exercise. If you don't exercise you'll wind up with loose flappy skin. Skinny fat. Wouldn't you rather have a nice toned physique?

umer76

The first 50 lbs I lost was all diet/calorie restriction, I did practically no exercise during that time. I have never had gastric bypass. I decided to start exercising in a more meaningful way (I was just walking, for about 15 minutes, a few times a week) because I wanted to be able to eat more. It worked! I exercise now about 3-4 times a week, mostly cardio, and I burn up 400-500 calories each time.

I agree after losing some weight you feel lighter and energetic enough to start exercising. You have lost 50 lbs just with diet control which is great. How long it took you to reduce this weight?

BigDaddyBRC

Im at 50...and going

As for the "Skinny Fat", that depends upon how much elasticity your skin still has.

Pakitalian

I lost 162 lbs through Weight Watchers. No exercise besides walking to class because I was a college student. Had so many classes, I could never make it to the gym. Its possible, but in my experience you will have more extra skin than if you worked out. Exercise (especially weights) really helps with toning. I have gained 40 lbs back since I have been married (3 1/2 years) so I am back to lose that 40. It is possible, but I like working out now along with calorie control

LuckyLeprechaun

The first 50 lbs I lost was all diet/calorie restriction, I did practically no exercise during that time. I have never had gastric bypass. I decided to start exercising in a more meaningful way (I was just walking, for about 15 minutes, a few times a week) because I wanted to be able to eat more. It worked! I exercise now about 3-4 times a week, mostly cardio, and I burn up 400-500 calories each time.

I agree after losing some weight you feel lighter and energetic enough to start exercising. You have lost 50 lbs just with diet control which is great. How long it took you to reduce this weight?

My progress has been slower than most, because life intervened and I stopped after 40 lbs lost, and stayed there for a year or so. Then I started losing again, and that was about 2.5 years ago. So just about 3 years total, spread over a 4 year time frame. But I repeat, mine was slower than usual.

heybales

Has anybody lost over 70-80 lbs just by controlling the diet and without doing exercise or jogging? I am curious to know that people who are losing lots of weight is it always a combination of diet and exercise or we can lose 80 lbs by being consistent and honest with the calories control only. Please share your experiences.

You can do that, and actually makes the math easier to deal with compared to adding exercise. But if you create too big a deficit, you'll burn up some muscle mass too - and you'll probably want that.
Just walk 15 min almost every day, and select Lightly Active as activity level, and select 1.5 lbs weekly so it's not such an extreme deficit.

You'll likely lose more than that once you get going.

You'll probably change mind and perhaps safer and more realistic for exercise later on.

Diet is for fat loss.
Exercise is for body improvement and heart health. It can both help and hinder fat loss depending on how you do it.

Jeepers133

I lost 75 pounds only counting calories. I ate 1200 a day for 7 months. I just started exercising this last week or so because my weight loss had slowed down.

lifes_revenge

In agreement with Shaydon. I lost 30lbs and personally could hardly tell. One month of exercise and not much lb loss ALOT of inch loss and general shaping and toning. Conclusion, exercise provides far superior aesthetic results if you ignore the numbers on the scale.

umer76

Looking at your comments it means one can easily do 50-60 lbs reduction by just controlling the diet. I agree exercise is a great combination. But i hope after losing 50 lbs i will have enough energy to start exercising:) For now i have a goal of atleast 90 min walk in a week.

vettle

Bottom line: You can lose weight on calorie restriction alone but then you will be skinny fat. You will appear skinny but you will not be healthy.

Cardio and strength training are both important for overall wellness, and isn't that what we're going for?

tigersword

Weight loss is all about calorie deficit. Exercise has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Exercise = fitness

Diet = weight loss

Two different concepts that are completely mutually exclusive. You can lose weight without changing your fitness level, and you can change your fitness level without losing weight.

wftiger

Yes. I lost the first 75 lbs by doing nothing but my day-to-day activities. I then picked up exercise and loss has slowed considerably. So on that I would have to recommend don't pick up the exercise until after you lose the weight. That is just my experience I'm sure others differ but if I had to do it again I would do that. Too late for me now as I am in an gym contract so would be a waste of money if I didn't go.

sailorgrad

My first 30 or so pounds were completely diet. At that point, I wanted to add stuff because I was feeling a lot more energetic. Now I'm on an eliptical about 5 days a week for 21 minutes each day. I've lost almost 80 pounds now. I think I could have without the exercise, but I think it would have taken me much longer to do and I might have gotten discouraged along the way.

EvanKeel

Weight loss is all about calorie deficit. Exercise has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Exercise = fitness

Diet = weight loss

Two different concepts that are completely mutually exclusive. You can lose weight without changing your fitness level, and you can change your fitness level without losing weight.

Couldn't you argue that exercise could be considered part of the calories in calories out equation as a means of calories out? I'm not suggesting that it needs to be. I wouldn't argue that you can't lose weight without exercising. It just seemed weird to see someone saying that weight loss is about calorie deficit and exercise has nothing to do with creating a calorie deficit when it certainly can--even if it doesn't have to. Perhaps it was just a phrasing issue for me.

shyrina25

I did. lost 60 pounds just by watching what I eat.

heybales

Weight loss is all about calorie deficit. Exercise has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Exercise = fitness

Diet = weight loss

Two different concepts that are completely mutually exclusive. You can lose weight without changing your fitness level, and you can change your fitness level without losing weight.

Couldn't you argue that exercise could be considered part of the calories in calories out equation as a means of calories out? I'm not suggesting that it needs to be. I wouldn't argue that you can't lose weight without exercising. It just seemed weird to see someone saying that weight loss is about calorie deficit and exercise has nothing to do with creating a calorie deficit when it certainly can--even if it doesn't have to. Perhaps it was just a phrasing issue for me.

While it may seem like you could avg 500 cal deficit everyday by exercising a good 3500 cal's a week and therefore the same 1lb weight loss, the fact is the majority of that cal burn is going to be carbs, unless you walk slow and long, in which case I'd argue that is just more daily activity really.

Anyway, ones would find they don't really lose 1lb a week the numbers would seem to indicate.

Because, of that 500 cal burn, 350 is probably carbs. Your next day's eating will put those carbs right back again.
150 cal's was probably fat.

The other issue, you are now exercising and putting a load on your body. As it improves, either LBM or by storing more glucose, you'll actually gain that weight, water weight, but still weight.

And then finally, what has been found many times, is that while exercise may indeed increase metabolism during the workout, and some exercise post workout for decent periods of time, people also tend to slow down their other daily activity because of having worked out.

So you burned 500, but time later is now spent on the couch watching TV because of being slightly tired, instead of say moving around and picking up or doing something else. So missed out on 100-200 cal of burn that might have occurred, and actually mostly fat burn at that.

The other reason doesn't have as much bearing on MFP where people can log their foods. But other studies have shown with only an exercise change, people left to their own devices end up eating the deficit created right back again because they are hungry. So in that case, body is at least still improving, but no deficit.

So that is why it can be said exercise is NOT for weight loss. Loss being the keyword there.
Diet is better.

You can do it through workouts totally though, and on MFP watch the food intake to confirm you really created a deficit - but actual LOSS will be slower than diet alone with no exercise.

butterflylover527

I've heard of people doing this. I'm kind of laying off the exercise a tad until I lose more weight cause then it will be easier to do

fanakar

I knew someone that lost 300 pounds by diet alone. But they started at 700 pounds.

EvanKeel

Weight loss is all about calorie deficit. Exercise has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Exercise = fitness

Diet = weight loss

Two different concepts that are completely mutually exclusive. You can lose weight without changing your fitness level, and you can change your fitness level without losing weight.

Couldn't you argue that exercise could be considered part of the calories in calories out equation as a means of calories out? I'm not suggesting that it needs to be. I wouldn't argue that you can't lose weight without exercising. It just seemed weird to see someone saying that weight loss is about calorie deficit and exercise has nothing to do with creating a calorie deficit when it certainly can--even if it doesn't have to. Perhaps it was just a phrasing issue for me.

While it may seem like you could avg 500 cal deficit everyday by exercising a good 3500 cal's a week and therefore the same 1lb weight loss, the fact is the majority of that cal burn is going to be carbs, unless you walk slow and long, in which case I'd argue that is just more daily activity really.

Anyway, ones would find they don't really lose 1lb a week the numbers would seem to indicate.

Because, of that 500 cal burn, 350 is probably carbs. Your next day's eating will put those carbs right back again.
150 cal's was probably fat.

The other issue, you are now exercising and putting a load on your body. As it improves, either LBM or by storing more glucose, you'll actually gain that weight, water weight, but still weight.

And then finally, what has been found many times, is that while exercise may indeed increase metabolism during the workout, and some exercise post workout for decent periods of time, people also tend to slow down their other daily activity because of having worked out.

So you burned 500, but time later is now spent on the couch watching TV because of being slightly tired, instead of say moving around and picking up or doing something else. So missed out on 100-200 cal of burn that might have occurred, and actually mostly fat burn at that.

The other reason doesn't have as much bearing on MFP where people can log their foods. But other studies have shown with only an exercise change, people left to their own devices end up eating the deficit created right back again because they are hungry. So in that case, body is at least still improving, but no deficit.

So that is why it can be said exercise is NOT for weight loss. Loss being the keyword there.
Diet is better.

You can do it through workouts totally though, and on MFP watch the food intake to confirm you really created a deficit - but actual LOSS will be slower than diet alone with no exercise.

I'm not sure you can argue against exercise as means of weight loss by suggesting that there's a significant difference in the type of exercise and how it relates to type of calories burned, and then go on to say that the exercise will increase weight due to water retention, etc. On one hand you're saying fat loss (by extension fat gain) would be significant, and on the other hand, you're suggesting that water gain (or loss for that matter) is also significant.

So should I ignore the scale or not?

Are we going to change the terms of the conversation specifically to fat loss and body composition? If that's the case, are you saying that exercising would result in a slower fat loss than just dieting alone? I've seen other posts where people suggest that the body composition changes that happen through only diet (perhaps even high protein diets) is less preferable to those composition changes that include exercise.

LuckyLeprechaun

While it may seem like you could avg 500 cal deficit everyday by exercising a good 3500 cal's a week and therefore the same 1lb weight loss, the fact is the majority of that cal burn is going to be carbs, unless you walk slow and long, in which case I'd argue that is just more daily activity really.

Anyway, ones would find they don't really lose 1lb a week the numbers would seem to indicate.

Because, of that 500 cal burn, 350 is probably carbs. Your next day's eating will put those carbs right back again.
150 cal's was probably fat.

Good story, bro.

Unfortunately its not accurate at all, but......ya, good story.

SomeoneSomeplace

My guess is you will end what they call "skinny fat" The weight I've lost thus far (15 pounds) has all been from diet because I couldn't exercise due to an injury. However in the past I've been around 8-10 pounds heavier than I am now (which for a girl my size build is actually a lot more then you might think) BUT I was actually in better shape THEN when I was playing sports and such. I was all muscle. I had barely any body fat and I looked better. Now I find myself weighing less but with more body fat. Personally the number on the scale doesn't matter as much to me as how my body looks. To get that sexy toned look you absolutely have to work out. Diet alone isn't enough. And I've found dieting it's really easy just to get stuck at a weight. I think it's really important to do at least some cardio 2 or 3 times a week. If you don't like the gym maybe do tennis or soccer or softball...anything that gets you moving.

Shannafo

I'm at 59.8 lbs down and until this past Friday I did not exercise. I've started now as it doesn't hurt as much since I'm not as heavy. So I'd say yes it can be done. I stick to 1200 calories a day.

juwan24

The biggest thing people have to realize is that exercise takes energy, so if someone is on a 1200 calorie budget with no exercise and then start exercising, the scale is going to slow down. From what I've done and tracked it seems best to up the intake somewhere around half of what you're burning off to keep the energy high enough to keep on it.

I had a 12 week contest at work and thought it'd be cool to run a spreadsheet based on the exercise/food I logged (loseit) and what my body "burns" on it's own everyday. At the end of 12 weeks I had a calorie deficit of 121,646 (34.76 pounds) and had actually lost 30 pounds(105,000) during the 12 weeks. So a difference of 16,646 over 84 days or 198.167 per day. Which I'd almost guarantee is less since food calorie # or calories burned during exercise aren't "exact" numbers. I was pretty impressed that it was so close to accurate.

Long story short it shows that all the calories you "burn" whether it's from exercise or not eating it will result in weight loss if you drink enough water and do it correctly. (ie. you can't eat 1000 calories a day and expect to really lose any weight as your body will shut down)

ZipperJJ

Those of you who are saying you have to wait until you lose weight to start exercising, don't sell yourself short. I worked out 3-5 days a week at 330 lbs for a year and a half before I started losing weight by eating differently. From 330-280 I am working out 5 days a week. Walking, swimming, weights, elliptical.

Even if you've had a sextuple bypass and have knees made of sand you can still move around. There are infinite levels of exercise. From sitting in a chair waving your hands around to walking in a pool to shuffling down the driveway and back again.

And, the bigger you are the more calories you'll burn and the more weight you'll lift just by doing simple movement.

It's NEVER too "early" to start exercising. Never. If you're bad off, ask your doctor what you can do, to be safe. Your doctor is not going to say "do nothing"!!

And if you're afraid of people judging you while you're out exercising, then don't go out to exercise. Do something at home. But let me tell you that nobody is judging you other than to say "Good job, fat person!" Trust me. I am that fat person.