Diet vs exercise

13

Replies

  • OldAssDude
    OldAssDude Posts: 1,436 Member
    For me it was mainly exercise. I power walk 3 to 5 miles at about a 4mph pace 7 days a week, so I am actually eating more, but burning way more. I ballpark my calories, and always leave plenty for grazing and then some.

    I lost 53 lbs. in about 10 months.

    You may not be able to out run a poor diet, but you can certainly out walk a normal diet.
  • lorrpb
    lorrpb Posts: 11,464 Member
    I need both.
  • ashleyminc
    ashleyminc Posts: 8 Member
    amytorr19 wrote: »
    I do both.. mostly diet, I workout for 1/2 an hour everyday. I am a busy mom of 2, I try to get more exercise in when i can.

    I completely understand! I'm a mother of one and a wife. I'm also pursuing a career and my degree, I cook healthy every night for my husband which helps me! But finding time for wxw
    Weight loss requires that you eat less than you burn. I am a big believer in the saying, "You can't out exercise a bad diet." That said, walking five miles a day helps me by enhancing my mood, suppressing my appetite and giving me a little wiggle room for an occasional treat. Strength training, while increasing my appetite, helps me to retain muscle mass and remain strong and healthy. Since I am motivated to lose weight by my health, fitness is a necessary component for my journey. But for just seeing the number go down on the scale, you can do it much faster by decreasing your calorie intake than by increasing your calories burned with exercise.
    Wow! 5 miles!
  • ashleyminc
    ashleyminc Posts: 8 Member
    Seems like most people have most success with diet. I honestly find it easier to eat a low calorie , under 1200 calories, under 50-70 carbs per day, and little exercise to be able to lose/maintain. Any more calories and I gain! It's so hard to keep my weight down. For reference. I'm 5'4 usually at 135lbs. I carry my weight evenly and gain muscle quickly.
  • rankinsect
    rankinsect Posts: 2,238 Member
    I do both, but as was said - my diet is for losing weight. Exercise is for overall fitness. Both are very important to me.
  • KateTii
    KateTii Posts: 886 Member
    Diet. It's much easier for me to eat less/eat smarter than spend a couple of hours in the gym.
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 24,707 Member
    edited October 2015
    ashleyminc wrote: »
    The age old question, diet or exercise for best results. I know either or can provide success and both combined provide even better results. I want to know what your experience has been based on the above. What has worked best for you?

    Both ... together.


    But especially exercise. Exercise makes the whole process so much more enjoyable. Exercise allows me to eat whatever I want (like the pizza and tiramisu I had on the weekend). Exercise is fun, stress-relieving, exhilarating, challenging, and just makes life worth living. :)

  • Therealobi1
    Therealobi1 Posts: 3,261 Member
    Well people are always talking about making this A lifestyle change so I think both are required.
    Also I think it's also depends what your end goal is. We see so many posts about losing the weight but not liking what they see. The answer to that op then is to do strength training.
  • azulvioleta6
    azulvioleta6 Posts: 4,196 Member
    For me, maintaining a healthy weight is about 85% about exercise.

    My diet was never bad to begin with. Slightly wrong given some specific health issues that I have to deal with, but always full of home-grown and local fresh foods. I have NEVER been a fast food or junk food eater.

    I also feel horrible when I don't stay mobile, so...
  • rainbow198
    rainbow198 Posts: 2,245 Member
    For my goals exercise is extremely important. What and how much I eat is important as well.

    I lost weight once before without any exercise. I was just a slightly smaller, flabby version of my old self. I barely lost a pant size. I got frustrated and went back to my old ways and gain it all right back.

    I wanted a firm, tight body. For that I learned I need to not focus on my scale weight as much and I need to exercise.

    Exercise has helped me tremendously with maintaining my weight/figure and it gives me so much energy.
  • ebouchie
    ebouchie Posts: 124 Member
    I lost my first 50 by changing the way I eat. Initially (first two months) I did not even focus on calories. It was all about eating healthier meals and I lost about 15 pounds. Then, in the next 7 months I really started to watch the calories and lost the rest of the 50. During this time I had a Fitbit and tried to walk an average of 10,000 steps per day. In the past month I joined a gym and added exercise (Spin, yoga, weights) to my routine and have lost 5 pounds. I now have an Apple Watch Sport and use it for these workouts. Because it has built in heart rate monitor I can now get pretty accurate calorie burns and I have started to eat back some of those calories. I have about 20 lbs to go.
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,455 Member
    Heya!
    I've been on a 600calories/day for 10 days , lost around 7 kg. No exercise. I guess having 2 yrs old twin boys kept me on my toes ha and that could be another reason
    It's important to tell that after this diet I felt ill! Exhausted! After 2 weeks of eating everything I got back 3.5 kg.
    At the moment, I'm getting up at 6 am to exercise at the gym. My calorie intake is around 1200 if that. I tent to starve myself which is not good.
    The point is: feels so much better doing exercises and dieting at the same time! gym puts me away from food! Hell yes!!! Aleluya!!!

    There are many red flags in this post...

    Eating 600 cals?
    Tend to starve yourself? (You did say that's not good but still!)
    Exercise keeps you away from food?

    These are concerning statements.
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,455 Member
    OP as others have said and I think you know, calorie deficit is what is required for weight loss and how you create that deficit (diet or exercise or both) is up to you.

    For me I lost my weight initially by following the MFP way of setting my goal to lose 1 lb/week and then eating back my exercise cals. When I started I was very sedentary, but made an effort to walk 30 min a day. After about 6 months and 20 lbs lost I got a FitBit and started trying to make sure I hit 10K steps a day, synced with MFP and eating back the cals from the exercise adjustment. Now 2 years later I'm maintaining a 30 lb loss, I average 15K steps a day, and I do some strength training with Dumbbells at home.

    I could have done this without exercise but now that activity level is such an integral part of my day I wouldn't want to. Plus I get to eat more food!
  • moto450
    moto450 Posts: 334 Member
    Diet is absolutely critical for weight loss, but exercise helps you look good in your skin after losing the weight. Being skinny alone does not mean someone is healthy.

    My opinion is if someone is looking for absolute health they have to have both a strict diet and exercise. Trying to separate them so we only have to do as little as possible shows lack of commitment and in my opinion shows that the individual won't continue on the right path for long.

    That totally sounded way more direct than I meant it, but you get the idea. ;)
  • rockmama72
    rockmama72 Posts: 815 Member
    I don't log regularly but I'm very aware of what I eat. I had maintained pretty much the same weight for years. Every couple of months I'll log for a few days or a week to keep myself in check.

    When I got a Fitbit, I was motivated to not be so lazy and I started to average more than 500 calories per day in extra burn just by walking. I'm down about 20 pounds in a few months.

    So, I acknowledge that my current diet--that is, not eating above maintenance--is very important. But for my personality, the walking is what's doing it for me this time. I'll see how far I can get like this and then I'll probably have to tighten up somewhere, and I'd really like to do more strength and flexibility exercise.

    This won't work for someone who usually eats more than maintenance.
  • RobertWilkens
    RobertWilkens Posts: 77 Member
    For me, I like to eat, and not necessarily the healthy foods (I know, i need to). I can limit my food to some extent, with help of a calorie tool such as MFP (I've used others too), which tells me to "stoppppp". But having a fitness band, I get to see how exercising lets me eat more. I've burned off somewhere around 32-33 pounds this year.

    I once went bike riding with a friend, some 5+ years ago (or more) it was a 15 mile bike ride, and when i told her the calories burnt (by my "bodybugg" at the time), she said "Great, does that mean i can eat chocolate cake now?" -- and in the end, yes, it kind of does.

    Rob
  • jeremynotsofat
    jeremynotsofat Posts: 15 Member
    I have never lost any weight due to exercise. It improves my mood, but it makes me hungry. Period. Now I'm trying to really monitor my food instead of ballparking it, and that's helped. For YEARS I believed the experts and thought I could exercise my weight down. I started having weight troubles in the 1990s and am very glad to see the fitness and weight loss experts are no longer pushing the myth that exercise decreases everyone's appetite and magically burns tons of fat on its own. If it works for others, great, but for me exercise is all about mood regulation and health.
  • azulvioleta6
    azulvioleta6 Posts: 4,196 Member
    I lost my first 55 pounds without changing my diet at all...
  • msf74
    msf74 Posts: 3,498 Member
    To lose weight: diet
    To maintain weight: exercise
    To win at life: diet + exercise