Why Dieting is the Worst Way to Lose Weight

My opinion, not exercise. I am entitled to it just as those of you who feel that cleaning the house, raking leaves, shoveling snow, etc., are entitled to yours.

Are those things better than nothing at all, absolutely. Do you want to yell at me for not calling every kid who simply participates in a sport a "winner" too? Sometimes your efforts just are not good enough. Deal with it, that is life.

You've never really shoveled snow before, have you?

I live in a desert, sweet pea. What gave you that idea?

Saying shoveling snow isn't exercise was a tip off....

Shovelling snow is a hell of a workout.

Using an unmotorized push mower on an acre of grass is also a heck of a workout.

Anybody who feels otherwise is welcome to visit my acreage and try it for themselves.

My opinion, not exercise. I am entitled to it just as those of you who feel that cleaning the house, raking leaves, shoveling snow, etc., are entitled to yours.

Are those things better than nothing at all, absolutely. Do you want to yell at me for not calling every kid who simply participates in a sport a "winner" too? Sometimes your efforts just are not good enough. Deal with it, that is life.

You've never really shoveled snow before, have you?

I live in a desert, sweet pea. What gave you that idea?

My opinion, not exercise. I am entitled to it just as those of you who feel that cleaning the house, raking leaves, shoveling snow, etc., are entitled to yours.

Are those things better than nothing at all, absolutely. Do you want to yell at me for not calling every kid who simply participates in a sport a "winner" too? Sometimes your efforts just are not good enough. Deal with it, that is life.

You've never really shoveled snow before, have you?

I live in a desert, sweet pea. What gave you that idea?

Saying shoveling snow isn't exercise was a tip off....

Oh, alarming, is it? Well, not as alarming as telling someone who is not losing weight to just eat more calories until they start losing (hint: if you're not losing weight, the problem isn't that you're eating too few calories, it's that you're not counting input and output properly, but whatever, details, right?).

Here's the thing. Not everyone who sets out to lose weight is a chipper, perky little dynamo with willpower to spare, who is eager to make a suite of drastic lifestyle changes all at once. Some of us have really demanding jobs and social lives that don't really make a lot of room for a complete diet overhaul, a stringent workout regimen, and oh, by the way, if you can spare a few moments to track your calories and eat at a deficit it might help. The calorie deficit is pooh-poohed, downplayed, marginalized and dismissed around here, but it is literally the ONLY thing you HAVE to do in order to LOSE WEIGHT. I know this, because it's the ONLY thing I did. And I'm a half pound away from my goal weight.

Yeah, exercise is fine for health or whatever. Fitness, strength, all that jazz. But that's really not about losing weight. I mean, I seem to have lost weight as rapidly as any gymrat around here, and I feel perfectly fine. If I wanted to, now that I'm close to maintenance, I could start to introduce a little exercise into my life, and I might try yoga or something. But that's a separate goal from losing weight, and I figured that it would be better to accomplish one feat before tackling another. And honestly, I don't think I need a whole heck of a lot of toning, I'm pretty fortunate that my everyday activity keeps me at least somewhat toned.

So yeah, judge us lazy calorie counters all you want. We're laughing all the way to the scale. :drinker:

Yeah, that's fine, but they're still getting exercise. Clearly it's not enough to offset the other issues, and as everyone knows, you don't get fat because you don't exercise, you get fat because you eat more calories than you expend through all activity—metabolism, brain function and physical activity (a.k.a. EXERCISE).

You are right here, and ANY moderately vigorous physical activity 150 minutes per week (like just plain walking) has been shown to significantly reduce serious health risks. However you always come off as poo-pooing exercise as the takeaway in your posts. Looks like from your posts about being "toned" from your activities, the fact of the matter is you essentially DO this advice for exercise, but you dont do it for the purpose of "exercise", and you dont like to be told you should exercise. But that's no reason to tell newbies not to exercise, especially when it sounds like you actually DO exercise. It sounds as though its your personal bias and resistance to being told to exercise that's speaking.

K.

Point is, exercise isn't the magic bullet for WEIGHT LOSS that people make it out to be. I've never gainsaid the fact that exercise has health benefits. Duh. But for WEIGHT LOSS it is NOT essential. People need to understand that, because if they can only do one thing, and one thing only, to lose weight, it should NOT be exercise. Because if they don't have a calorie deficit, they won't lose weight. And if they lose weight, the health benefit from not being obese is way more significant than just a slight cardiovascular/toning benefit to a person who is STILL OBESE. Capisce? :huh:

The first thing someone usually thinks is dieting (restricting calories) can cause you to lose weight. You are beating a dead horse to tell them you don't need to exercise to lose weight. So its kind of "Obvious(wo)man to the rescue!", but gives the impression exercise isn't important. Whereas advice that exercise can help them is not as well established. Its also very rare that someone will go "OK so I'll either watch my calories or exercise", and if they do, of course that's obviously wrong for weight loss.

I don't see people saying exercise is the "magic bullet" for weight loss and you don't need to look at calories, but that its an additional help, which it is. There is even a group of people who can be kind of "fit fat", people who can be overweight significantly but exercise regularly and have similar reduced chances of disease and diabetes as people who are not overweight. So yes, if your argument is that hypothetical scenario that someone does only one, which is extremely unlikely, just getting fit could definitely help them, though it may not be the overall goal, the benefit is not slight (unless the exercise is slight), and they look down at the scale and come back to ask more questions (I bet you've never seen a "why am I not losing weight" topic....). Yeah, I get that you don't like exercise. Just as nobody needs to tell you to have to exercise, you don't need to always tell everyone to dismiss exercise, but you do.

The reason I always stress the calorie deficit is because it is the most important thing, the sine qua non of weight loss.

The reason I always stress the calorie deficit is because it is the most important thing, the sine qua non of weight loss.

She made a true true. If you believe in science, like me, the golden rule of physics is 'energy is not created nor destroyed it is transferred'. Therefore if you eat the same energy as you use you don't lose weight. If you eat more energy than you use, you gain weight. If you eat less energy than you use you lose weight Simples.

I love science.

- the best advice for most people struggling with weight loss is to ignore everything and focus on logging/eating at a caloric deficit. Forget exercise, forget everything else.