Calorie restriction versus increased activity
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"Harder to judge calorie burn from exercise."
That is certainly true. Not impossible though.
"Also, I have limited time (between work and a long commute) to exercise away 600-700 calories a day"
Yeah, that is legitimate. I tried to address that in my original post by suggesting investing in your overall fitness will reap dividends in your energy levels that will compensate for that "lost" time if not give you more time. Time is not just measured in hours, its also measured in activity level and what you can do.
I'm not trying to claim everyone has lots of free time.1 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »And then NEVER in your life get sick or injured. Then you'll be gaining again. Sorry to any losers that can't work out due to physical limitations, chronic illness, etc. You're doomed to be fat.
What person are you imagining that literally cannot increase their activity level? Why do you think it is impossible for them to improve their health through increased activity?
First, the issue is not simply increasing activity, but as someone else mentioned, increasing it enough to take the calorie surplus a person is eating and make it a deficit. Second, there are many people in the morbidly obese categories who have major limitations on activity because of their weight. They need to lose weight initially so they can actually do anything significant including walking without extreme pain.
Having said that, there have been an abundance of studies in this area. Here is an article from Scientific America on this very issue. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-you-lose-weight-with-exercise-alone1/
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rileysowner wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »And then NEVER in your life get sick or injured. Then you'll be gaining again. Sorry to any losers that can't work out due to physical limitations, chronic illness, etc. You're doomed to be fat.
What person are you imagining that literally cannot increase their activity level? Why do you think it is impossible for them to improve their health through increased activity?
First, the issue is not simply increasing activity, but as someone else mentioned, increasing it enough to take the calorie surplus a person is eating and make it a deficit. Second, there are many people in the morbidly obese categories who have major limitations on activity because of their weight. They need to lose weight initially so they can actually do anything significant including walking without extreme pain.
Having said that, there have been an abundance of studies in this area. Here is an article from Scientific America on this very issue. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-you-lose-weight-with-exercise-alone1/
If I was trying to claim this is a solution for everyone I'd be daft. There is no one-way-fits-all solution to anything let alone weight loss.
That wasn't my point nor did I make that claim anywhere and if I somehow implied that let me say categorically that is not what I meant, My point is that there are TWO SIDES to the coin, TWO ways to approach weight loss but if you come to this forum really only one seems to be represented, and in my opinion it isn't the side that is really best for overall health fitness and well-being for the majority of people.
That was my point.
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Aaron_K123 wrote: »rileysowner wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »And then NEVER in your life get sick or injured. Then you'll be gaining again. Sorry to any losers that can't work out due to physical limitations, chronic illness, etc. You're doomed to be fat.
What person are you imagining that literally cannot increase their activity level? Why do you think it is impossible for them to improve their health through increased activity?
First, the issue is not simply increasing activity, but as someone else mentioned, increasing it enough to take the calorie surplus a person is eating and make it a deficit. Second, there are many people in the morbidly obese categories who have major limitations on activity because of their weight. They need to lose weight initially so they can actually do anything significant including walking without extreme pain.
Having said that, there have been an abundance of studies in this area. Here is an article from Scientific America on this very issue. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-you-lose-weight-with-exercise-alone1/
If I was trying to claim this is a solution for everyone I'd be daft. There is no one-way-fits-all solution to anything let alone weight loss.
That wasn't my point, my point is that there are TWO SIDES to the coin, TWO ways to approach weight loss but if you come to this forum really only one seems to be represented.
That was my point.
But you are not presenting a fair argument and people are getting defensive, rightly so. In your post you are presenting the two options as:
1) Just walk a little more and it will work wonders for weightloss! No changes to diet required!
2) Restrict to a ridiculous amount, punish yourself and don't eat anything yummy again. This place is full of people encouraging eating nothing.
CICO is an equation - of course you can work on either side of it. But, you have to acknowledge for the majority of people, it is easier and more realistic to work on the CI side.
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Aaron_K123 wrote: »Lets put it this way.
If you told me you want to lose weight and I told you sure, you can lose weight but you have to pick one of these two options.
Option 1: Never eat burgers again
Option 2: You can still eat burgers and on top of that you now have motivation to go for long walks around your town, explore it a bit, walk around your local park to meet your goal of weight loss.
How come 99% of people seem to go with option 1. That is the part that confuses me to no end.
But this is not a realistic situation. This scenario assumes the person is only over their maintenance level by an amount that can be burnt off by a "long walk"(or whatever exercise) in a reasonable amount of time.
If someone is eating more than they can burn off through exercise in a day, the only option left is to eat less.
I was eating more than I could burn off with the time I have available to exercise. My only option available to me is to eat less. It doesn't take any extra time out of my day.
I still eat burgers, without the long walks around the town. I just don't eat burgers every day, and when I do eat burgers, I don't have 4 of them. It's as simple as that.
Trying to convince someone that the miracle to weightloss is fitting in extra exercise when they are already busy with work/illnesses/kids etc. OR eating more than they can possibly ever hope to burn is just as bad as telling someone they can only eat 600 calories and never ever eat anything "yummy" again. The end result will be the same - "I can't do that".
I thought that was obvious enough to not need mentioning.
I hope its clear I'm not claiming that if you go for an hour walk you can eat as much as you want. I never said that.
What I said is people who are looking to lose weight on this site's weight-loss forum seem to focus almost entirely on how to eat less and not very much at all on how to be more active.
Stated in that way do you disagree?0 -
Why are people so doom-and-gloom over this. Believe it or not burning an extra few hundred calories a day by walking WILL over time help your health. Is that somehow a contestable statement?
All I am saying is this. Isn't it interesting how the focus of this forum seems almost entirely to be on how to eat less and not on how to be more active considering both ways are valid forms of reaching or at least extending or heading towards the caloric deficit required for weight loss.
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I think this forum focuses mostly on diet, because it's something everyone can do. You might not have time to take an extra walk, you might be disabled or injured, but you have to eat, so just eat differently. Having said that, I think lots of times the advice is - Eat less, move more - increasing your physical activity is often mentioned, and there's an entire Forum for exercise and fitness. I don't agree that it is ignored here.
When I got my Fitbit, I was shocked to learn I was only averaging @ 3000 steps a day. I work a desk job, have a longish commute, and spend a lot of my free time reading our watching TV. I have more than doubled that average, and it's bought me... a couple of hundred extra calories at most. That's not even a half a lb per week. And since increased activity can lead to increased appetite, you have to log your food anyway to make sure you don't just eat back the calories you just burned. I think for a lot of people it is easier to wrap your brain around cutting out a can of soda and that second serving of pasta than it is to work an extra hour or so of activity into their day.
ETA: I also don't see the "regulars" on the forum promote restrictive diets or "self-flagellation". In fact, I see them argue against that time and again.6 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »Lets put it this way.
If you told me you want to lose weight and I told you sure, you can lose weight but you have to pick one of these two options.
Option 1: Never eat burgers again
Option 2: You can still eat burgers and on top of that you now have motivation to go for long walks around your town, explore it a bit, walk around your local park to meet your goal of weight loss.
How come 99% of people seem to go with option 1. That is the part that confuses me to no end.
But this is not a realistic situation. This scenario assumes the person is only over their maintenance level by an amount that can be burnt off by a "long walk"(or whatever exercise) in a reasonable amount of time.
If someone is eating more than they can burn off through exercise in a day, the only option left is to eat less.
I was eating more than I could burn off with the time I have available to exercise. My only option available to me is to eat less. It doesn't take any extra time out of my day.
I still eat burgers, without the long walks around the town. I just don't eat burgers every day, and when I do eat burgers, I don't have 4 of them. It's as simple as that.
Trying to convince someone that the miracle to weightloss is fitting in extra exercise when they are already busy with work/illnesses/kids etc. OR eating more than they can possibly ever hope to burn is just as bad as telling someone they can only eat 600 calories and never ever eat anything "yummy" again. The end result will be the same - "I can't do that".
I thought that was obvious enough to not need mentioning.
I hope its clear I'm not claiming that if you go for an hour walk you can eat as much as you want. I never said that.
What I said is people who are looking to lose weight on this site's weight-loss forum seem to focus almost entirely on how to eat less and not very much at all on how to be more active.
Stated in that way do you disagree?
I definitely agree this place is focused on how to eat less. But one of it's major "attractions" is a calorie counter. It's naturally going to be a big draw here.
You didn't say you could eat as much as you want, but you said they could keep their current eating habits, which for a lot of people here is already "as much as you want". You have good intentions, we can all recognize that. But by not stating the obvious you can become misleading to those who don't know the obvious.2 -
Lets put it another way. Go to the weight loss forum and start clicking through threads. How many threads do you have to click through before you find someone asking how to increase their activity level instead of how to eat less food.
In a balanced approach shouldn't they be pretty equal? Are they pretty equal?2 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »Lets put it this way.
If you told me you want to lose weight and I told you sure, you can lose weight but you have to pick one of these two options.
Option 1: Never eat burgers again
Option 2: You can still eat burgers and on top of that you now have motivation to go for long walks around your town, explore it a bit, walk around your local park to meet your goal of weight loss.
How come 99% of people seem to go with option 1. That is the part that confuses me to no end.
But this is not a realistic situation. This scenario assumes the person is only over their maintenance level by an amount that can be burnt off by a "long walk"(or whatever exercise) in a reasonable amount of time.
If someone is eating more than they can burn off through exercise in a day, the only option left is to eat less.
I was eating more than I could burn off with the time I have available to exercise. My only option available to me is to eat less. It doesn't take any extra time out of my day.
I still eat burgers, without the long walks around the town. I just don't eat burgers every day, and when I do eat burgers, I don't have 4 of them. It's as simple as that.
Trying to convince someone that the miracle to weightloss is fitting in extra exercise when they are already busy with work/illnesses/kids etc. OR eating more than they can possibly ever hope to burn is just as bad as telling someone they can only eat 600 calories and never ever eat anything "yummy" again. The end result will be the same - "I can't do that".
I thought that was obvious enough to not need mentioning.
I hope its clear I'm not claiming that if you go for an hour walk you can eat as much as you want. I never said that.
What I said is people who are looking to lose weight on this site's weight-loss forum seem to focus almost entirely on how to eat less and not very much at all on how to be more active.
Stated in that way do you disagree?
I definitely agree this place is focused on how to eat less. But one of it's major "attractions" is a calorie counter. It's naturally going to be a big draw here.
You didn't say you could eat as much as you want, but you said they could keep their current eating habits, which for a lot of people here is already "as much as you want". You have good intentions, we can all recognize that. But by not stating the obvious you can become misleading to those who don't know the obvious.
Calorie counters are required for either approach though, I don't see how it is more or less important to calorie count if you are reaching your goal by increased activity or decreased consumption or some of both. Two sides of the exact same coin.0 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »Lets put it another way. Go to the weight loss forum and start clicking through threads. How many threads do you have to click through before you find someone asking how to increase their activity level instead of how to eat less food.
In a balanced approach shouldn't they be pretty equal? Are they pretty equal?
They are equal in theory but in practice they are not equal because it's harder to increase exercise than it is to reduce calorie intake.
People know how to increase their exercise. I don't think there are many people out there that don't agree that increasing exercise is a good thing. What people don't know/struggle with is how to reduce calorie intake without feeling starved/tortured.5 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »Lets put it another way. Go to the weight loss forum and start clicking through threads. How many threads do you have to click through before you find someone asking how to increase their activity level instead of how to eat less food.
In a balanced approach shouldn't they be pretty equal? Are they pretty equal?
They are equal in theory but in practice they are not equal because it's harder to increase exercise than it is to reduce calorie intake.
People know how to increase their exercise. I don't think there are many people out there that don't agree that increasing exercise is a good thing. What people don't know/struggle with is how to reduce calorie intake without feeling starved/tortured.
Ironically though the way to reach a calorie deficit without feeling starved/tortured is to increase your activity level so you can eat at a comfortable calorie level while still maintaining a deficit. Those who really struggle tend to be those who are focused solely on deficit via calorie restriction alone because if you just take a sedentary TDEE and subtract 1000 calories from that because you want to lose 2 pounds a week that is going to put you in a very uncomfortable place. Should the advice to that not be to eat more but focus on increased activity?2 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »Lets put it another way. Go to the weight loss forum and start clicking through threads. How many threads do you have to click through before you find someone asking how to increase their activity level instead of how to eat less food.
In a balanced approach shouldn't they be pretty equal? Are they pretty equal?
Some people like to tackle one problem at a time. For instance, someone might decide to get comfortable with decreasing their intake, and then once they feel good with that, they will work on the exercise portion. For some people change is very stressful, so it's easier to focus and get good at one before introducing another element.
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I keep seeing people stating things about how "some people want this some people want that" I agree, this approach not going to work for everyone. But at no point was I trying to say that it would. I'm just saying its an approach that is a very good approach yet seems to be not at all discussed here and I find that a bit distressing. I don't think its healthy or sustainable to approach weight loss by only caloric restriction. I think that is likely to result in people feeling low energy, hungry, fearful of food and neurotic about calories as seems to be reflected in quite a few of the posts here. I'm not saying all you do is have more activity, I'm saying having more activity should (I would think) be a common topic or suggestion or approach and I find it to be shockingly absent here.
I count my calories when I want to lose weight. I do watch what I eat. But I get to that deficit through activity by eating around maintenance and then getting some extra exercise in, or, if I happen to get a lot of exercise in eating some more. Given my maintenance level is somewhere in the ballpark of 2500 calories that leaves plenty of room for things like pizza or ice cream of whatever happens to sound good.
I'm not saying I don't count calories, I do. I'm not saying everyone would be better off doing it this way but when I see people on the forum talking about how hard it is to force themselves to eat like this then I can't help but feel like the doctor with the patient who says "it hurts when I do this". Stop doing that then. There are other ways.1 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »And then NEVER in your life get sick or injured. Then you'll be gaining again. Sorry to any losers that can't work out due to physical limitations, chronic illness, etc. You're doomed to be fat.
What person are you imagining that literally cannot increase their activity level? Why do you think it is impossible for them to improve their health through increased activity? I'm not being negative here I am being positive, I am saying you CAN do it...not you CANNOT do it.
I actually know a couple of people who are unable to increase their activity at this time.1 -
I read a great article from some "researcher" who said exercise helps people maintain weightloss..but eating less is what it takes to lose the weight. He said that exercise actually makes a person "dieting" more hungry and weight loss is more challenging. Now.. I for one think you have to do what works for you.2
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Aaron_K123 wrote: »rileysowner wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »And then NEVER in your life get sick or injured. Then you'll be gaining again. Sorry to any losers that can't work out due to physical limitations, chronic illness, etc. You're doomed to be fat.
What person are you imagining that literally cannot increase their activity level? Why do you think it is impossible for them to improve their health through increased activity?
First, the issue is not simply increasing activity, but as someone else mentioned, increasing it enough to take the calorie surplus a person is eating and make it a deficit. Second, there are many people in the morbidly obese categories who have major limitations on activity because of their weight. They need to lose weight initially so they can actually do anything significant including walking without extreme pain.
Having said that, there have been an abundance of studies in this area. Here is an article from Scientific America on this very issue. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-you-lose-weight-with-exercise-alone1/
If I was trying to claim this is a solution for everyone I'd be daft. There is no one-way-fits-all solution to anything let alone weight loss.
That wasn't my point nor did I make that claim anywhere and if I somehow implied that let me say categorically that is not what I meant, My point is that there are TWO SIDES to the coin, TWO ways to approach weight loss but if you come to this forum really only one seems to be represented, and in my opinion it isn't the side that is really best for overall health fitness and well-being for the majority of people.
That was my point.
I get it, I just think what you are noticing that alot of people that come here do not enjoy exercising heavily, or simply do not have time for it. It may be part of the reason a lot of us got as big as we did. Before MFP I hated being active, now I love it. Not every one will end up enjoying it as much as you do, hence the diffensiveness. The wonderful thing about cico is that people get to choose the method that pleases them.2 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »And then NEVER in your life get sick or injured. Then you'll be gaining again. Sorry to any losers that can't work out due to physical limitations, chronic illness, etc. You're doomed to be fat.
What person are you imagining that literally cannot increase their activity level? Why do you think it is impossible for them to improve their health through increased activity? I'm not being negative here I am being positive, I am saying you CAN do it...not you CANNOT do it.
I actually know a couple of people who are unable to increase their activity at this time.
Okay well then this doesn't apply to them then. I don't think I every said "This is what everyone should do" what I said was "How come so few people on this site approach weight loss through increased activity" Big difference there.1 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »rileysowner wrote: »Aaron_K123 wrote: »And then NEVER in your life get sick or injured. Then you'll be gaining again. Sorry to any losers that can't work out due to physical limitations, chronic illness, etc. You're doomed to be fat.
What person are you imagining that literally cannot increase their activity level? Why do you think it is impossible for them to improve their health through increased activity?
First, the issue is not simply increasing activity, but as someone else mentioned, increasing it enough to take the calorie surplus a person is eating and make it a deficit. Second, there are many people in the morbidly obese categories who have major limitations on activity because of their weight. They need to lose weight initially so they can actually do anything significant including walking without extreme pain.
Having said that, there have been an abundance of studies in this area. Here is an article from Scientific America on this very issue. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-you-lose-weight-with-exercise-alone1/
If I was trying to claim this is a solution for everyone I'd be daft. There is no one-way-fits-all solution to anything let alone weight loss.
That wasn't my point nor did I make that claim anywhere and if I somehow implied that let me say categorically that is not what I meant, My point is that there are TWO SIDES to the coin, TWO ways to approach weight loss but if you come to this forum really only one seems to be represented, and in my opinion it isn't the side that is really best for overall health fitness and well-being for the majority of people.
That was my point.
I get it, I just think what you are noticing that alot of people that come here do not enjoy exercising heavily, or simply do not have time for it. It may be part of the reason a lot of us got as big as we did. Before MFP I hated being active, now I love it. Not every one will end up enjoying it as much as you do, hence the diffensiveness. The wonderful thing about cico is that people get to choose the method that pleases them.
Right on, I get that. I just get frustrated. I totally agree with you though and I do understand. Just expressing what I feel like doesn't get expressed here very often. Not looking to fight.2 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »Lets put it another way. Go to the weight loss forum and start clicking through threads. How many threads do you have to click through before you find someone asking how to increase their activity level instead of how to eat less food.
In a balanced approach shouldn't they be pretty equal? Are they pretty equal?
They are equal in theory but in practice they are not equal because it's harder to increase exercise than it is to reduce calorie intake.
People know how to increase their exercise. I don't think there are many people out there that don't agree that increasing exercise is a good thing. What people don't know/struggle with is how to reduce calorie intake without feeling starved/tortured.
I agree. This forum exists so people can ask questions. Most people know they need to move more, and they know how to do it. But they are confused about diet, so that is what they ask about and that is what the answers are about.
When people post that they are struggling to limit themselves to 1200 and ask for help, the answer is usually a) eat more, 1200 calories is too little or b) if you need more calories, increase your activity to buy yourself more calories.
I guess I'm just not seeing what you're seeing. I see posts about fitness and exercise and steps all the time. Maybe if you start replying with the exercise side in these posts that are bothering you, you'll start a trend.3
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