exercise or diet or both...confused

There's no wasting your time in regards to your health. Weight loss is calories in < calories out. Exercise, namely cardio, can help you burn more calories and make your caloric deficit larger. Your diet is the most important thing in weight/fat loss.

However, don't think you're wasting your time with exercise. And as for "toning," if you mean strength training then I will argue that it is more important than cardio, and cardio should be done a couple days a week to supplement your overall fitness goals.

Again, HOWEVER, if you truly hate exercise, then just pick something you enjoy doing. It's much more satisfying to both eat right and exercise than just eat right and lay around all day. But if you're just in it for weight loss and not overall health and you truly loathe exercise, then just make sure you're eating at a deficit.

Excercise helps build a healthy body while the calorie deficite helps lose the weight, since I started running and really working hard at it I have found it has helped me lose weight, not sure if it is the actual running or the positive feeling the excercise gives me.
It depends how you want to look at it, but the way I see it, combined you will have a happier more balanced lifestyle with a fitter healthier body.

Exercise extends your life even if you are overweight. If all you care about is how much you weigh, then just eat less. If you want to live a long, happy, healthy life you will exercise.

Whenever you hear diet, you hear exercise.They go together. I have seen alot of co-workers who lose weight with diet alone
and the next year they are bigger than ever... Exercise with the proper diet will get you where you want to be.

Exercise can help you lose weight. It just doesn't matter as much as diet does.

You can lose weight through exercise alone. The reason most people don't may be because exercising doesn't burn as much off as people think and exercising can make you hungrier than if you were sedentary. You have to run for half an hour to burn of a single donut. Many will run half an hour and think they earned two donuts.

So, you regularly see people who focus on exercise to lose weight and fail.

There is a database of data on people who lost weight which finds that successful weight loss is associated strongly with diet and successful weight maintenance it associated strongly with exercise.

That doesn't mean that exercise doesn't aid in weight loss or that diet doesn't have a lot to do with maintenance.

you need a calorie deficit to lose weight (i.e. eat less than you burn off) - you can do that without exercise, you can even do that eating nothing but twinkies.

you need to eat healthy foods and do exercise for optimum health and good body composition. Body composition means having strong bones, strong muscles and a healthy body fat percentage. Good body composition = looking really good. Optimal health means feeling good, having lots of energy, and being generally fit and strong.

so if you focus *only* on scale weight and not at all on health or body composition, you will lose weight, but it's unlikely that you'll like how you look at your goal weight.... however if you focus on all three... calorie deficit, healthy food, exercise... you're much more likely to not only like how you look but also like that you feel fit, healthy and strong too.

I weigh 20 pounds more right now than I did a few years ago after losing some weight through diet alone. Now I also exercise 6 days per week - and wear the same size clothes I did after that period of dieting. Also - I gained that weight back along with a whole bunch more. Being mindful of what I eat and exercising (I do cardio, strength and flexibility stuff) I am losing weight faster than when I did weight watchers alone and I look and feel better. Definitely incorporate exercise!

I've lost weight by calorie deficit alone, and I can tell you it SUCKS! I felt tired constantly and I lost a lot of muscle. The basic equation is energy in and energy out - with the "energy" being calories. Also, by building lean body mass (muscle) you will burn more calories even when you are not exercising.

Here's an example. I did a boot camp last year and went from a size 14 to a size 4. My first 2 sizes I lost through calorie deficit as I explained above. When I started boot camp, I followed a very strict eating plan which consisted of clean foods, limited sugar (unless it was natural sugar from fruits or whole grains), lean protein, and quality carbs. It was harder than anything I'd ever done. I was tempted constantly, but I figured if I was paying that much for boot camp I owed it to myself to do it 100%. I had far more success at boot camp than some of my friends did who just did the boot camp and ate what they wanted with "healthy in mind." By the time I was done I'd hit a size 4.

Another thing to consider: you're going to be able to eat more calories (and SHOULD eat more calories) if you're exercising regularly. Walking is a fantastic start, but I would recommend incorporating some type of strength training to gain some of that muscle. It could be as simple as some squats, lunges, push-ups, crunches, dips, etc at some point during your walk. For years I was just like you. I hated exercise, it was a chore, and I was not motivated in the least to do it. I tried just counting calories, and would quickly get frustrated when a workplace potluck or family gathering took place when it was too tempting to stick to my limits. I was constantly frustrated and would give up easily.

I can burn anywhere from 700 to 1000 calories per workout. I don't get to the gym as often as I'd like, but I always know if I have a tough day nutritionally, I can take care of it with a trip to the gym. Life is all about balance.

:flowerforyou:

"When you exercise your metabolism stays high for a good period afterwards, so it's more than just the immediate calorie usage."

This is overblown bro-science.


Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC) is the caloric after-burn of a metabolism that stays elevated -- or “revved up. EPOC does exist, but it’s been vastly overblown.

"In a 2006 article in the Journal of Sports Sciences, researchers from the School of Pharmacy and Medical Sciences at the University of South Australia did find that more intense exercise creates a higher EPOC, but even so: “EPOC comprises only 6-15% of the net total oxygen cost [calories burned] of the exercise.” For example, if someone burns 1,000 total calories via intense and prolonged exercise, then at most an additional 150 calories result from EPOC."

Most people burn 300-500 calories during a good average workout. That would mean about an extra 25-50 calories because of EPOC.