Is weight loss 80% diet and 20% exercise?

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KrissyD70
KrissyD70 Posts: 92
in Health and Weight Loss
My doctor told me that losing weight is 80% what you eat and just 20% excercise. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

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  • bchgrl
    bchgrl Posts: 10 Member
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    I have heard the exact same thing! I was talking to a friend who recently lost 15 pounds and she said she's been working out 6 days a week for a year but it wasn't until she started counting her calories a few months ago that she began losing weight. It seemed to be true for her.
  • Stewie316
    Stewie316 Posts: 266 Member
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    I've heard that. It makes sense because you can exercise all you want, but if you're continuing to eat bad and eat too much you won't lose weight. But you can lower your calorie intake and not exercise and still lose weight.
  • BrahminsDad
    BrahminsDad Posts: 22
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    For me, I was eating much too large portions. So just bringing my food portions to a reasonable level brought my daily calorie intake from 2400-2500 down to 1800 overnight. So I was saving upwards of 700 calories per day. Then I added about 200 calories from exercise. So that comes to about 78% diet and 22% exercise. The downer is that since I have established the correct calorie intake, the exercise now carries about 40% of the burden. That just makes me more careful of my eating habits. It also explains why I had a huge first month in weight loss and now it is slowing.
  • Tamishumate
    Tamishumate Posts: 1,171 Member
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    I completely agree.. I have seen people in the gym for the last 18 months that have lost nothing, but are there all the time. When they ask me what I am doing ,the first thing I ask them is what are THEY eating?? then its like a light goes off... "ohhhh, I am not doing good with that" ......
    you HAVE To eat the right stuff! :)
  • juliefit
    juliefit Posts: 3
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    I agree with the posts above! Calories in vs calories out is what it comes down to.. Find out how many calories your body burns per day. You need a 500 calories a day deficit to lose 1 lb a week.

    A short person like myself (5'4" 135 lbs) requires about 1400 calories (without exercise). However, i cannot eat only 900 calories a day.. any nutritionist will say at LEAST consumer 1200 calories. So I create the remaining deficit with exercise. Also exercise keeps your metabolism going.. the more muscle you have the more calories you burn when sedentary.
  • chrisdavey
    chrisdavey Posts: 9,834 Member
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    I agree with the posts above! Calories in vs calories out is what it comes down to.. Find out how many calories your body burns per day. You need a 500 calories a day deficit to lose 1 lb a week.

    A short person like myself (5'4" 135 lbs) requires about 1400 calories (without exercise). However, i cannot eat only 900 calories a day.. any nutritionist will say at LEAST consumer 1200 calories. So I create the remaining deficit with exercise. Also exercise keeps your metabolism going.. the more muscle you have the more calories you burn when sedentary.

    Agree with this except for a few exceptions like calorie dense nuts. Apparently, research has showed that although they are very high in calories per gram, 80-90% is excreted from our bodies anyway e.g. consume 250cals worth of nuts and approximately 25-50cals are actually left in body after digestion process.

    Otherwise, I totally agree though. So many people seem to believe that they can continue eating whatever they want as long as they do some exercise and they will lose weight. Unless you have a mega metabolism I don't believe this is the case. Obviously, it is case by case dependent and the actual diet, metabolism and daily activity will determine if the person sees results or not.
  • SLambertAlaska
    SLambertAlaska Posts: 197 Member
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    I agree with that ratio, generally speaking. However, when you loose the fat, if you have no muscle tone, you still won't look that great. Also, muscle burns more calories than fat at a resting state, so building up your muscle helps you burn calories all day (and night). Exercise also keeps your metabolism up so that you don't slide in "starvation mode" in which your body works hard to keep the fat you have. I've seen women who lost a lot of weight, but were still "jiggly" and "soft." So Keep Up the Exercise while you are dieting. Good Luck!
  • sara_m83
    sara_m83 Posts: 545 Member
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    Agree with this except for a few exceptions like calorie dense nuts. Apparently, research has showed that although they are very high in calories per gram, 80-90% is excreted from our bodies anyway e.g. consume 250cals worth of nuts and approximately 25-50cals are actually left in body after digestion process.

    Otherwise, I totally agree though. So many people seem to believe that they can continue eating whatever they want as long as they do some exercise and they will lose weight. Unless you have a mega metabolism I don't believe this is the case. Obviously, it is case by case dependent and the actual diet, metabolism and daily activity will determine if the person sees results or not.

    Is this true?? I've cut pine nuts and almonds out of my diet because of how high in calories they are! I used to have 15-20 almonds in my lunch every day until I discovered I could eat half of a sandwich for the same number of calories!
  • rcatr
    rcatr Posts: 374 Member
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    In general, absolutely. And one of my fitness heroes and unofficial coaches has told me that the older she gets the more she has to watch what she eats in order to stay fit. She still exercises 5 days/week but she has to be extra meticulous about what she eats the older she gets.

    Don't we have a lot to look forward to? :laugh:
  • jackpotclown
    jackpotclown Posts: 3,291 Member
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    Definitely, if you eat poorly, the weight won't come off.......at 200 lbs before I changed my diet I could spend two hours in the gym practically killing myself and I couldn't get below 192. I changed my diet and within three months was able to get back to where I needed to be. It starts in the kitchen!!!!
  • SHBoss1673
    SHBoss1673 Posts: 7,161 Member
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    Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes!!!!!!!

    And this is coming from a personal trainer (the people who rely on exercise!)

    Make no mistake, you can be the most avid exerciser in the world, you eat crap, you will be unhealthy, there's no way around this fact.

    It's a cliche, but it's true, you really ARE what you eat!
  • July24Lioness
    July24Lioness Posts: 2,399 Member
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    My doctor told me that losing weight is 80% what you eat and just 20% excercise. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

    Yes, I agree with this............My doctor says it is about 90% diet and 10% exercise......

    You get out what you put in your body.................If you feed it WHOLE, natural and unprocessed foods, you will lose weight easier, unless you have some type of Endocrine or Metabolic issue. If that is the case, you need to seek medical treatment for the root cause of the issues that are going on in your body.
  • July24Lioness
    July24Lioness Posts: 2,399 Member
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    Agree with this except for a few exceptions like calorie dense nuts. Apparently, research has showed that although they are very high in calories per gram, 80-90% is excreted from our bodies anyway e.g. consume 250cals worth of nuts and approximately 25-50cals are actually left in body after digestion process.

    Otherwise, I totally agree though. So many people seem to believe that they can continue eating whatever they want as long as they do some exercise and they will lose weight. Unless you have a mega metabolism I don't believe this is the case. Obviously, it is case by case dependent and the actual diet, metabolism and daily activity will determine if the person sees results or not.

    Is this true?? I've cut pine nuts and almonds out of my diet because of how high in calories they are! I used to have 15-20 almonds in my lunch every day until I discovered I could eat half of a sandwich for the same number of calories!

    Pine nuts and Almonds pack a GREAT nutritional punch. Why would you cut out nuts? Your body needs dietary fat to function properly.
  • questionablemethods
    questionablemethods Posts: 2,174 Member
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    Sure. At the most basic level, if you aren't watching what you are eating it can be VERY easy to "out-eat" even pretty intense exercise even in just one mea. I just responded to a thread a few days where someone was talking about how many long-distance runners say they don't lose weight. Well, what I see is a lot of people (not so much on MFP) who say or seem to think "I'm training for a marathon so I can eat pretty much whatever I want."

    Uh.... no. At least not if weight loss is your goal. Here's a quick and dirty example.

    Let's say I go for a 2 hour run at a 10 min/mile pace. So, that would be a 12 mile run. With my stats, I would burn around 1000 calories. And then I think "Man, I worked really hard today! I'm going to treat myself to Pizza Hut."

    So, I eat 3 slices of pizza, 2 breadsticks and 20 oz of regular Coke. Well, I just ate 1000 calories in one meal. This isn't even considering all of the other food I might eat in a day.

    So, yeah, if you aren't paying attention to your diet and getting some idea of how much you are taking IN, it can be really easy to "undo" any effects of exercise.
  • rcatr
    rcatr Posts: 374 Member
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    Sure. At the most basic level, if you aren't watching what you are eating it can be VERY easy to "out-eat" even pretty intense exercise even in just one mea. I just responded to a thread a few days where someone was talking about how many long-distance runners say they don't lose weight. Well, what I see is a lot of people (not so much on MFP) who say or seem to think "I'm training for a marathon so I can eat pretty much whatever I want."

    Uh.... no. At least not if weight loss is your goal. Here's a quick and dirty example.

    Let's say I go for a 2 hour run at a 10 min/mile pace. So, that would be a 12 mile run. With my stats, I would burn around 1000 calories. And then I think "Man, I worked really hard today! I'm going to treat myself to Pizza Hut."

    So, I eat 3 slices of pizza, 2 breadsticks and 20 oz of regular Coke. Well, I just ate 1000 calories in one meal. This isn't even considering all of the other food I might eat in a day.

    So, yeah, if you aren't paying attention to your diet and getting some idea of how much you are taking IN, it can be really easy to "undo" any effects of exercise.

    Totally agree. I lost weight when I was training for my first marathon but I know that I am the exception and not the norm. I just couldn't keep up with all the calories I was burning on long runs. Plus my mind was still in weight loss mode so I couldn't wrap my head around eating 2500-3000 calories on a 20mile run day, ya know?
    But most of my runner friends don't take into account all the gels, gatorade, bagels, etc on top of the food they hoover after our training runs and wonder why they're not dropping weight.
  • Behavior_Modification
    Behavior_Modification Posts: 24,482 Member
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    I vote that it is true.
  • juliefit
    juliefit Posts: 3
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    I'd like to add that it isn't just eating. I think it's important to maintain muscle mass. Most people, especially women, gain weight as they get older because they lose muscle mass. You can cut calories all you want, but your body is going to adjust to the decrease in calories. You have to keep challenging your body with exercise so it demands more calories.

    You take an AMAZING woman like Cammie Lusk that was stuck in her wheelchair with multiple sclerosis. She was eating under 900 calories a day because she was sedentary but she still kept gaining fat weight while losing muscle. When she started exercising (her husband helped her modify the program he was doing) she began building back her muscle mass which in turn meant her body NEEDED more calories and burned the fat it had been storing in a defensive mode.

    By the way, despite MS and the $20k motor wheelchair her doctor prescribed her she can sometimes walk unassisted now that she has her strength.

    This is mainly in the direction of people that ONLY cut calories and forget about the 20% exercise..

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