Exercise doesn't help you lose weight...say what?
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So the friend is wrong. To my mind exercise helps you eat more on a diet therefore keeping you healthier due to more nutrients coming in. Also strengthens your body - and your resolve - meaning you get a visible improvement sooner. Better for heart health, reduces diabetes risk, improves posture... why would you want to do it without exercise?1
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I think it varies from person to person. Some people seem to respond better to exercise as weight loss method. A lot of it comes down to mentality and mindset though. I find that if I start moving and working out that the healthy diet usually ensues. If I get a bit lazy it also starts to get reflected in my diet. Exercise is a good motivator and puts me in a good state of mind which helps me make better choices, nutritionally. That being said though, I'd put it down to like 80% diet and 20% exercise for actually losing weight but exercise is incredibly important.2
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MakePeasNotWar wrote: »I think it's because most people naturally eat more to compensate for the exercise they do.
Or in my case fall asleep and reduce my NEAT
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I did an unintentional experiment a few years ago.
I was a lot lighter than I am now but still had another couple of stone to be lost ideally. I was doing triathlons so was training an average of 9 hours a week. I went through a couple of months where my diet was bang on and training full on an I was still losing weight at a reasonable rate (1lb a week average), then summer came along and my diet went to crap but training was still full on. I maintained my weight throughout this period. Then the season came to an end and diet was crap and training was hardly anything, I gained weight pretty rapidly in this phase. Unfortunately the only phase I didn't do which would have made the results more useful was good diet and no training.
So there you go, 100% scientific evidence that exercise alone won't make you lose weight!! Sort of.....
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[edited by MFP mod]
um. no.WaterBunnie wrote: »But the whole point is that the exercise burn is creating a calorie deficit isn't it?
some of us workout to train- because we have goals it has eff all to do with calorie deficit.
When I'm lifting on my programming- and I need to drop weight- the ONLY time I do cardio is when I cant' stand to eat ANY possibly less than I can stand. I'll use cardio to try to help my deficit. Otherwise- no- I maintaine through food alone- I train to train.1 -
Cardio is better1
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Diet alone is the bottom line for weight loss or weight gain. It doesn't matter what kind of food one eats or if a person exercises or not. Exercise creates a deficit if someone wants one, and provides the bonuses e.g., healthy muscles, heart, endurance, skills, strength, sanity in some cases lol!
Put it this way... at the end of her life my mother was unable to get out of bed. She was also unable to eat anything. She literally slept around the clock and ate nothing. After several weeks she had withered away to around 80lbs (if I had to guess). She didn't exercise at all. She didn't eat at all. The end.0 -
Lost all the weight I needed, through exercise alone, to get my weight in the proper BMI. However, to lose those last 10 lbs to be competitive I needed to quit eating junk. Just losing weight is not necessarily good for you and just exercising is not necessarily good for you, but together they are a great combination.0
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I'm with you buddy. A deficit is a deficit no matter how it's achieved.1
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meaning I use my food to control my weight- until it gets to low to tolerate- like I won't eat anything under 1500 calories.
So if I hit that low and I'm still struggling with cutting- I only revert to cardio at that point. Otherwise I won't do cardio- and I am not using my weight lifting as a method of creating a steeper deficit.0 -
I think a number of studies have shown that exercise does not assist with weight loss because people can engage in various sorts of compensatory behaviours (eating more because they "worked out") which matches or exceeds the calories they burned through the activity.
That said many studies also say that exercise is crucial in maintaining weight (which is generally the harder part). It seems to me a person may as well get used to exercising from the off given this observation.0 -
Exercise is extremely beneficial to your body and health.
However, the only thing necessary to losing weight is eating less calories than you burn. You can accomplish this by diet alone and many people do.
OP you are correct that exercise can help you lose weight, but only if you are eating less calories than you burn. It is possible to exercise and not lose weight, and possibly even gain weight if you are eating the maximum calories you need to maintain your weight. Or if you are eating more calories than you burn you will probably gain weight even though you exercise.
Exercise is not a guarantee for weight loss. You need to consume less calories than you are burning for weight loss.0 -
LOL. No, seriously. It actually made me laugh out loud.
You already know the "why".
It's the reason resistance training while in a deficit is widely regarded as a Good Thing.
So now you want to compare the differences in 500 calories lost through cardio v 500 lost through resistance? Its not what the OP was asking.
Ah, no.
It's about body composition. How you make your deficit affects your body composition which affects the size of the deficit at any given caloric intake level.
"All calories are equal" is only true in a naive, superficial sense. Which means all deficits are not, in fact, the same.
If I lift and have, say, a 500 calorie deficit what, exactly, do you see as the meaningful difference in body composition between a deficit achieved by eating 500 calories less versus eating 300 calories less and exercising for 200 calories? Let's presume I'm getting enough protein and fat and the 300 diet deficit comes from cutting intake above those points.
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Losing weight is not a problem for most people. Even the most sedentary and obese person can lose weight. Keeping the weight off is the real challenge and without exercise a person who was once overweight will just gain the weight back again.
The National Weight Control Registry has found that 90% of people who have lost weight and kept it off exercise for an average of an hour per day.
nwcr.ws/Research/default.htm
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This is an interesting discussion and personally, I think it's all about CICO no matter how it's achieved. I've lost weight without exercise before but not the other way around. I also believe that in order to sustain long term weight loss, some sort of exercise should be incorporated into a person's lifestyle. My goal is to get in better cardiovascular condition and improve strength, etc. so with me it's diet/exercise : 80/20 and that seems to be working so far.0
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You can't get from that fact to "without exercise a person who was once overweight will just gain the weight back again," though.FitnessTim wrote: »Losing weight is not a problem for most people. Even the most sedentary and obese person can lose weight. Keeping the weight off is the real challenge and without exercise a person who was once overweight will just gain the weight back again.
The National Weight Control Registry has found that 90% of people who have lost weight and kept it off exercise for an average of an hour per day.
nwcr.ws/Research/default.htm
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I'm convinced that half of the people posting here didn't actually read the original post.1
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arguablysamson wrote: »Got into a discussion with some friends the other day regarding diet and exercise and losing weight, etc. One of my friends said that exercise does not help you lose weight, it's 100% diet. I disagreed and said that whether you take in less calories (diet) or burn more calories (exercise), if you're in a deficit you'll lose weight, therefore exercise does in fact help you lose weight. She disagreed with me still.
Your thoughts?
Your friends are indeed correct.
The worst thing an obese person can do is work out to drop weight. Doing so produces cortisol and slows losses. I dropped 173 lbs in 11 months with very little exercise at all (just walking), and I've seen around these parts that the most common mistake the obese make is all these crossfit-style, newfangled, hardcore body-shocker routines. Lots of insulin-resistant women keep messaging me about not being able to lose. I message them back and tell them to stop exercising...and they start losing. Never fails.
Lol I can't believe nobody's quoted this gem.
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You just cannot separate activity and intake. They both have an effect on weight loss. You cannot say, "Only the intake counts. It's doesn't matter how many calories you burn." It matters. They both matter.
You can lose weight without exercise. Of course you can. But when you exercise, you burn more calories and that makes a difference. The kind of exercise matters, too. All kinds are good, but some burn more calories than others. If you spend 30 minutes swimming, you're going to burn more calories than if you spent that 30 minutes walking.
People always say, "Weight loss happens in the kitchen," but it happens in the pool, too.
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DeguelloTex wrote: »
You can't get from that fact to "without exercise a person who was once overweight will just gain the weight back again," though.FitnessTim wrote: »Losing weight is not a problem for most people. Even the most sedentary and obese person can lose weight. Keeping the weight off is the real challenge and without exercise a person who was once overweight will just gain the weight back again.
The National Weight Control Registry has found that 90% of people who have lost weight and kept it off exercise for an average of an hour per day.
nwcr.ws/Research/default.htm
I won't go so far to say it is a scientific fact. For every general fitness guideline there are bound to be exceptions. However, there are a number of studies that show that people who lose weight tend to gain it back again. Without having controlled studies with tens of thousands of subjects we have to look at the data that is available to us. When you see a stat that says that 90% of people who have kept weight off do exercise an hour per day, to achieve the same long lasting weight loss it is a safe bet to reproduce those same conditions.
It is possible that exercise is not directly related to preventing weight gain. It could simply be that exercise becomes a substitution for overeating. There is clear evidence that exercise produces a number of positive effects, better mood, self confidence, energy levels, etc. These benefits may contribute to a person's ability to control their diet.
Until the science is clear on this, it is best to observe people who have successfully kept weight off and use that as a guideline for how to achieve the same results.
If we had all the "facts" there would be no discussion.1 -
Got into a discussion with some friends the other day regarding diet and exercise and losing weight, etc. One of my friends said that exercise does not help you lose weight, it's 100% diet. I disagreed and said that whether you take in less calories (diet) or burn more calories (exercise), if you're in a deficit you'll lose weight, therefore exercise does in fact help you lose weight. She disagreed with me still.
Your thoughts?
If all you do is exercise, but you don't pay attention to diet, you probably won't lose weight. If you watch your diet but don't exercise, you will lose weight. But don't conclude that that means it is 100% diet. It is really hard to maintain a low calorie diet if you aren't exercising. There is also a limit to how low you can drop your calorie intake and be healthy, so exercise allows people to increase their calorie deficit. Also, we all move around some everyday, we just don't call it exercise. Without having something that burned calories, it wouldn't matter how little we ate, our fat levels would never drop.1 -
I don't think this is a controversial topic really.
To lose weight you need to create a calorie deficit / negative energy balance. You can do so by:- diet alone
- exercise alone
- a combination of diet and exercise
Many people choose a combination of diet and exercise because it doesn't entail the greater time commitment of the exercise only approach or the greater reduction in food intake than the diet alone approach. However they can all be successful.1 -
it blows my mind that so many people are so blind as to believe that exercise is an absolute must for weight loss. Again, a disabled person does not have to exercise to lose weight. A calorie deficit alone is enough to achieve that goal. Maintaining a calorie goal at maintenance level will be enough to maintain weight without gaining weight back.
It's incredibly arrogant for able-bodied people to continue to argue that everyone must exercise to lose and maintain weight loss. Anyone doing so discounts the struggle of everyone who lives in a less than able state who continues to also work to live at a healthy weight.0 -
The OP never said you MUST exercise to lose weight.0
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The "fact" is "90% of people who have lost weight and kept it off exercise for an average of an hour per day."FitnessTim wrote: »DeguelloTex wrote: »
You can't get from that fact to "without exercise a person who was once overweight will just gain the weight back again," though.FitnessTim wrote: »Losing weight is not a problem for most people. Even the most sedentary and obese person can lose weight. Keeping the weight off is the real challenge and without exercise a person who was once overweight will just gain the weight back again.
The National Weight Control Registry has found that 90% of people who have lost weight and kept it off exercise for an average of an hour per day.
nwcr.ws/Research/default.htm
I won't go so far to say it is a scientific fact. For every general fitness guideline there are bound to be exceptions. However, there are a number of studies that show that people who lose weight tend to gain it back again. Without having controlled studies with tens of thousands of subjects we have to look at the data that is available to us. When you see a stat that says that 90% of people who have kept weight off do exercise an hour per day, to achieve the same long lasting weight loss it is a safe bet to reproduce those same conditions.
It is possible that exercise is not directly related to preventing weight gain. It could simply be that exercise becomes a substitution for overeating. There is clear evidence that exercise produces a number of positive effects, better mood, self confidence, energy levels, etc. These benefits may contribute to a person's ability to control their diet.
Until the science is clear on this, it is best to observe people who have successfully kept weight off and use that as a guideline for how to achieve the same results.
If we had all the "facts" there would be no discussion.
"It could simply be that exercise becomes a substitution for overeating."
Or it could simply be that exercise is a manifestation of motivation and seriousness, both of which make it more likely that the person will keep off the weight. That doesn't mean that other people have the same manifestations of motivation and seriousness. The same data show that something like two-thirds of the people who kept off the weight ate breakfast. That doesn't mean that people who don't like eating breakfast should run out and start eating breakfast.
It's sort of like saying "A lot of people with good FICO scores own homes. I should go buy a house so I can get a good FICO score." Is the exercise, in and of itself an important factor, or is exercising how a lot of motivated people behave? Or a little of both? Either way, saying "without exercise a person who was once overweight will just gain the weight back again" isn't justified by that data.
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Its all math. It doesn't really matter if its burn, diet or combination of the two so your both right. My thought is if it takes more calories to maintain muscle even at rest, then exercise gets an extra point. Plus who is going to claim being fit has no benefit? Exercise, not required but better in my opinion.0
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I don't think this is a controversial topic really.
To lose weight you need to create a calorie deficit / negative energy balance. You can do so by:- diet alone
- exercise alone
- a combination of diet and exercise
Many people choose a combination of diet and exercise because it doesn't entail the greater time commitment of the exercise only approach or the greater reduction in food intake than the diet alone approach. However they can all be successful.
+1. First time around I lost ALL my weight through exercise alone as I was ignorant about calorie counting, and only realised after I joined this site about CICO and that I achieved what I did because I was burning more than I was eating. Second time around I'm doing a combination of both. Doesn't matter how you get there IMO as long as you're in a deficit.. and I think that's what the OP was saying initially.1
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