Diet Vs Exercise

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  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,853 Member
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    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    CSARdiver wrote: »
    try2again wrote: »
    CSARdiver wrote: »
    Well both, but this article is assuming one isn't tracking caloric intake and output and just winging it.

    That's what we often see here though... people focused on their exercise routines and no mention of diet.

    This was me prior to MFP. I imagine the majority of people believe this. The misinformation campaigns from the diet/fitness industry are massive.

    At the gym I go to, most of the people there are working with one of the trainers as it is not an open to the public gym. I know all of the trainers well and personally and they all really emphasize diet...but still, there's people I've been seeing in there for the last 3 years that haven't changed one iota except to get stronger and more fit...they don't listen to the nutrition advice and some of these people are in there 2-3 times per week at $50 a pop.

    Since it's a gym you're using and speaking positively about, I assume it's good diet and nutrition advice. ;)

    I visited one locally that had a good rep for fitness improvement, but the owner was all about how I should give up being vegetarian (after 40 years or thereabouts at the time) and eat paleo. Um, no.

    I might have signed up anyway (good pricing and workout model), but I also found the owner a complete overbearing jerk, so uh-uh (even though I would've mostly been working with one of his minions, most of the time).

    If I had signed up, I probably would've stayed fat (but gotten fitter), too. :) I'm not the only one who doesn't want to change eating habits, I'm sure.
  • hippiesaur
    hippiesaur Posts: 137 Member
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    I think for some people exercising can be enough if they gained their weight really slowly, so they barely ate above their maintenance prior to exercising. I was one of these people (I had to lose only about 20 lbs however I was overweight since I was a child, so I really ate close to my maintenance), and starting to exercise helped me lost most of my excess weight without making huge changes in my diet. This is why some people might think that it can be enough cause there are people who are successful at weightloss without eating 'diet food', and it's probably easier to think that doing 30 mins of cardio a day will lead to success. However when I got to those last 7-8 lbs, I couldn't succeed in weightloss barely through exercise, that was the point when I realized how important is the calorie deficit to lose weight.
    So I say that diet is more important but it doesn't mean that exercising can't be enough. Those 200-300 calories are a lot when you are not far away from your goal weight and you should eat very few calories otherwise if you wanted to lose weight without exercising.
    For obese people the dietary changes should be the first thing they do if they wanted to get to a normal BMI, however adding exercising is very important for health as well, so it's best to do both.
  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
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    They talk, in the article, about walking. But what struck me as a ~200 lb man, is that I have to run more than a marathon distance each week for 1 lb of fat loss each week.

    Or I could stop drinking pop.

    Course dumbass I am, I'm doing both :)
  • mbaker566
    mbaker566 Posts: 11,233 Member
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    i focus on a calorie deficit
  • shaumom
    shaumom Posts: 1,003 Member
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    For me, it's exercise.

    I DO pay attention to calories, and can slowly lose weight doing so. If I exercise, even when I don't pay that much attention to calories, I lose weight much more, and as long as I stay somewhat active, it stays off. I don't tend to be that much hungrier when I exercise, so I'm sure that is part of it. It's

    I have a cousin who is the opposite. She can exercise till the cows come home and how her hunger increases makes it so she never seems to lose weight. But a diet, without exercise - she loses weight a lot.

    Personally, i think it kind of depends on the person and how exercise and/or diet impact them, mentally and physically.
  • Running2Fit
    Running2Fit Posts: 702 Member
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    For weight loss, diet should definitely be your focus. But in terms of health and what your body will look like once you lose the weight - exercise is important too!

    When I started losing weight I was primarily focused on diet, my exercise was really sporadic and not especially focused. But I still lost 28 lbs. Now that I really have the diet down I’m focusing on adding exercise while I lose the last 28 lbs because I don’t just want to be skinny, I want to be healthy too.
  • estherdragonbat
    estherdragonbat Posts: 5,283 Member
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    Same!
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,996 Member
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    hippiesaur wrote: »
    I think for some people exercising can be enough if they gained their weight really slowly, so they barely ate above their maintenance prior to exercising. I was one of these people (I had to lose only about 20 lbs however I was overweight since I was a child, so I really ate close to my maintenance), and starting to exercise helped me lost most of my excess weight without making huge changes in my diet. This is why some people might think that it can be enough cause there are people who are successful at weightloss without eating 'diet food', and it's probably easier to think that doing 30 mins of cardio a day will lead to success. However when I got to those last 7-8 lbs, I couldn't succeed in weightloss barely through exercise, that was the point when I realized how important is the calorie deficit to lose weight.
    So I say that diet is more important but it doesn't mean that exercising can't be enough. Those 200-300 calories are a lot when you are not far away from your goal weight and you should eat very few calories otherwise if you wanted to lose weight without exercising.
    For obese people the dietary changes should be the first thing they do if they wanted to get to a normal BMI, however adding exercising is very important for health as well, so it's best to do both.

    Along these lines, I'm at a good weight when I have an active job and active lifestyle, but struggle with a sedentary job and lifestyle. Since I don't see myself having any job other than a desk job for the conceivable future, I up the exercise outside work.
  • Mike1804
    Mike1804 Posts: 114 Member
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    It’s a moving target..... I really think that our bodies are so complex and dynamic, that not one theory of weight loss/management will work for everyone in the same manner, all the time. The real trick is figuring out the combo that works for your own body. I’ve lost 30lbs in the last 2 years.... the last 6 months I lost 10lbs... but these last 10lbs, my body fat% is the same as it was when I was 10lbs heavier. So apparently these last 6 months I lost muscle and fat. Up until this point, I had been dropping body fat% at a pretty decent pace. Now it’s time to figure out what I need to do to change in my program. It’s a constant moving target.....
  • spiriteagle99
    spiriteagle99 Posts: 3,694 Member
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    I used to be a long distance hiker. On the Appalachian Trail, I met several people who hiked the trail hoping to lose weight. Most did. When you are hiking 15-20 miles a day for 5-6 months, you burn a lot of calories. My husband lost 20 pounds in the first two weeks on the Continental Divide Trail, because heat and lack of water depressed his appetite so much and we were hiking 15 miles a day. He lost at least 50 on our first CDT hike. What most thruhikers didn't realize though was that as soon as they stopped backpacking, the weight would come right back. Worse was that the habits of the trail--eating whatever you want, as much as you want, and preferably the most fattening foods you can find--are very hard to lose afterwards.

    I lost weight and regained weight many times with my hikes. After we stopped hiking, I lost weight and kept it off by a combination of watching what I eat and exercise. Since I'm a runner who likes to do marathons and half marathons, I exercise a lot. Part of the reason I do is so I can eat what I want, most of the time. Logging my food keeps my intake in check. If I just exercised without logging, I know I would eat too much. I don't run enough to justify ice cream and beer every day.
  • gcminton
    gcminton Posts: 170 Member
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    Diet is my priority, for sure. It has the biggest impact on my life and is much easier to adjust than making time to exercise.

    I will say that changing my diet and losing weight makes it a whole lot easier to up my NEAT and gives me a little wiggle room as my calorie goal decreases. My SO and I have recently started working out together before work, too, because fitness is important and adding more movement also lets us stress less about what we're eating.

    Luckily neither of us have run into problems with exercise ramping up our appetites, at least so far.
  • lkpducky
    lkpducky Posts: 16,989 Member
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    I've been able to lose weight by mostly diet and also by diet plus exercise.
    Sometime back I couldn't exercise very much because of a strained hip and frozen shoulder. But I still lost several pounds. However, according to before-and-after DEXA scans, half of that loss was lean body mass. Now why would I want to lose THAT? I ain't getting any younger and can't afford to do that.
    Back before I did running and weight lifting, I was of normal weight (121, 5'0") but had no shape and a plump face. After adding the running and weight lifting for a couple of years, I was only 6 pounds lighter but a lot leaner looking. I no longer looked like a fat baby.
  • jesspen91
    jesspen91 Posts: 1,383 Member
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    Personally exercise is very important for my weightloss. Without exercise I am on 1360 calories. 200 extra calories make a hell of a lot of difference!
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    Short answer for me is I focus on both.
    Without a high level of exercise I have to try much harder to maintain or lose weight. My exercise boosts my daily allowance by probably 600 cals and that gives me a lot of dietary freedom and a satisfying volume of food.
    As an averaged sized old bloke I'm eating well over 3000 cals on average to maintain because I'm very active compared to an increasingly sedentary population and I also exercise a lot.

    General points:
    • Be careful of comparing a general population of people who don't calorie count with those that either count or are simply calorie aware.
    • Be careful of reading a general population tendency into being personally relevant. That many people can't exercise their way to weight loss is irrelevant to people like me who can.
    • Hunger response to exercise is very personal, for some it blunts hunger, for some it increases hunger over their actual exercise burn. I'm a foot in both camps depending on exercise type and intensity.

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