Calorie restriction versus increased activity
Replies
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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 -
Aaron_K123 wrote: »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.
I understand. You are trying to bring it to some people's attention(who may be cutting out food groups or not eating enough) that they don't have to live such a restricted lifestyle. You are not trying to offend any one, you've noticed a trend here and you are trying to help. No one should feel offended by that. We all know that all advice cannot be applied to everyone. I think it's a great solution for those that are willing and able.4 -
The very first thing i advise when people post about their depressingly low tdee is to up their exercise.
I admit, it is easy for me to say as i work less than part time hours per week, so i can exercise for 10 hours a day if i choose (i don't ). If i was working 12 hour days and also had a young family to look after, I dare say i would choose to eat less rather than spend even more hours away from home so i could exercise, and i can categorically state that i would choose more sleep over an early morning gym session.
For me personally, it is easier to create a deficit through exercise. But for those people who are busy and time poor, i totally understand them choosing the eat less route.4 -
I totally get what you're saying and agree with you. But I also see why people harp on the calorie thing, too. It's not uncommon for people to significantly increase their calories when they increase their activity (and justify it , too). I think for a great many of us, it takes attention to detail.. both exercise and calories. For me, certainly that was the case.0
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There you go
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/16/upshot/to-lose-weight-eating-less-is-far-more-important-than-exercising-more.html?_r=0
I wish people like you used some common sense. Exercise has very little influence on weightloss, for a variety of reasons.
Happy walking and tracking!1 -
I was already going for the long walks every day. Still got fat. My daily walk gives me about 200 extra calories over than the 1370 mfp has given me as a lightly active short, dumpy middle aged woman seeking to lose s pound a week. I don't feel at all starved on that amount but it's never going to be enough to eat everything on the menu at patisserie Valerie without a care.0
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Eating 200 less calories is significantly easier than burning 200 from exercise. It's really not hard to understand why people do it. Yes, increasing activity is great for health, but some people just want to see the scale weight go down.3
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Aaron_K123 wrote: »3dogsrunning 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.
If Garmin is to be believed, I can't really do option 2.
I'm a total believer in fuelling my exercise but extra steps just doesn't up it enough for me.
I still eat burgers, but it comes with balancing the rest of my foods and more activity than just taking some extra steps in a day.
I don't necessarily believe my fitbit but on the weekend I did a good amount of just walking and at the end of the day my Charge HR stated my TDEE to be 6,420 calories (it puts my BMR around 1800 so my burn from walking was about 4600. Do I believe that is accurate? Not really. But I doubt its off by 4-fold so we are still talking a thousand or more calories burned. I also enjoyed myself quite a bit and on that day ate a Dairy Queen Blizzard, a Jumbo Jack and a 4-entree Panda Express meal in addition to other things of course.
That's what you get. I don't get near that. My Garmin step activity is very conservative. Even on a 20,000 step day I'm not getting a DQ Blizzard unless a chunk of those steps were a run.0 -
Personally increasing activity was not feasible. I was already walking 8 miles a day doing a physical job. My "days off" usually include trimming hooves on 3-10 horses. I also train at a dojo 3 nights a week for two hours. I couldn't really get much more active.
And I was still not losing weight.
Calorie restriction/tracking was the next and only logical move.
And yes do realise that my experience is not typical.
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Well, from my experience, increasing activity is not always the answer... it's what I did... and I've been so hungry since that I haven't been able to lose anything more. Honestly at some point there seems to be some kind of diminishing returns, at least for me... plus when I increased the intensity of my workouts, I started needing rest days too... so it's pretty much a wash.
I do completely agree though to an extent - I would NEVER have lost the weight if I hadn't increased my activity when I started. I would never have lasted at less than 1600 calories.2 -
If you click through the weight loss help forum you will also find a half dozen new posts every single day that state, "I excercise like a crazy person and I'm not losing weight, what am I doing wrong?" I watch several friends, several times a year take the excercise only approach, start of with a bang, burn themselves out and then quit. Typically the authors of those threads and my friends do not want to hear they need to eat less. People way over estimate the amount of calories they're burning and way under estimate the number of calories they're eating. It takes a whole lot of walking (like 15,000 steps at least) for me to fit in a Big Mac and still maintain a deficit. Making the decision to cut something out during the day so I can fit it in takes about two seconds. That's why *I* give the advice to eat less. People want easier and eating less is easier than trying to squeeze in 15,000 steps in a day. Should they do both? IMO, yes. Exercise is good for your health and good for your soul but when I'm trying to help someone struggling I'm going to give them the advice that doesn't have them struggling so much.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?
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Christine_72 wrote: »The very first thing i advise when people post about their depressingly low tdee is to up their exercise.
I admit, it is easy for me to say as i work less than part time hours per week, so i can exercise for 10 hours a day if i choose (i don't ). If i was working 12 hour days and also had a young family to look after, I dare say i would choose to eat less rather than spend even more hours away from home so i could exercise, and i can categorically state that i would choose more sleep over an early morning gym session.
For me personally, it is easier to create a deficit through exercise. But for those people who are busy and time poor, i totally understand them choosing the eat less route.
Chances are if you worked 12 hours a day and had a young family your NEAT would be higher than sedentary. Part of the issue is people have a difficult time determining their NEAT level resulting in an inordinate number of people who set their level as sedentary many of whom are not truly sedentary.1 -
It's all calories in vs burn. How you do that is just semantics.1
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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.
My mum is severely disabled. The only options for her to lose weight is to eat less. Because the amount of exercise she can do not only would burn less than 100 calories for the day, but it completely takes it out of her and leaves her in pain for days.
It is not a one size fits all, and you also have to take into account different people burn differing amounts of calories with their exercise. You're a man so by default you burn a heck of a lot more calories than all the women on here doing the exact same exercise. So what might create a good deficit for you, might not for someone else.
You may also want to take into account that sometimes doctors even recommend that very obese people don't exercise for weight loss until they have already lost a significant amount of weight because of the damage it can sometimes do to their bodies.2 -
I'm already at a healthy weight, so I'm playing with smaller numbers and a smaller targeted deficit to begin with. Even so, it's relatively painless (aside from a ton of whining on my part) to create a 250-calorie deficit through manipulating my intake. All it takes is some strategic planning and some food swaps. In order to create that same 250-calorie deficit through exercise (in a reasonable amount of time that can fit comfortably into my day), I'd have to run 2.5 miles. I'm reasonably fit and I do run, but running every day isn't a healthy or sustainable option for me.
For me...the option with the least impact and the least amount of disruption to my life (IF I only get to choose one, which is a little ridiculous) is to create the deficit through food.2 -
I think exercise is extremely important for health and that there is way too much focus on the nuances of different diets vs. the importance of activity, so I love your post as a corrective, OP.
How I've tended to approach weight loss (when not already very active) is to cut calories for about half of it and to add activity for the other half, as an ideal, but then with the goal of maintaining the activity after the weight is lost. What that means now is that I don't really have a choice, as my activity is at about the rate I'd like, so cutting calories to cut is what I'm stuck with. (I'm close to goal, though, so have my goal set for a 1 lb loss with the intention of eating at maintenance on the weekends or a bit over and hitting around .5 lb / week -- we shall see how this works.)
I think the focus on calories only is mainly because lots of newbies don't like exercise (or think they don't) OR are sufficiently out of shape that they don't think they can burn that much with exercise. OR, as in my case and for lots of people who have been doing this for a while, because their activity level is where they want/they have a training plan and couldn't add more activity reasonably within that without sacrificing goals.
On the "can't burn that much yet," thing, that was my thought when I started here (although my goal was to work up). It turned out I could burn more through stuff like walking than I realized, but it took a while to trust that -- it definitely wasn't self-flagellation that I started at 1250, as I reran the calculations a bunch of times and checked on other calculators before deciding it was probably right for me if I were sedentary, and I would just have get non-sedentary ASAP.0 -
I did not read all the posts, but there is a case in point just today.. there are those that could give a crap one about maintaining their muscle mass, or about doing it safely and healthy.. they really want to choose insane and unnecessary restriction to meet some sort of time line. I have seen several times posts that covers this alone in the past couple of days.
And there are those that simply do think that if they exercise their butts off and for example burn 1000 calories a day, that calorie burn should show as weight loss on the scale and usually they think pretty quickly like today or tomorrow.
Now there is also people that are in it to win it. And I mean weight loss, body composition, cardio health and actually having fun with it and wanting to live healthy happy lives in which their changes are going to bring about energy, health and some longevity. And there are plenty of these people do not get me wrong.
There are so many circumstances out there in real world. Whether you can, or can't, or won't or don't exercise or want to be more active, are all personal choices. There are million and one different cases out there. Cannot change the world or the world perception but we can try by responding to each case here in MFP one at a time.
i got long winded sorry.. I do hope some newbies will enter here and read all of this!3 -
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rileysowner wrote: »The problem with simply increasing activity is that from the reading I have done, it doesn't work as well as a calorie deficit.
Increasing activity (but not food intake - like we're talking about in this thread) is a calorie deficit.2 -
Where exactly are the people on this forum discouraging excercise?4
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If mere weight loss is a person's only goal, just restrict calories - whatever...create a deficit - whatever...and the weight comes right off.
You'll become a lighter version of yourself.
Some of us want more, so to reach those goals, exercise was and remains paramount. Also, in addition to exercise to offset calorie intake, proper nutrition comes into play big time as well as calorie counting.
For overall health and wellness, 80% of my results are from nutrition, and for general physical fitness, exercise weighs equally with diet.
Optimal health and peak fitness don't just happen; you make it happen by virtue of food and exercise choices.
You must decide for yourself, but I will never go back to what made me fat and sick.
That ship has sailed!
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