Why Dieting is the Worst Way to Lose Weight

Interesting!

- 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.

Most published diet plans, including WW (unless they've changed since I 'graduated'), even advocate NOT adding an exercise component for the first several weeks or months. The experts know that people get overwhelmed, people over-compensate for their exercise burn based on their perception of what it's 'worth' food-wise, and most of all-- people gain weight from a new exercise plan. I'm not saying they pack on the muscles but a lot of us, especially women, can hoard a lot of water in our cells and it makes the scale a ****ty indicator of progress, sometimes for a long time.

Most published diet plans also fail. Exercise is not at all necessary for weight loss. Exercise is beneficial to overall health. Resistance training in beneficial in LBM retention while in a calorie deficit. Carrdiovascular exercise is also beneficial in increasing TDEE so as to create a larger calorie intake while maintaining a deficit. These are all facts. There are other facts that could be added to this list. Arguing over what is exercise and what isnt is almost as bad as arguing over what counts as water. You nice folks carry on now, I am about to cook and eat all the food. Have a happy Thanksgiving everyone!

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Well that was a good read haha. I love seeing how passionate people get.
My opinion. Well I count calories. I use a deficit to lose weight. It's simple maths really.
I do exercise but for a purpose other then to just look good. I play a lot of competitive netball. In the off season I train (mixture cardio and strength) to keep up my fitness levels so I'm not having young 18 yr olds run rings around me at the start of the season. During the season I simply do netball training and and play, I drop the extra training because well I don't particularly like it or have the time for it. I do strength training purely to increase my jumping height and change of direction speed. I don't do it to get ripped or toned. I think if I didn't have a strong purpose to do this exercise I wouldn't bother. I know exactly where Siansonea is coming from. Sometimes you are just so busy with work and other commitments you want some time to just chill out and not worry. It simply comes down to what you want out of life. Some people want to be ripped, some people want to be super fit and accomplish amazing things, some people just want to be thin, some people exercise so they can eat that bit of ben and jerrys at the end of the day and some people want to have 10% body fat.
The one thing that irritates me about this site is that a lot of people "know" they are "right" and jump down each others throats if they don't think the exact some thing as someone else. Everyone is entitled to their opinions and what they enjoy to do. Don't get me wrong though...I do enjoy to have a read and a giggle at some of the witty remarks.

What are you asking me for? You know everything!

I don't, as you've pointed out. I'm new to this whole chores = exercise thing. I'm asking for your help since you've been so helpful to this point. I'm asking if you know how many calories I'll burn in an hour of picking up dog crap? No need for you to be condescending all of a sudden.

I suppose I could just wear my heart rate monitor and figure it out that way. But what about the calorie burn while I'm putting the heart rate monitor on? I'm assuming it is less than one calorie but I want to start counting every physical activity I do as exercise.

I certainly wouldn't want to take away any of your market share on being condescending.

And right on cue, there's a new MFP thread from someone with a laundry list of physical activity and no calorie counts, wondering why they aren't losing weight.

I use the counting calories method to lose weight. I also walk to improve my overall well being, but not necessarily to lose weight. I do not "eat back" the calories I burn by walking.

I'm not sure why this is so contentious.

To lose weight you need a calorie deficit. This can be achieved through diet alone, physical activity alone or a combination of of both. I think most people will favour the diet and activity approach simply because diet alone may need a sharper reduction in food intake than they are comfortable with and the activity only approach needs a significant time investment.

In addition I believe the general idea is that exercise is more beneficial for long term weight maintenance as opposed to weight loss, at least from what I remember. It's been sometime since I looked at the studies.

Thanks very much. I'm here all week.

Try the veal.

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Next I'll be hearing that farm work isn't "exercise", either.

No, that's just hard work and should be accounted for in your daily activity level. Still not exercise, but my opinion is wrong.

Does the human body know the difference between a calorie burned through exercise and one burned through "hard work"?

Exercise is beneficial to overall health.

Thanks for that tidbit. Who knew? And I thought we were talking about weight loss.

I'm assuming it is less than one calorie but I like to count everything I do.

That's good because guess what... your body counts everything you do, too.

Or are we talking about 'eating back' here? I didn't think so.

Are you this unpleasant in real life too? Or just on the interwebs?

Ah, more gymrat/"nutrition" evangelism. Fail. :huh:

I lost weight through a calorie deficit, eating "dirty" food, with ZERO exercise, and I look amazing. So this author can take a flying leap. :smokin:

looks amazing but no profile pic posted...hmmmmm

Exactly. Doesn't really add up or make sense.

She posted a full body shot.

She's smokin' hot.

I agree, it is a hot picture. However, a current one, not one from 2005, would have made a little more sense and probably eliminated a great deal of the arguing in this thread.

Ah, more gymrat/"nutrition" evangelism. Fail. :huh:

I lost weight through a calorie deficit, eating "dirty" food, with ZERO exercise, and I look amazing. So this author can take a flying leap. :smokin:

looks amazing but no profile pic posted...hmmmmm

Exactly. Doesn't really add up or make sense.

She posted a full body shot.

She's smokin' hot.

I agree, it is a hot picture. However, a current one, not one from 2005, would have made a little more sense and probably eliminated a great deal of the arguing in this thread.

No it wouldn't have, though I did notice that that particular chain of comment dried up rather quickly. Fact is I don't have any really recent photos of myself where you can see my shape, because, well, I don't really have any reason to go around having photos taken of my shape. If I was working on a cosplay project, I'd probably have some photos, but alas and alack, I don't. And I knew this would be an issue, I even mentioned it in my "what's the point of posting photos" diatribe. Photos don't "prove" anything, and we all have to trust that we're representing ourselves honestly regardless of the photographic evidence.

The bottom line is if somebody really wants to disagree with you and discredit what you say, no amount of photographic "evidence" will satisfy them, they'll simply disavow it.