Exercise doesn't help you lose weight...say what?

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  • Alatariel75
    Alatariel75 Posts: 18,341 Member
    pagewuskynykfit wrote: »
    It’s more of a 80% diet 20% working out. Even if you’re eating healthy all day, but just sitting on the couch not moving all day, you’ll still gain weight.
    You need to eat less calories than you burn in a day to be losing weight. And to build muscle you need to be eating the proper “macro nutrients”

    If you're eating healthy all day, sitting on the couch, and eating under maintenance, you will lose weight. Or are you saying that someone who cannot exercise, or even move around a lot, could never lose weight?
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    I find exercise extremely helpful in losing weight or maintaining, but it seems obvious to me that not everyone will. Many people claim that if they exercise they tend to eat more, and people who hate exercise and do exercise they find tedious may well feel like they should reward themselves with eating. For exercise to actually result in increased weight loss (or any weight loss) many people (and this includes me) must have a controlled diet (however one achieves that control).

    I also find that the type of exercise matters. I do swim, since I think it's good for me, but it tends to make me ravenous, so if I swam without a planned meal soon afterwards I could easily eat back the calories burned (since I don't think my own swimming burns that many calories). I've found that it is REALLY hard for me to lose weight (to keep a calorie deficit) when training really hard (i.e., marathon training or when I trained for a half ironman), and in those cases cutting back on intentional exercise and focusing on other things that burn calories (more walking, bike commuting) would have been more helpful, as I tend to be able to raise my TDEE doing those without feeling like I need to eat more.

    Mostly I think this is a semantic argument and people aren't really disagreeing, but those are my two cents.

    Oh, and apart from weight loss I think exercise is, of course, important, since it's good for health (disclaimer about when possible and all that).
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,968 Member
    filbo132 wrote: »
    Need2Exerc1se wrote: »
    SezxyStef wrote: »
    I find this all very funny..people accuse me of being all semantic and *kitten*..but come one folks.

    we all know to lose weight you need a calorie deficit...how you get that deficit can be a variety of ways.

    eat less food, exercise more or a combination of both.

    But when it comes down to it....EXERCISE IS NOT A REQUIREMENT TO LOSE WEIGHT.

    There are people everyday who lose weight who can't exercise...yah can't exercise. Just normal movement can and does cause issues for some folks so they lose weight by eating less.

    So exercise can create a deficit but in the long term it really is not the way weight is lost...as pointed out many times you can exercise all you want but if you aren't burning more than waht you are consuming...

    All true. But the question wasn't whether exercise is a requirement.

    To answer that question, exercise doesn't help you to lose weight in all cases. If you eat 3000 calories over your maintenance, does doing 30 minutes of cardio help you lose weight???

    If you eat 3K over maintenance, and then spend 30 minutes burning calories, you'll be better off than if you eat 3K over maintenance and don't exercise.

    Why are all the anti-exercise people consistently trying to move the goal posts? The question isn't whether exercise alone will cause weight loss, it's whether it helps.
  • gumbykevbo
    gumbykevbo Posts: 5 Member
    My experience is that I can tone up and convert fat to muscle in the gym or on my bike, but if I am trying to drop pounds, I have to do that in the kitchen...and I have to track my food meticulously. Surprisingly I don't have to starve myself or even walk around hungry...I just have to keep track of where the calories are coming from and the fact that if I eat that donut (like I ever stop at one!) from the break room then it will use ALL the calories I was planning to eat for lunch.

    Part of this is that if I am exercising a lot, then I need/crave a lot of protein, and if I am not watching my diet, then it is easy to get way too many calories in the process, and negate any weight loss. When I'm tracking my food, I see that I really have to focus on protein while minimizing calories.

    I was bicycling 70-100 miles/week and losing little if any weight. As soon as I started tracking my nutrition, the pounds started coming off.
  • squirmmonster
    squirmmonster Posts: 98 Member
    edited October 2017
    I disagree. If your only goal is to lose pounds, then sure, it's almost all dietary, unless you exercise for long periods of time, all the time. But if you want to lose FAT, then she's very wrong. The exercise will keep you toned, raise your muscle mass, and keep you more lean. If you're 20% body fat and 150 lbs, then you have about 30 lbs of fat on you. If you're 15% body fat and 150 lbs, you'll have about 22 lbs of fat on you. So a total fat-loss of 8 lbs. To illustrate the point of this...

    BOm9B3FCQAIVlNb.jpg

    Imagine how different the second person looks from the first!

    I also disagree because I think that in some people the exercise raises metabolism significantly. I find that my weight loss is GLACIAL unless I'm exercising. And it's not a calories in/ calories out thing. It literally seems to help my weight loss to the point that I lose weight beyond what the calculators say I "should" lose. Provided I am getting a lot of exercise.
  • z0ey666_
    z0ey666_ Posts: 5 Member
    Ya it's 80% diet, 20% exercise. It could be 100% diet though.
  • lostsomeweightonce
    lostsomeweightonce Posts: 23 Member
    What I was told.

    Weight Loss = Diet Only (Loose Fat and Muscle)
    Fat Loss = Diet & Exercise (Loose Fat and Less Muscle) Specifically weight training

    From everything I've read and my trainer. To keep muscle you need to use it. So Diet and exercise work together. Or else you can end up looking the same just lighter.
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
    SezxyStef wrote: »
    Need2Exerc1se wrote: »
    SezxyStef wrote: »
    NorthCascades wrote: »
    SezxyStef wrote: »
    Need2Exerc1se wrote: »
    SezxyStef wrote: »
    Need2Exerc1se wrote: »
    SezxyStef wrote: »
    melancholicx wrote: »
    To say it doesn't "help" you lose weight is plainly false and almost laughable. A 20% contribution to weight loss is help. I do think that food is way more important, but that's just statistically accurate.

    I think the best statement would have been

    It might not help you lose weight...

    In what scenario would it not help?

    ah...when it doesn't put you in a deficit...

    help =/= cause

    where did I say cause...I said the best statement would have been it might not help...not it doesn't help...

    and exercise might not help with weight loss...it can but no guarantee.
    NorthCascades wrote: »
    SezxyStef wrote: »
    Need2Exerc1se wrote: »
    SezxyStef wrote: »
    melancholicx wrote: »
    To say it doesn't "help" you lose weight is plainly false and almost laughable. A 20% contribution to weight loss is help. I do think that food is way more important, but that's just statistically accurate.

    I think the best statement would have been

    It might not help you lose weight...

    In what scenario would it not help?

    ah...when it doesn't put you in a deficit...

    But exercise always burns calories. That means it always contributes, which is another word for helps.

    it always burns but doesn't always create a deficit...so it may not contribute to weight loss...

    aka run 30mins burn 300 under TDEE...eat another 300...guess what that run isn't going to help you lose weight

    If you eat at a surplus but exercise, you'll gain less weight than if you eat at the same surplus and don't exercise. Exercise always helps. It's an unavoidable mathematical truth.

    that has nothing to do with my statement of "exercise might not help you lose weight"...

    exercise always helps with health and fitness...
    exercise always helps you burn more calories....

    BUT

    it doesn't always help create a calorie deficit to lose weight...that is unavoidable truth.

    You are misusing words.

    Edit: What I mean is this. I can't help you down the stairs unless you go down the stairs. I can't help you make lasagna unless you make lasagna. Exercise can't help create a calorie deficit unless you create a calorie deficit.

    But if you do, it will help.

    wow...accept vs except those are two words that are often misused...there, they're, their...too, two, to....help vs cause in this case.

    Help is defined as giving aid...or make something easier for someone

    exercise does not always make it easier for someone to lose weight.

    exercise can help but does not always.

    PS there isn't a strict definition in the english language for any word

    but I knew an hour ago that this could go on and on and I am bowing out of this particular debate....I have exercise to do.

    Well at least we agreed at the end. Exercise can help with weight loss.
  • tigerblue
    tigerblue Posts: 1,526 Member

    Since it is, at some point, CICO, exercise can sure help to create the deficit. I am a fairly small woman aged 50, and without exercise (even just lots of steps), I would feel deprived on my "calorie allowance". Sometimes it even feels a little skimpy when I am maintaining.
  • shillbert
    shillbert Posts: 20 Member
    edited October 2017
    tigerblue wrote: »
    Since it is, at some point, CICO, exercise can sure help to create the deficit. I am a fairly small woman aged 50, and without exercise (even just lots of steps), I would feel deprived on my "calorie allowance". Sometimes it even feels a little skimpy when I am maintaining.

    Exactly this. If you are counting calories (which you should be doing), then exercise helps in the sense that it gives you more calories to work with in your daily calorie budget. It's exactly the same as asking "does getting a second job help you reduce debt?" It helps if and only if you're actually budgeting, and you need more room in your daily budget in order to have an excess to pay toward the debt. There are people who will get a second job and then end up buying even more stuff than they earned because they're not budgeting, and end up deeper in debt, just like there are people who will exercise and then eat even more food than they burned off because they're not counting calories and end up even fatter.
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