Diet Matters More than Exercise?

Set a calorie goal that is a little less than your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE.) Eat to that number. Lose weight.

On this site, when you exercise you enter it into the Exercise tab and you are given more calories to eat.

Weight loss is 100% about a calorie deficit. How you achieve that is up to you. Exercise is for fitness, gives a little wiggle room with calories and for a lot of people it helps to diminish hunger in general (if they are eating enough to start with.)

Weight is lost in the kitchen. (Food)

Strength is gained in the gym. (Fitness)

Edit: Posted too early. All I do is walk since my knee injury and Im losing. I do it for my body not my weight though. Cardio does make me hungry if I dont choose the right food for my satiety.

I definitely subscribe to this philosophy. Strenuous exercise tends to make me extremely hungry, and it is also much more difficult to make a 500 calorie deficit with exercise then it is with food. Also, with food, I feel like I can be more exact about the deficit I am creating--when I used just exercise to lose weight in the past, I lost much more slowly, I believe at least in part because the calorie estimates on my treadmill were at least partially inflated. Currently, I am having quite a bit of success by focusing on diet and adding in some light walking. I am considering adding in more exercise now, however, I don't feel an urgency to do it because of weight loss; I simply think it might be good for my overall health.

Spent 6 months training in the gym with a pt, never lost 1 lb and I had 30 of them spare! However my shape did change and I got much stronger.

In short, op. Yes. It works. Exercise is not essential for weight loss. I've been having a bad year health wise, so not much exercise since May. Lost over 70 lbs. Doing some low intensity body weight exercises lately, enjoying it, but not for weight loss, just for fitness.

PerfectFit30 wrote: »

Exercise IS important, but I've heard I've heard it time and time again that weight doesn't come from exercise AS MUCH as it comes from the depletion of calories that you just never ingest in the first place.
Do any of you subscribe to this and and have you had success with low intensity training? In the past I exercised way too hard, and I ate ... too much because I felt hungry.

Always looking for a balance right?

I lost my first 70 pounds or so by staying in my MFP calorie goal and walking during my lunch breaks or on my treadmill while watching TV. No gym, no running, no crazy exercise videos.

I run 20+ miles a week, lift weights 3 times a week, and average over 15,000 steps a day now, but that's for fitness, not weight loss. I still have to watch my calories or I could easily undo the 6+ hours of exercise I do weekly.

Calories in vs calories out. It's that simple. Although exercise is a great way to make deficits, and trying to do those ridiculous diets scattered throughout the forums...USUALLY none are maintainable long term. Yes, exercise is not always sustainable due to life events or injuries. Anyway, if you can balance calories in vs calories out, you can maintain your ideal weight easily. If you are trying to lose weight, just make sure your calories in are less than calories out.

I lost the extra weight with no exercise factored in. Now approaching 4 years of maintenance I'm more active in my daily activities, but I still don't do structured exercise. I control my weight by calorie intake and it works well for me.

rosebarnalice wrote: »

For me, exercise is an absolutely essential part of my healthy lifestyle--not just for the calorie burn but for the overall "fitness mindset."

When I am swimming regularly, I just FEEL more like an athlete rather than a schlub. . . and that makes me WANT to choose wholesome and nutritious foods. I actually eat LESS when I'm swimming regularly because there's a part of me that looks at a donut and says, "ooh, not while I'm 'in training.'" In training for what? Life, I guess!

but after swimming, I want to eat ALL THE THINGS

zyxst wrote: »

My main exercise is walking. For me, it's easier to not eat 500 calories than it is to exercise off 500 calories.

Burning 500 calories is no joke!

There is more potential to error on the caloric intake than it is on the output, which is why many state this. This is also why the medical community does not generally recommend exercise and will focus on diet. The reasoning is that people (Americans in particular) will go too hard at the gym initially and then stop, or will have an increase in appetite stimulation from the increased activity and eat over their allotted calories.

The majority experiencing long term success will incorporate both - monitoring of diet and routine exercise.

As a general statement of fact, sure, diet matters more than exercise for the purposes of losing weight.

But that's really the tip of the iceberg when it comes to weight loss.

"have you had success with low intensity training?"

Walking, yes.

"Always looking for a balance right?"

I think it's more about finding out what works for you, and finding something you can sustain long-term, so you can reach your goals.

If "weight loss" is all you care about, then a calorie deficit is all you need, and low-intensity exercise may help you maintain that calorie deficit over time.

If "fat loss" and having a "toned body" are additional desires, then we're talking about a different set of goals that require a different strategy to attain. At that point, low-intensity exercise and a calorie-deficit are going to need some help.

PerfectFit30 wrote: »

In the past I exercised way too hard, and I ate ... too much because I felt hungry.

I've been in exactly that situation: lifting hard with high intensity and being very hungry on a deficit. It's a difficult thing to exercise with high intensity several days per week and maintain a calorie deficit.

I've made changes in the past three months that have really helped with this, and have allowed me to not only continue with my high-intensity lifting, but increase the number of workouts I do each week. I've upped my workouts from 3-days per week to 5-days per week, and at the same time I've also become less hungry, due to shifting my diet to a different set of foods to help with satiety. I still maintain a calorie deficit.

The *kind* of food you eat can help maintain satiety and stave off hunger. This is why you'll hear people talk about more than calorie deficit. Everyone will yell that you only need a calorie deficit, and while this is technically true, it doesn't paint the whole picture. What they don't tell you is that some foods are more filling than others, than some foods will fuel your workouts better than others, and that some foods will limit insulin spikes better than others. All of these facts about various food types actually can make a difference in how you feel and how well fueled you are for working out.

So, sure, calorie deficit is all that's necessary to lose weight. But - and this is a big but - eating foods that spike insulin levels, or foods that do not satisfy your appetite for long periods of time, can make it difficult to maintain that deficit. This can lead to binge eating and overeating, from hunger, as you have found out. And at that point you're no longer in a deficit and all your hard work eating limited calories is now wasted.

Fibers and fats can slow digestion and increase satiety. Low glycemic carbs digest slower and still give you the energy you need for high intensity workouts. They also lower your blood sugar, limiting spikes and keeping your insulin levels low, so you stay in "fat burning" mode longer (fat burning shuts off when insulin levels are high).

Now, this is all stuff that we know intuitively. We know eating a "balanced diet" is better for us that eating Twinkies all day. But there's actual science behind this intuition. I mean, think about it: eat 2,000 calories of Twinkies today, or eat 2,000 calories of chicken, broccoli and brown rice. You tell me, after a few days, which diet is going to satisfy you and fuel your workouts better? I have good money that you'll be starving on the Twinkie diet. Same calories, but same results? I think not.

Lot of good posts above. What I have always found to be true is that your diet (meaning what you eat - not some diet program) is 90% of controlling your weight. Exercise is a nice complement to creating a calorie deficit - but the heavy lifting comes from how many calories you consume. Exercise is 100% if your FITNESS. Balance, strength endurance. In my personal experience, focus on diet for weight management and exercise for physical fitness.

You can eat in 5 minutes what will take an hour of hard work to exercise off. That is a losing equation if you ask me. If you depend on burning 800 calories a day via exercise so you can eat more - that probably works for some people, but it always seemed risky to me. What if I was injured, what if I got sick or just missed some days for whatever reason. Now I am accustom to eating many more calories than I need in the absence of working out.

I am not anti-exercise - I just think the focus of exercise is mainly fitness and just complementary to weight loss. There are a million great reasons to exercise.

Charles