Calorie Counting Vs Exercise
Replies
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And this gets flagged, lol.OP, it happens a lot here - people ask others what they do and the responses tell the OP what he/she should do. People think you want to know what you should do. Even when the OP is very specific about asking others what they do, it still happens.
It's not that people are trying to be rude or unhelpful. They're trying to help. They just don't read things for literal meaning.
I don't know who felt offended, but there was no hidden insult there. Just pointing out that people were trying to be helpful so the OP wouldn't think it was her(him?).
So, please don't take offense that wasn't stated (or intended), peeps!
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A calorie is a unit of energy...weight control is all about energy balance. If you consume more energy than your body requires and can be used, then it has to be stored...this stored energy is body fat.
When you consume less energy than your body requires, your body has to dip into energy stores to make up the difference...again, your body fat.
Exercise is not required to lose weight; however, it does make weight loss and weight control in general easier because regular exercise increases your energy requirements...thus you can eat more and achieve the same goals. In the case of dieting, you thus don't have to starve yourself.
You eat a balance of energy and you maintain.
I would also add that there are numerous other health benefits to exercise...in general, it just makes your body work better and keeps everything in balance...which probably makes weight control easier as well.
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Weight loss is due to hormones. If you want to lose weight, ensure that your hormones are efficiently working. Everyone has a different set point for their metabolism. This is based on age, gender, dietary habits, etc. Someone that has been active their entire life, has eaten very well, and is in great shape will probably have a higher set point for their metabolism, allowing them to eat far more calories than someone who has eaten unhealthy their entire lives, is inactive, and just getting started into working out.
This is why two people who are both the same height, weight, and activity levels might also lose at different rates. It all depends on their hormones and the bodies ability to convert food into energy.
I have my clients count their calories as a tool to know how much they are consuming and to make adjustments based on their results or lack thereof. Knowing that everyone has a different metabolic set point, it is beneficial to know at what caloric range of consumption is ideal for the most significant fat loss (not weight loss). This number will also change over time due to the changes in activity level, the increase of hormone production, and dietary changes.
Keeping track of your calories is beneficial to understand when you are over consuming on calories and when you are under consuming. For example, when you under consume on calories, your body will eventually lower the metabolic set point to compensate for a low calorie diet. This is why when following a low calorie diet you might start losing a great deal of weight, but then plateau and it becomes extremely difficult to lose further weight and you body also begins to break down muscle for energy instead of body fat. When you begin to increase your caloric intake again, your set point is lower so now your body sees you are over consuming calories and you will begin storing body fat once more.
The body can certainly increase the metabolic set point by increasing the quality of food ingested and increasing physical activity. So yes, you will need to not only track your calories on a daily basis to find your set point, but also to determine how to improve your metabolic functions through proper nutrition and exercise. Hydration, fiber rich foods, and daily exercise are all key factors to increasing your hormone production to drop body fat.
To simplify this a bit further, if you want to lose weight, you need to eat more, not less...and exercise regularly. Eating more does not mean eating whatever you want, it means eating more fiber and nutrient dense foods that will contribute to the increase of your metabolic set point. One of the most common comments my clients make is that they are "eating so much food and still losing weight". Most of whom are losing around 3-4 pounds or more per week. Not by starving themselves, but by eating more.-1 -
MystifiedFluff wrote: »The cause is consuming too many calories than is needed to maintain. They should focus on consuming fewer calories than they burn to lose weight.
1) Burn 2500 calories without exercise: eat 2000 calories and lose weight.
2) Burn 2500 calories without exercise: eat 2500 calories and exercise (probably way too much) to burn an average of 3000 calories.
3) Burn 2800 calories with a normal amount of consistent exercise: eat 2240 calories and lose weight.
Each instance is the same caloric deficit (20%) and should yield about the same rate of weight loss.
Ah, but I'm talking more about looking at the gaps in lifestyle than exact calories, but you aren't far off what I mean. Based on my theory, if someone who eats healthy, but is sedentary should look to activity and exercise as the most effective weight loss option before cutting a few calories out of an already good diet. A person who is inhaling donuts left and right, but is active daily (let's say a waitress at a coffee shop that has unlimited free donuts for employees to keep it simple and fun) might want to consider the calories in said donut before hopping onto a treadmill. I'm looking at it as what is the highest delta - is there a bigger difference between current diet and healthy diet or current activity/exercise and what is considered active (aka the 10K steps daily or 30+ mins exercise recommendation we always hear about) and if focusing on that higher delta results in higher losses.
I had a pretty healthy and balanced diet before I started losing weight. I've been a vegetarian for 5 years, and I've never been a picky eater, so I've always eaten plenty of whole foods and veggies and have never been a huge fan of "junk" food. I also led a very sedentary lifestyle.
I ended up approximately 80 pounds overweight that way. It took several years, but it happened. When I joined MFP, the first thing I did was cut my calories. I gradually added in exercise (mostly circuit training 30 minutes a day 4-5 days a week), but nothing crazy. I didn't overhaul my diet, and I still eat all the same foods I enjoyed when I was at my heaviest. Now, I simply eat what I like at a reasonable calorie deficit, and I try to stay moderately active.
I agree that you can lose weight one of three ways - lower your intake, increase your activity level, or a combination of the two - and all of those three ways create a calorie deficit. I can't say whether one method definitely works better than the others because I've always done both. But personally, I certainly wouldn't try to lose weight through activity alone, because creating large calorie burns takes a lot of intensity/time, and it's way too easy for me to out-eat any exercise I might do. Simply cutting calories also wouldn't be optimal for me because eating plenty of food and improving my body composition is just as important to me as achieving a healthy weight.
I think it's important to keep in mind not just which approach will take the weight off, but what will keep it off forever. The sustainability factor can make or break long-term success.
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facts are: everyone's body reacts differently
I have thyroid disease, anemia, sleep apnea, and other health issues, however, this didn't stop me from losing weight.
facts for me:- stopped drinking diet drinks lost 20 pounds in 1.5 months
- started eating healthy lost 20 more pounds in two more months
- started working out along with eating healthy lost an additional 75 pounds less than a year's time
Thus, for me, I needed to combine the nutrition with the exercise to really make a difference.0 -
I've lost 10lbs with zero exercise. Another 10ish to. I became overweight by eating too much, I have lost it by eating less.0
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Well in each case you consumed fewer calories. Cutting out pop/etc saved you potentially hundreds of calories per day/week depending on your frequency of consumption. "Eating healthy" likely resulted in cutting out a lot of calorie-dense foods, thus you started eating fewer calories without needing to track consumption. And adding in exercise - assuming you ate the same amount as in the 2nd scenario - increased your energy needs, and thus you wound up by default having an even larger deficit.sweetcurlz67 wrote: »facts are: everyone's body reacts differently
I have thyroid disease, anemia, sleep apnea, and other health issues, however, this didn't stop me from losing weight.
facts for me:- stopped drinking diet drinks lost 20 pounds in 1.5 months
- started eating healthy lost 20 more pounds in two more months
- started working out along with eating healthy lost an additional 75 pounds less than a year's time
Thus, for me, I needed to combine the nutrition with the exercise to really make a difference.
So you didn't need to do both, you just needed a calorie deficit. Which you created by utilizing both diet and exercise. Although I do not personally suggest trying to use exercise to make the deficit bigger, only to increase fitness and to increase how much food you can eat while still losing the same amount of weight you would without exercise.
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weightlosstrainer wrote: »Weight loss is due to hormones. If you want to lose weight, ensure that your hormones are efficiently working. Everyone has a different set point for their metabolism. This is based on age, gender, dietary habits, etc. Someone that has been active their entire life, has eaten very well, and is in great shape will probably have a higher set point for their metabolism, allowing them to eat far more calories than someone who has eaten unhealthy their entire lives, is inactive, and just getting started into working out.
This is why two people who are both the same height, weight, and activity levels might also lose at different rates. It all depends on their hormones and the bodies ability to convert food into energy.
I have my clients count their calories as a tool to know how much they are consuming and to make adjustments based on their results or lack thereof. Knowing that everyone has a different metabolic set point, it is beneficial to know at what caloric range of consumption is ideal for the most significant fat loss (not weight loss). This number will also change over time due to the changes in activity level, the increase of hormone production, and dietary changes.
Keeping track of your calories is beneficial to understand when you are over consuming on calories and when you are under consuming. For example, when you under consume on calories, your body will eventually lower the metabolic set point to compensate for a low calorie diet. This is why when following a low calorie diet you might start losing a great deal of weight, but then plateau and it becomes extremely difficult to lose further weight and you body also begins to break down muscle for energy instead of body fat. When you begin to increase your caloric intake again, your set point is lower so now your body sees you are over consuming calories and you will begin storing body fat once more.
The body can certainly increase the metabolic set point by increasing the quality of food ingested and increasing physical activity. So yes, you will need to not only track your calories on a daily basis to find your set point, but also to determine how to improve your metabolic functions through proper nutrition and exercise. Hydration, fiber rich foods, and daily exercise are all key factors to increasing your hormone production to drop body fat.
To simplify this a bit further, if you want to lose weight, you need to eat more, not less...and exercise regularly. Eating more does not mean eating whatever you want, it means eating more fiber and nutrient dense foods that will contribute to the increase of your metabolic set point. One of the most common comments my clients make is that they are "eating so much food and still losing weight". Most of whom are losing around 3-4 pounds or more per week. Not by starving themselves, but by eating more.
Wow what a load of broscience.
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Wow what a load of broscience.
Exactly what do you mean by this? I am going to assume that you either didn't read a single thing that was written, haven't done your own research or made an overall encompassing judgment based on either my photo or your own insecurity. This is actual research, not "broscience". If you disagree with it, why not post your in-depth rebuttal as to why instead of arrogantly and incorrectly labeling something as stupid as "a load of broscience" for whatever the reason you came up with. I do not subscribe to the whole "bro" mentality, in fact, I am far from it...so for someone to make this general and outright incorrect assessment is just asinine and presumptuous.0 -
weightlosstrainer wrote: »
Wow what a load of broscience.
Exactly what do you mean by this? I am going to assume that you either didn't read a single thing that was written, haven't done your own research or made an overall encompassing judgment based on either my photo or your own insecurity. This is actual research, not "broscience". If you disagree with it, why not post your in-depth rebuttal as to why instead of arrogantly and incorrectly labeling something as stupid as "a load of broscience" for whatever the reason you came up with. I do not subscribe to the whole "bro" mentality, in fact, I am far from it...so for someone to make this general and outright incorrect assessment is just asinine and presumptuous.
Fwiw, I agree with you. I find eating more and exercising more helps me to lose weight. I used to have the mindset that I needed to eat 1200 calories to lose. I did lose (how can you not) but not that quickly, then when I increased to 1500, I lost at a faster rate and my body composition seemed to change. I think I needed to eat that bit more to make the strength training I was doing more effective.
I'm losing weight after my third baby, and trying not to fall into the lower calorie mindset again.
I hate it when people dismiss things as 'broscience' just because they don't agree with it!
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weightlosstrainer wrote: »Exactly what do you mean by this? I am going to assume that you either didn't read a single thing that was written, haven't done your own research or made an overall encompassing judgment based on either my photo or your own insecurity. This is actual research, not "broscience". If you disagree with it, why not post your in-depth rebuttal as to why instead of arrogantly and incorrectly labeling something as stupid as "a load of broscience" for whatever the reason you came up with. I do not subscribe to the whole "bro" mentality, in fact, I am far from it...so for someone to make this general and outright incorrect assessment is just asinine and presumptuous.
Actual research has citations. This is just a lot of opinions.
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It seems like everyone is making this much more complicated than it needs to be....the fact is it's all about mathematics. It's what you put in your body vs. what you put out. If C is calories you eat, E is calories burned in exercise, B is your bmr, D is your calorie deficit and 1lbs = 3500 calories, then you just have to find the right combination of numbers to fit the equation...
B - (C-E) = D
e.g. 1800 - (1600-300) = 500
3500/D = # of days to lose 1 lbs.
e.g. 3500/500 = 7 days
Even if you don't exercise, if you eat less than your BMR, you'll lose weight. You will just lose weight faster if you add in an extra activity that has a high calorie burn rate. It's pretty straight forward.0 -
MystifiedFluff wrote: »StaciMarie1974 wrote: »But your lifestyle, tendencies, etc. will dictate what you need to focus on.
Precisely my point! I want to know if those who gained a certain way have better luck losing it a certain way. Yet many people are just spouting off the same old 'calories in < calories out' which IS true, but not as clear cut as they think. You can make that 'deficit' in three ways: lower in numbers, higher out numbers, or a combination. But if you are just starting out, that can seem confusing. Where does one start? I'm trying to see if there's a pattern so that a person can look at their lifestyle, say based on the 'cause' of the weight gain, what they should perhaps focus on first in order to maximize weight loss.
You are confusing/conflating thermodynamics with behavior patterns and causality with coincidence. Which usually ends up down a rabbit hole.
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For me if I was going to focus both on exercise and food in the beginning I would have failed, like I have failed before for the simple reason that it would have been to much. So I started by slowly making changes to my diet.0
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MystifiedFluff wrote: »StaciMarie1974 wrote: »But your lifestyle, tendencies, etc. will dictate what you need to focus on.
Precisely my point! I want to know if those who gained a certain way have better luck losing it a certain way. Yet many people are just spouting off the same old 'calories in < calories out' which IS true, but not as clear cut as they think. You can make that 'deficit' in three ways: lower in numbers, higher out numbers, or a combination. But if you are just starting out, that can seem confusing. Where does one start? I'm trying to see if there's a pattern so that a person can look at their lifestyle, say based on the 'cause' of the weight gain, what they should perhaps focus on first in order to maximize weight loss.
You are confusing/conflating thermodynamics with behavior patterns and causality with coincidence. Which usually ends up down a rabbit hole.
I agree with Azdak - basic laws of biology and physics can't change because of someone's behavior. It's very very simple. Calories in vs. Calories out. It's not that difficult, you just have to take the time to actually measure all of your food and accurately count your calories, and find out your real bmr so you know how much of a deficit you need to lose weight. There's no pattern....those who consume less lose more.
If it's a matter of not knowing where to start, start with a very stringent diet plan, this is what I've had to do. I eat the same thing every day, so I don't even have to think about my caloric intake. I eat a bowl of fiberous or corn based cereal in the morning, a salad and an ensure for lunch, a very very less than 75calories snack in the afternoon and a lean cuisine or healthy choice for dinner. If counting calories and all that is overwhelming, start on a plan like that so you don't have to worry about figuring out the calorie in vs. calorie out.
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Here's the way I think about it... you lose weight when calories in < calories out. So a very inactive me might get a 500 calorie a day deficit by eating 1000 calories a day when completely sedentary (if my TDEE is 1500 calories). Or a fairly active me might get a 500 calorie a day deficit by eating 2000 calories a day when my TDEE is 2500.
In either scenario, I might be losing weight at a similar rate, but just from personal experience I know that the second situation is WAY easier for me to maintain... if I'm exercising regularly, I have more energy and I feel more positive (yay endorphins!). If I am in good shape, I can burn off 600-750 calories in a 1-hour run... deficit for the day accomplished, done, now go think about something else! My body is machine that is tuned to burning calories.
On the other hand, if my TDEE is 1500 and I'm eating at 1000, I can guarantee you I am going to be cranky and exhausted. My body is trying to run on the fewest calories possible...so every signal to my brain is telling me to slow down, and I'm low-energy and constantly thinking about food. Plus, if I'm out of shape than a 600 calorie workout might take me two hours instead of one.
Put another way, in either case the deficit is the same, but in the low-exercise scenario I am taking in only 66% of what I would really like to be eating, and in the active scenario, I'm taking in 80% of what I'd like to be eating. 80% is an easier deficit to maintain than 66%... so I'd rather be more active and get a the same net loss with a smaller %TDEE deficit, if possible.0 -
SpockAdventures wrote: »It seems like everyone is making this much more complicated than it needs to be....the fact is it's all about mathematics. It's what you put in your body vs. what you put out. If C is calories you eat, E is calories burned in exercise, B is your bmr, D is your calorie deficit and 1lbs = 3500 calories, then you just have to find the right combination of numbers to fit the equation...
I agree with this, but there's a mental element too--what will be sustainable for a particular person both long enough to lose and then later to maintain?
My understanding of the OP (which may be imperfect) is that he/she is proposing that if one gained due to a sedentary lifestyle adding exercise would be more sustainable, whereas cutting calories (which weren't particularly high already) might be more difficult. But if one gained while active due to overeating, cutting calories would be the way to go.
My guess is that that's true in some cases, but in others the person overate because he/she cares about food and would have a harder time cutting calories than exercising more, whereas (even more common) others might not be active because they dislike exercise and have a particular lifestyle and would find that harder to change than their food choices.
For me, though, it's always intertwined if I'm talking about what works for the mental component of this. I can't lose weight just by deciding to be more active (although I now eat at a level that would cause me to gain if I were completely sedentary, so arguably that means I am losing solely through exercise). More significantly, I just naturally eat better and find it easier to eat in a way that helps me lose weight or maintain my weight when I am active and focused on activity-based fitness goals. And I know I can certainly gain weight by cutting out activity.
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Weightloss is all about numbers
What u put in needs to be lower then what u put out.0
This discussion has been closed.
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