What the *&^%?? Why EVEN EXERCISE?

someone else probably already said but you don't need to exercise to lose weight, infact exercise can contribute to an increase in weight through water retention and muscle gain.

A) Exercise increases your fitness which makes you healthier on the inside and increases muscle mass and makes your body more efficient thats why you exercise, also the ability to burn off body fat with diet alone is probably almost zero

Exercise keeps the blood flowing, the heart rate pumping, and uses up muscles the old addage if you dont use it you will lose it.

C) Exercise will tone your body, diet cannot do this

IMO you shouldn't be eating 1200 for more then a very brief period unless you are obese or very overweight and have lots of fat to burn and even then it's still not adviseable. (If a doctor told you to then yeah ok) But the only thing doing that will do is force your body to hold onto every scrap of energy it can or decrease your motabolism so you dont need as much energy, and lastly you will cannibalise muscle guarenteed.

Eat around 1600.

lastly you don't need to eat back exercise calories you should however eat so you are holding onto atleast your Basal Metabolic Rate needs which depends on your age height and weight but on average is around 1600-1800 calories a day.

To keep things manageable and not starve yourself too much just have half your deficit coming from food intake and the other half from exercise.

When you log exercise into MFP it gives you calories you can eat back to keep the same weight loss you would've if you hadn't exercised and also adds back probable nutrients lost ie Protein, Fats etc. will have an increased allowance.

Least thats my take, i'll probably get flamed but it has worked for me for 6 months now
Eat around 1600-2000 calories with a goal of 1Kg a week

Lastly in order to lose 1Kg a week which wont happen every week just on average over time, you need a deficit of 7000 calories a week however that deficit comes you will lose the weight but exercise will make it easier and make you look better in the end not to mention all the health benefits.

Cardio vascular excercise

Mood lifter

Toner

Muscle strengthener


Makes the body a more efficient fat burning machine. Ive tried EVERY shortcut known to the dieting community and in my 52nd year have had a bit of an ephiphany its diet and excercise that get the job done its really simple

You can lose weight through dieting alone but OMG it is much quicker and dare I say enjoyable combining the two.

I gained a ridiculous amount of weight following the death of my husband and daughter in a three year period... I have lost 13.5 stone! since 2007. I would always plateau without the benefit of excercise become demoralised comfort eat and so it went viscious circle. It wasnt until I purchased a bike and ear plugs to obliterate abuse I received from passing motorists ! ( No really! damned if you do damned if you dont! ) That my weight loss went into overdrive

As other contributors have said in this thread you are already on a reduced calorie intake so enjoy the excercise - enjoy the extra food - enjoy the subsequent weight loss.



Julie

diet will make you look good.

exercise will make you look good NAKED!

aside from that, who wants to be skinny and unhealthy?

I totally agree, it is totally possible to be a super skinny model and still be classed as obese as their BMI could be up towards the 30 if not already in the 30! Most models do not exercise and rely on starvation alone, but are they healthy and do you really think that they have a body to die for?

I don't!

When I complete a workout, its like okay, now I HAVE to eat 2000 calories? Isn’t this defeating the whole purpose of me working out? Don’t I work out for the sake of the calorie deficit?

Sometimes I go on long, half day hikes and burn off 2,000 calories. I eat normally when I get home and don't eat all my exercise calories back. I'm a 5'3" woman and can't eat a whole extra day's worth of food by the end of the day, especially after being outside in the summer heat. Trying to stuff my body when I genuinely can't eat would make me sick.

I'm not going to deny myself the enjoyment of a hike because I don't want to eat a giant meal at the end. I eat my exercise calories back if I'm hungry, and if not, I don't eat them all back. I don't believe in forcing myself to eat when I don't want food -- and also don't force myself to go without food when I'm hungry.

A lot of my exercise numbers are best guesses anyway since I don't own a Fitbit, HRM or other devices. I don't really know how fast I walk, for example.

Its been a hard road but...

Whenever I see someone overweight I always wonder what led them to that point....

It is rarely as simple as they have no willpower and are lazy.

Thankyou so much for your kind words

To lose weight- you just need a deficit. I did not do any exercise and still lost weight ate 1200/1300 cals( sometimes even 1300-1500).
I was extremely sedentary- just going to school and back home and focused on my school work, I did not want to exercise either.
You don't have to exercise if you dont want to but it will affect you. Exercise is great for CV health and if you're adding in strength training, you will end up strong and fit. Eat back your calories so it makes your deficit not so high and so it wont negatively affect your metabolism or your body in general. Let's say I burned 1000 cals, I should eat back 500, because you only need an average deficit of 500 to lose a pound per week (half a pound is a lot more realistic to achieve since this isn't a short term thing...there's no need to rush in this new and healthy lifestyle) Goodluck!!

So you can eat more.

bump

I don't always eat back all of my exercise calories, but it is not unusual for me to eat back some or even most of them. If I eat too little and exercise hard, after a few days my body feels awful. It's important to listen to your body (only not listen to it when it tells you to eat massive amounts of really bad stuff...lol)

If you start at 1200 and after exercise, you now have 2000 calories, it sounds like you're burning roughly 800 calories in exercise… am I getting that right?

So imagine telling someone who wasn't exercising to eat 400-600 calories a day. Most people would say this sounds like a bad idea. But burning 600-800 calories in exercise and then only eating 1200 is pretty much the same thing, because it's leaving that little amount for all your body processes -- heart beating, breathing, kidneys and liver, immune system, etc.

If you don't like the idea of eating back calories, I would suggest going to one of the TDEE calculators (you can google TDEE calculator) and entering in all of your stats. Include how often you exercise in your activity level (this is where the big difference comes from - MFP doesn't include exercise and adds it back in after, most TDEE calculators add it in before and you don't "eat them back") and set it for 15% to 20% reduction. It'll probably give you something around 1600-1800 calories (just a guess). Then go to your settings and do custom goals, and enter that in as your calorie goal, and feel free to ignore your exercise calories!! :flowerforyou:

that's not true. your body gets it's energy at that point from stored fat. if you're a pro athlete with no fat stores what you say would be true but for most of us we have ample fuel for our body. the 1200 rule is for nutrients. they say it's very hard to get all the nutrients we need below that number. If you've eaten that amount not eating your exercise calories back is not a big deal at all. Especially for people whose daily needs aren't that high anyway.

someone else probably already said but you don't need to exercise to lose weight, infact exercise can contribute to an increase in weight through water retention and muscle gain.

A) Exercise increases your fitness which makes you healthier on the inside and increases muscle mass and makes your body more efficient thats why you exercise, also the ability to burn off body fat with diet alone is probably almost zero

Exercise keeps the blood flowing, the heart rate pumping, and uses up muscles the old addage if you dont use it you will lose it.

C) Exercise will tone your body, diet cannot do this

IMO you shouldn't be eating 1200 for more then a very brief period unless you are obese or very overweight and have lots of fat to burn and even then it's still not adviseable. (If a doctor told you to then yeah ok) But the only thing doing that will do is force your body to hold onto every scrap of energy it can or decrease your motabolism so you dont need as much energy, and lastly you will cannibalise muscle guarenteed.

Eat around 1600.

lastly you don't need to eat back exercise calories you should however eat so you are holding onto atleast your Basal Metabolic Rate needs which depends on your age height and weight but on average is around 1600-1800 calories a day.

To keep things manageable and not starve yourself too much just have half your deficit coming from food intake and the other half from exercise.

When you log exercise into MFP it gives you calories you can eat back to keep the same weight loss you would've if you hadn't exercised and also adds back probable nutrients lost ie Protein, Fats etc. will have an increased allowance.

Least thats my take, i'll probably get flamed but it has worked for me for 6 months now
Eat around 1600-2000 calories with a goal of 1Kg a week

Lastly in order to lose 1Kg a week which wont happen every week just on average over time, you need a deficit of 7000 calories a week however that deficit comes you will lose the weight but exercise will make it easier and make you look better in the end not to mention all the health benefits.

those numbers may be true for you but they're definitely not true for everyone. When I reach my goal weight my MAINTENANCE calories will only be about 1500

Because eating a low-calorie diet sucks, and with exercise I can eat a normal-calorie diet and still lose weight. Also, all of the additional benefits of exercise like increased cardiovascular fitness, increased neurogenesis, lower stress level, etc.

What she said

Bump for future reading

quick point of order - the body doesn't technically get its stored energy from fat, it gets it from glycogen stored in the liver. in times of stress, the body will break down fat (and muscle) to replenish the glycogen store if it's severely depleted, but the body will (as its first and preferred) option replenish that with recently ingested calories because thats an easy process, and breaking down the body to fuel itself is a difficult one.

Imagine you need a single nail, and you've got 1,000,000 nails stored high in your attic in sealed boxes - but you also live next to a nail shop doing a super saver buy-one-get-ten-free offer. Thats what the body in the western world is largely dealing with on a day to day basis, it's no wonder we keep collecting nails even when we don't need them. Metophorically.

No, the body will break down stored triglycerides in a fasted state. That's part of the role of glucagon. Skeletal muscle isn't broken down until the later stages of fasting when gluconeogenesis is ramped up, but in the very late stages of fasting/early starvation that actually decreases as ketone production replaces the amino acid role in providing substrate for the Krebs cycle. Fatty acids are an excellent energy source as long as oxygen is available because they are inexpensive to break down and yield a great deal of energy. After a meal this doesn't happen, but that's only for the hour or so that insulin is elevated. It's called the Randle Cycle.

P.S. OP: Exercise and healthy diet can help prevent obesity, diabetes, heart disease...why wouldn't you want to do the one thing that can keep you this healthy??

WHAT is the point of exercising, if I’m going to be forced to eat all my calories back?

Ummmm....maybe fitness.

Diet for weight control; exercise for fitness. You can lose weight with diet alone...but you'll look a lot better in the end if you exercise. Exercise reshapes your body...and has many, numerous health benefits as well.