True or False: 80% diet & 205 Exercise for weight loss?

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Replies

  • levitateme
    levitateme Posts: 999 Member
    I forgot to mention wouldent gaining lean muscle play into affect that the 20% exersize rule is true? If you just diet without excersize including weight lifting sure you will lose weight, but you will eventually just be "skinny fat"


    If your in a calorie deficit to lose weight then you are not going to gain any substantial muscle, but working out will help you maintain what lean muscle mass you currently have....

    Well I hope this is the case and I will continue to lift. I know under this fat is a buff guy, I know I am good in the strength department.

    You will gain strength, but if you are eating a deficit lifting will just help you to retain some of your lean muscle.

    Example from my life that I find interesting: My boyfriend and I have been lifting heavy weights together since March. I have been eating between maintenance/surplus during this time and he has been eating at a large deficit. He has lost 17 lbs since we started and I have gained 6. We had our BF% measured and I found out that I gained 5 lbs of lean body mass. He lost 6 lbs of lean body mass (the rest was fat). No matter what, in weight loss and with a deficit, you are losing muscle. Exercise can help retain some of it, but you won't gain any unless you are eating a surplus.
  • Atrocity108
    Atrocity108 Posts: 328 Member
    I go with the Rock's take on this type of situation. Its 90% diet, 10% work out. You have to fuel your body correctly, but you wont get the best result unless you work hard along with your diet.
  • snowflake930
    snowflake930 Posts: 2,188 Member
    Congratulations to you so far! The number of pounds will probably slow down.
    I lost 90# before I even began to walk more. So for many of us, it is about eating at a calorie deficit.
    Exercise is really beneficial though, so it is important for your overall health.
  • liekewheeless
    liekewheeless Posts: 416 Member
    I don't see it as a percentage.

    I see exercise as part of my "diet". I calculate how much I can/should eat based on my activities (including exercise).
  • Well, if you change the title to physically fit, then its impossible without exercise, and exercise is the overwhelming percentage. But there is no percent "rule" in general, no. Intake is almost always the biggest impact on weight, (and almost always underestimated) and weight can be reduced without any exercise, but its not optimal, or even reasonable for most to do that.

    Its dangerous to say this for most people, but if your diet is good and controlled, and you can just mildly uptick your eating with large caloric burn days or keep it the same, and you can lose weight that way too, making large exercise burn days the "leader" for weight loss, and you can rationalize "100% from exercise". But you have to be able to burn large amounts of calories for hours of exercise, and the less you weigh and the less muscle you have, the harder this is to do, and the easier it is to fall into the over estimate exercise burn trap. I switch back and forth between total calorie/daily deficit method and staying more in a maintenance mode while eating 1/3rd of 1400-3000+ cal burn days back. But, without staying in at least a low maintenance number of calories between, it wont work, so you can claim its "100% diet" again.

    All this means to me is its not one or the other, but a balance that is important. I don't ever consider weight loss without exercise, since I know that is like quitting drinking to excess, but not smoking, considering the size of benefits to you on a quest for "health". Unlike quitting smoking and drinking together, weight loss and exercise go hand in hand and are easy to do together, almost everyone can do 15-20 mins/day average, and if not, 5 mins/day still has significant benefits, and everyone can do that (barring some physical issue). Why leave low hanging fruit for your health?
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
    It really depends on the person. For me, the more I exercise, the smarter I eat, and the easier it is to eat smart. So in practical terms my weight loss is nearly 100% from exercise.

    But everybody is different....

    I have to disagree. If it was 100% from exercise, would that not imply that you could eat whatever you want?

    There is theory, and there is practice. Read what I said again - or let me rephrase: "The only way I can consistently maintain a caloric deficit is by being physically active - ie, exercising."

    That is why my weight loss is 100% dependent on exercise.

    YMMV, etc.
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  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    Weight control in general...whether you want to lose, maintain, or gain is all about consumption. Your consumption should be at an appropriate level for you activity (and other stats) and minor adjustments made to either lose, maintain, or gain as applicable.

    One aspect of exercise that is highly beneficial to weight loss though...at least for me...was dietary adherence. Without any exercise I was only allotted a mere 1800ish calories as per my loss goals...regular physical exercise bumped that number up to around 2200 - 2300 which was much more doable and I found dietary adherence to be pretty easy at that point.
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  • For me, it's more like 40/60. While calories are all that count for weight loss, I CANNOT stick to my calorie goals unless I'm also exercising.

    Exercising helps to stabilize blood sugar levels so that I don't dive headfirst into every dessert that I see. It also keeps me busy so that I don't overeat out of boredom.

    I graphed out my daily calories vs. exercise over a three month period, and there was a clear association. I try to eat within a calorie range of 1200-1600 calories per day. Every day that I exercised, my calories were near 1200. Every day that I didn't exercise, the calories were 1600-1800. (And that was WITHOUT figuring in any calories burned during the exercise!)
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  • Kalikel
    Kalikel Posts: 9,603 Member
    It's a matter of burning more calories than you eat. The loss comes from both. :)

    If it works for you to view it as 100% diet or 80% diet or 0% diet....doesn't matter.

    As long as you use up more than you take in, you lose.
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  • nicsflyingcircus
    nicsflyingcircus Posts: 2,838 Member
    65lbs lost, 100% diet.

    I am trying to get more active, but nothing you could define as exercise as of yet.
  • _Terrapin_
    _Terrapin_ Posts: 4,301 Member
    I am a poster girl for the fact that you can't out exercises a poor diet. I exercise a lot but my diet is not as clean as it should be and I am definitely not losing weight, maintaining, yes, losing, no. It is 100% what you eat. Wish it was different but alas...

    On that note, not eating clean has nothing to do with it. It's not what you eat...it's how much you eat.

    QFT!!!! He is on a Roll....... :drinker:

    Hornsby's nickname. . . . .Tootsie.
  • mhlew
    mhlew Posts: 377 Member
    For me, it's more like 40/60. While calories are all that count for weight loss, I CANNOT stick to my calorie goals unless I'm also exercising.

    Exercising helps to stabilize blood sugar levels so that I don't dive headfirst into every dessert that I see. It also keeps me busy so that I don't overeat out of boredom.

    I graphed out my daily calories vs. exercise over a three month period, and there was a clear association. I try to eat within a calorie range of 1200-1600 calories per day. Every day that I exercised, my calories were near 1200. Every day that I didn't exercise, the calories were 1600-1800.



    I concur. I can't stick to a diet if I'm not exercising. Working out is what gives me the energy to feel good and actually use the calories that I'm getting for my workouts. It helps replenish me. Without working out, I'm too tired and sluggish, and my brain wants extra carbs and calories for energy. The only thing that can cure that is exercise. Instead of going by pct, let's say fat loss is 100 percent diet/exercise.



    Totally agree. I eat much better when I excersize and am likely not to stick to my diet if I don't excersize regularly. To me they go hand in hand
  • mstripes
    mstripes Posts: 151 Member
    Solidly in the camp of FALSE but do not agree that it is because of the percentage. Sure you can lose weight by diet alone, many folks do and most of them gain back a portion of their loss within a year. Exercise is critical to weightloss success. I lost and kept off my first 50 pounds with minor tweaks to what i ate, more lifestyle changes than a diet, from exercise. I've lost the last 35 by using MFP along with exercise. Just exercising made me want to eat better to fuel my activity. Now I exercise so that I can eat and still lose weight, slowly.

    I want to ride my bike faster uphill more than I want a bucket of ice cream or other calorie dense food or snack. For me athletic performance is motivation for keeping close to my calorie goals. Without the exercise frankly my health would be way worse and I would not be sticking to any diet for long.
  • Tessiek613
    Tessiek613 Posts: 11 Member
    I do diet.... Watching my calorie intake, but excercise is not crazy for me. I excercise about a half hour every day. I'm seeing great progress doing this, I've been on my journey for 7 weeks and have lost 22 lbs!
  • Cc215
    Cc215 Posts: 228 Member
    In my head - weight loss is 100% diet. I do the exercise stuff the way I do for the health benefits. That includes my mental health - sticking to the calorie limit I have if sedentary would drive me completely insane!!
  • Jetta_C
    Jetta_C Posts: 58
    That has certainly been true for me. Exercise lets me eat a little more, at a given weight, than I might otherwise but diet is what moves the scale down. My body is particularly sensitive to over-exercising, especially cardio, and it always makes me gain weight, probably through a combination of inflammation and my appetite increasing.
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