Lose weight from exercising Alone

It is too broad a question, if you are eating at maintenance and run 5 miles a day three times a week then yes you would lose some weight. But if you are over eating then the excercise won't make a difference.

Maybe, maybe not. If you're eating at maintenance before exercise, sure. If you're in a surplus, it's going to be tricky to impossible depending on how much over you eat and how much you burn.

Unless you're a professional or elite amateur athlete, no, you won't lose weight just by exercising. You can't outrun your fork.

it depends on how much you eat, how tall you are and some more variables. there are plenty of people on MFP who work out regularly but don't lose weight. on the other hand, i had a very thin friend who eats a LOT of calories, but he runs 5 miles up and down hills while carrying a 5-pound weight in each hand every single day.

Depends, how long is a piece of string?


Losing 1lb a week requires you to burn 500 calories more than you eat each day.

Which will be easier for you, cutting back on some food or running for 40-80 mins every day? Of every week? Of every month till you are at goal weight?

I suggest you do a combination, cut back on the food plus increase your exercise.

It is possible but harder to be consistantly work hard enough. Adding exercise a few days a week will probably not do it.
The easy way to lose weight is to reduce your calorie intake. You can eat the same food just smaller portions.
If you combine eating less and moving more you will most likely be happy with the results.

The question is so vague. Who knows what you eat and how much. I kept the same eating habits and exercised once, sometimes twice a day and never lost a pound until I changed my eating habits and learned portion control. Good Luck!

Using just my personal experience, no. I spent my 40's overweight but 'fit fat.' Increasing exercise always seemed more attractive than decreasing food & drink, but the math never pencilled out to a sustainable deficit. Maybe there are some who've succeeded with this path but it never worked for me.

Yep, the answer is maybe. It is pretty likely though that increased activity will lead to increased hunger and you will eat back all the calories you are burning if you aren't watching what you eat.

Possibly, but it really depends. I tried it in the past. My weight was stable and I did spinning classes 3 times per week. I wasn't going as hard as others, and being very optimistic I might have burned about 350kcal per lesson. Thus that's a calorie deficit of around 1000kcal per week. Losing 2 pounds would have taken me 7 weeks. But then I was more hungry from the workout. Thus no, I didn't lose any weight.

nadler64 wrote: »

Unless you're a professional or elite amateur athlete, no, you won't lose weight just by exercising. You can't outrun your fork.

Bolded = nonsense!
I burn c. 3500 exercise calories a week in winter and far more in summer and I'm just an old fart who cycles, a long, long way from elite!

Yes OP if you eat at maintenance calories you can create a calorie deficit from exercise. Without calorie counting to ensure you actually do eat at non-exercise maintenance levels and don't compensate for your added exercise by eating more it may be hard but not impossible by any means.

Pre-calorie counting I could easily negate 8 hours of hard exercise a week by eating more, got fitter and stronger but stayed fat.

Probably. But it depends on how much over maintenance you are currently eating and how much exercise you'll be doing. Sometimes you don't have to do both parts of the "eat less move more". Sometimes one or the other will get it done.

yirara wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

nadler64 wrote: »

Unless you're a professional or elite amateur athlete, no, you won't lose weight just by exercising. You can't outrun your fork.

Bolded = nonsense!
I burn c. 3500 exercise calories a week in winter and far more in summer and I'm just an old fart who cycles, a long, long way from elite!

Yes OP if you eat at maintenance calories you can create a calorie deficit from exercise. Without calorie counting to ensure you actually do eat at non-exercise maintenance levels and don't compensate for your added exercise by eating more it may be hard but not impossible by any means.

Pre-calorie counting I could easily negate 8 hours of hard exercise a week by eating more, got fitter and stronger but stayed fat.

But don't forget that TO is apparently a woman. As a man you just burn more calories. Any calorie deficit from workout will be lower for a women due to: less muscle mass and possibly less weight/size. And one has to be able to work out that much! The calorie burn from just cycling around idly on an old Dutch granny bike even for an hour won't burn a lot of calories: just put a foot on the pedal and let gravity do its thing. Driving really hard, with mountains along the way does, but one needs to be able to do this.

Strawman argument. Why would simply being female mean someone is restricted to a granny bike and cycling idly?
Even if the OP halved my calories they would still be losing half a pound in winter and a lot more in summer.

There's plenty of women who can, and do, burn far more calories than me as I'm determined but in no way exceptional in terms of power or distance cycled.

I'm 56, work full time for my client (seated at a desk), have to commute to work, run my own company at well, have injury restrictions and still fit in exercise because I enjoy it. How's that for an alternative strawman?

yirara wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

Strawman argument. Why would simply being female mean someone is restricted to a granny bike and cycling idly?
Even if the OP halved my calories they would still be losing half a pound in winter and a lot more in summer.

There's plenty of women who can, and do, burn far more calories than me as I'm determined but in no way exceptional in terms of power or distance cycled.

I'm 56, work full time for my client (seated at a desk), have to commute to work, run my own company at well, have injury restrictions and still fit in exercise because I enjoy it. How's that for an alternative strawman?

I didn't say a woman will use a granny bike. I said most women have less muscles, are smaller than you and might potentially be lighter, hence a lower calorie burn for the same exercise at the same speed.

But still in a deficit - that is the point, not the size of the deficit.

Will I lose weight?

....was the actual question not "can I lose weight quickly" or "can I lose as quick as a middle aged man"!

sijomial wrote: »

yirara wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

nadler64 wrote: »

Unless you're a professional or elite amateur athlete, no, you won't lose weight just by exercising. You can't outrun your fork.

Bolded = nonsense!
I burn c. 3500 exercise calories a week in winter and far more in summer and I'm just an old fart who cycles, a long, long way from elite!

Yes OP if you eat at maintenance calories you can create a calorie deficit from exercise. Without calorie counting to ensure you actually do eat at non-exercise maintenance levels and don't compensate for your added exercise by eating more it may be hard but not impossible by any means.

Pre-calorie counting I could easily negate 8 hours of hard exercise a week by eating more, got fitter and stronger but stayed fat.

But don't forget that TO is apparently a woman. As a man you just burn more calories. Any calorie deficit from workout will be lower for a women due to: less muscle mass and possibly less weight/size. And one has to be able to work out that much! The calorie burn from just cycling around idly on an old Dutch granny bike even for an hour won't burn a lot of calories: just put a foot on the pedal and let gravity do its thing. Driving really hard, with mountains along the way does, but one needs to be able to do this.

Strawman argument. Why would simply being female mean someone is restricted to a granny bike and cycling idly?
Even if the OP halved my calories they would still be losing half a pound in winter and a lot more in summer.

There's plenty of women who can, and do, burn far more calories than me as I'm determined but in no way exceptional in terms of power or distance cycled.

I'm 56, work full time for my client (seated at a desk), have to commute to work, run my own company at well, have injury restrictions and still fit in exercise because I enjoy it. How's that for an alternative strawman?

Exactly!!

I'm a woman and I have lost weight through exercise alone ... specifically cycling. For many years, I would deliberately put weight on over the winter because I knew that the moment there was any snow-free road to ride on, I'd start losing the weight. By the time the snow fell again the next winter, I'd be underweight.

I've never owned an old Dutch granny bike. Almost all my bicycles are road bicycle with a token mtn bike and tandem in the mix.

And no, riding slowly for an hour probably won't do a thing ... but who wants to do that on non-recovery days. The only days I rode slowly for an hour or so were the days after riding a brisk century or double century or something.

So some of the "it depends" factors I referred to are things like ...

-- eating a moderate diet. I've seen references on TV and here to people consuming 7000 calories a day and more. Well, you'd have to do an awful lot of exercise to compensate for that. But if you consume a moderate diet of, say, 2000-3000 calories, you don't have to do quite so much exercise.

-- exercising lots. During those summers of cycling, I was cycling anywhere from 15 hours a week on a rest week ... all the way up to 1200 km (90 hours) in a week. No, not kidding, not exaggerating. I rode four 1200 km randonnees over four years. And I rode a whole lot of training rides in preparation for that. On average, however, I was probably riding about 20-25 hours/week. If I'm burning 500 cal/hour, that's over 10,000 cal/week. Plus I walked a few hours each week (2 km at lunch + 2 km two or three times a week to get groceries), and would also dabble in weights a couple days a week.

How did I get all that cycling into my day? I didn't own a car, so I cycled 5 days a week most of the year as part of my commute. And I didn't lollygag around out there. My commutes were like interval training. And then I'd grab a snack after work, and go for a 2 or 3 hour ride. Sometimes the rides might be hill repeats, sometimes intervals, and sometimes just long brisk rides. And weekends were for the long distance stuff.


The thing is, if you're going to lose weight with exercise alone, it's a good idea to have a realistic idea of how many calories you are consuming, and a realistic idea of how many calories you are burning through exercising. And then burn more than you consume. CICO.