Gym or Diet or both?

minujijin wrote: »

Curious to see the people's point of view

My doctor and I once sat down to strategize my weightloss plan. This was very early in my first weightloss journey. I was on a calorie restriction and made a joke about giving up milkshakes. He told me this:

Sure, you can have milkshakes as long as it is within your limit. Can you run for 45 minutes straight? (No) Well, a rule of thumb is that a person of your size can burn about 10 calories a minute while doing cardio exercise. So to work off this shake which you want to drink you will have to run for about 60 minutes. Now let me ask you this...

Which is harder, running for 60 minutes, or simply not having the milkshake?

I don't know why, but at that point I had never thought about it that way. It kind of changed my life. that was the day I learned that "You (I) can't outrun the fork."

StealthHealth wrote: »

I was being over simplistic ind under clear:

With fixed calories adding in cardio will increase calorific burn and therefore weight loss.
At the same calorific input, swapping the cardio for strength training will slow down weight loss because of the smaller burn.

so as you say:

abernathysymthe wrote: »

... that strength conditioning slows down weight loss, unless of course one is trading a higher calorie/hour burn for a lower one, like LSS for strength training; a calorie deficit is a calorie deficit, whatever the source.

sorry for confusion

that's what i thought you wanted to say but wasn't sure... so i think we agree. if you have a fixed number of hours a week to work out and want to lose weight, focus on cardio rather than strength training. whether you do long, slow and steady, high intensity intervals, or some other cardio training, calories burned comes down to calories/hour times number of hours.

that said, i am a big fan of LSS, which is often easier on the body and mind of a beginner - and therefore easier to sustain, than high intensity training.

I guess I'm confused at what's being asked actually. Gym or Diet or Both? For what goal? This is in the "Introduce Yourself" forum...so it's hard to decipher if you are wanting outlooks for weight loss, weight gain, building muscle, losing fat....a combination of sorts???

Both because your quality of life isn't just a number on a scale and pant/dress size. It's hard to really separate the two since activity and exercise directly affect how much you can consume while still losing or maintaining your weight. Looking long term, what do you want to look like when you hit your goal weight, and how are you going to transition into the maintenance phase? Exercise makes the long term a lot easier.

For me it's a combination of diet (as much as hate the word) and training. I have some weight to lose right now but want to maintain what lean mass I have, so I primarily strength train and HIIT 50:50. I do very little steady state cardio at the moment, and as an ex long-distance triathlete that's what I was used to, but for weight loss I don't actually find it that helpful. I found that you soon harden to the workload and don't burn anywhere near as many calories as you think.

Years ago I stumbled across an article by Rachel Cosgrove regarding her experience of training for an Ironman (her background was obviously in strength) and how it made her "flabby", and that was pretty much my experience too when I did lots of long-slow stuff. Yes I could swim for 2 hours, ride a bike for 6 hours or run for 4 hours, but aesthetically my body looked a lot better when I was strength training... so that's what I went back to.

https://www.t-nation.com/training/final-nail-in-the-cardio-coffin

Both. 80% diet, 20% exercise. You need the exercise for the health benefits as well as for toning and forming nice sleek muscles under our skin. I've lost 75lbs just by walking and bike riding so it doesn't have to be anything too difficult either, especially to start. My knees could not have handled anything like PX90 when I was over 300lbs.

My personal opinion on this is that diet and exercise go hand and hand. You may can lose weight with one or the other, but they work best together. I also believe that weight loss can be achieved by many methods. As long as they are healthy, go for it. For example, I have lost 11 pounds in the last 9 days using a combo of diet and the It Works System. I am working on starting a group in my community to workout with and stay motivated, but have been a little busy the last two days and haven't had time to workout. Can't wait to start working out and see even more progress!

You're saying "gym" or diet.

I don't think "gym" is the keyword, "moving" or "exercise" is a better choice. You can do that anywhere, no gym in particular needed.

For wellbeing, weightloss, gain and maintaining, both is important.

If you want the nice looks or the energetic feeling as your goal (or shortly: proper health) the formerly mentioned "can't outrun a bad diet" is certainly true, but you ain't getting any definition or stamina from diet alone either. Exercise (done right) is also a major help to decrease stress hormones, regulate your cholesterine levels and blood sugar, keeping your heart in a good shape and a lot more.

With a good diet you can push your exercising success and with exercising you can open up the opportunity of small "cheats" within your diet. They have a lot of influence on each other and - in my opinion - should not be seperated.

I think it also depends where you're at.

If you're 5'6" and 300lb, just eating appropriately will see great results, even without exercise.

If you're 5'6" and 130lb wanting to be 125lb, just eating a little less alone isn't going to cut it anymore.

minujijin wrote: »

snowflake930 wrote: »

Facts are facts.
You could exercise all day long, but unless you are eating less calories than you burn, you will not lose weight.
And if you are exercising and eating more calories than you are burning (and it certainly is possible) you will gain weight.
In order to lose weight you absolutely have to eat less calories than you burn.

That's my question, exercise make u hungry and eat more but strength exercises doesn't burn more calories as cardio if I am not wrong

The first one is absolutely right, if there's more going in than out... it will add up.

But here's where the "what you eat" comes in. If you get hungry and eat a stick of celery or if you get hungry and eat a bar of chocolate... well, I don't think I need to explain in more detail, do I?

The whole discussion about strength or cardio is also filled with a giant pot of rumours and myths. The way you burn your calories is different, but in fact there's so many differences in how you go about it.

Many people forget or underestimate the afterburn of a strength workout. The amount of calories that your body needs to repair torn muscle fibres and restock the reserves you have within your muscles. There's a good bit going into your regeneration phase. Besides muscle just being muscle burns more calories than other tissue, so more muscle also increases your metabolic rate.

As for cardio, if you just go leisurly about and don't push a little, yes that will target your fat reserves (only after quite a while of doing so while still simultaneously pulling from your carb storage) but the metabolic rate for fat is the slowest we have. So you can literally walk(jog) for ages without burning too much, which used to be a key in the development of humanity. If you want to see results... well, generally intervall and HIIT actually will give you faster results, but either way, a little bit of a push is needed.

On a molecular level, the body can convert carbs and protein into fat, fat can't be converted back into proteins, but it can be used to refuel later on, when your carb storage is empty. Actually here we go back to the after burn mentioned with strength as well. Best moment to empty your fat reserves is at night when you sleep and your metabolic rate is slow enough that the fat works just fine for fuel.

Forget all the big discussions on what's best for you to do and listen to your body. Keep doing what makes you feel good and what's the most fun for you. Because when you like it and you have fun, pushing yourself is a lot easier and with that bonus you tend to increase your load and well... look at that you'll have a better result.

Leave the what's best for this or that to any goal of increasing a specific exercise. And even there are many roads leading to Rome.

Oh and as a random side note: Try drinking enough while/after exercising. Our brain is tricky and sometimes what is actually thirst may feel like hunger.