80% Consumption, 20% exercise: Change my Mind
flashesbuck
Posts: 27 Member
I know it, I just need to do it. I have preached it before "You can't out run calories." I need to get back on track with good-ol MPF and tracking my calories. Take a look at my weight history. I was able to loose a solid 100lb about 6 years ago. Then slowly gained (most of it) back. Several life changes, but a lot of exercise has done me no good. Last summer I got into cycling. That helped, but still not able to keep up with my consumption. At the start of it all, I was logging what I ate, and the weight fell off! Being a faster runner (was really into jogging/running) was more of a by product (looking back at it now).
One way I like to look at it:
Consumption (calorie intake)= weight loss/weight gain
Exercise= modify your physical appearance
One way I like to look at it:
Consumption (calorie intake)= weight loss/weight gain
Exercise= modify your physical appearance
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Replies
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Yup. Can't outwork a bad diet I think is the phrase.4
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One way I like to look at it:
Consumption (calorie intake)= weight loss/weight gain
Exercise= modify your physical appearance
[/quote]
That’s mostly how I think of it. I log calories to lose/maintain weight, but I exercise for improved health markers, decreased anxiety, and a more pleasing physique.3 -
"You can't outrun the fork" is the phrase.
I think the percentage breakdown varies by person. There are a lot of people here who have successfully lost weight with 100% consumption 0% exercise. Exercise is a bonus but not always necessary. I think for me personally, it's played a bigger role than 20%. Maybe it is only 20% in direct impact (as in calories burned through exercise vs calories controlled through diet), but exercise has been the biggest advantage when keeping my diet on track. When I am on top of my exercise, my body tends to crave more nutritious, less calorie heavy food, and mentally I am more disciplined because I don't want the hard work I put in with exercise to go to waste. When I fall off my routine, thats when I crave all the tasties.
So I think the importance of exercise varies per person, but one thing is clear: You definitely can't outrun the fork. Intake control is a necessary part of weight loss.14 -
It’s calorie balance. Calories in and calories out.
Most (but not all) people find it easier to reduce calories in than to increase calories out by the same amount. You can outrun a fork-it just takes a lot of running. I think everyone has a sweet spot.
My normal activity level (without exercise) is very low. My appetite is very high. I find it nearly impossible to stick to a calorie deficit without doing exercise (to increase the amount I can eat). I can’t lose by only doing exercise (I can easily polish off 3k calories without even thinking about it-and that’s my TDEE if I run a half marathon).
For me it’s really 50/50. I need to do the exercise in order to be able to maintain a calorie deficit. But I can’t lose without also significantly reducing my intake. Because that’s the only way I arrive at a sustainable CICO where I lose.10 -
People who are super active can outrun the fork but for your desk based person who is overweight, probably not.5
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I could have written the post by @Duck_Puddle
I would add that logging food is a must for me. I can't just intuitively eat and exercise the right amount. Ask me how I know...7 -
You absolutely can’t outrun the fork!!
But for me the exercise and eating well go hand in hand. If I’m not active, I tend to mindlessly snack. But when I workout I’m more in tune with my body and I seem to respect it more. So when I’m exercising regularly I tend to want to eat better.
So even though the 80/20 thing is true, for me the 20 seems to spark the 80. The fuse is a small part of a firecracker, but without it there is no bang!!
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cupcakesandproteinshakes wrote: »People who are super active can outrun the fork but for your desk based person who is overweight, probably not.
This is only true if the person is burning more calories than they are consuming because of the exercise they are doing. Calories are key.2 -
cupcakesandproteinshakes wrote: »People who are super active can outrun the fork but for your desk based person who is overweight, probably not.
Yup I outrun my fork all the time. All I have to do is add some cardio or a bit more activity and I am in a deficit. Also very often the more I eat the more active I become.
In the end it's about being in a deficit...either by decreasing food intake, increasing activity, or both.2 -
cupcakesandproteinshakes wrote: »People who are super active can outrun the fork but for your desk based person who is overweight, probably not.
Unless they are a professional athlete, it's pretty close to impossible. LeBron James and Michael Phelps? Probably. But active guy who exercises 6 or 7 days a week for an hour or 2? Not likely.
Now you have to understand what we say by this: Not that some people don't naturally eat at their maintenance or deficit level through activity. Sure. Some people are naturally better regulators than others. What "you can't outrun the fork" means is that you can't eat as many calories as possible and still lose weight, just because you exercise. It's an important distinction.
Back before my lifestyle change, there were days I could regularly put back 4000-5000 calories in a day, without that much effort. Those type of days are not getting outran, even if I went to my 90 minute Krav Maga class every day.6 -
MikePTY has a very useful insight in his response. It's not always direct connection. You can't necessarily always burn off all your calories. But I personally, and even believe there's research to support this, also think that when you are constantly physically active you are less likely to binge, eat unhealthy (because you feel like crap eating trash then working out), and more likely to stay hydrated. All of those effects are just as valuable as the actual calorie burn itself.2
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As a long distance cyclist the exercise part for me can be a large percentage of successful weight loss.
In long term weight maintenance it's my biggest variable and I get a seasonal ebb and flow in weight broadly in line with my mileage.
Other factors are:- As I'm semi retired I can have a very active lifestyle.
- I have far more time to devote to my exercise/sport hobbies than someone working full time.
- Personally I find a calorie deficit (when required) far easier to adhere to when I have a very large calorie allowance boosted by exercise and activity. Taking 500 cals off a 3,500 daily allowance I find a lot easier than 500 cals off a 2,500 allowance for example.
- As power to weight ratio is a performance factor that's another motivator to be a good weight.
My guess is that those people who don't think it's possible to out exercise your fork haven't mixed with dedicated athletes - some of whom will struggle to keep weight on.
Note possible isn't the same as easy or the same as being possible for everyone!6 -
cupcakesandproteinshakes wrote: »People who are super active can outrun the fork but for your desk based person who is overweight, probably not.
Unless they are a professional athlete, it's pretty close to impossible. LeBron James and Michael Phelps? Probably. But active guy who exercises 6 or 7 days a week for an hour or 2? Not likely.
Now you have to understand what we say by this: Not that some people don't naturally eat at their maintenance or deficit level through activity. Sure. Some people are naturally better regulators than others. What "you can't outrun the fork" means is that you can't eat as many calories as possible and still lose weight, just because you exercise. It's an important distinction.
Back before my lifestyle change, there were days I could regularly put back 4000-5000 calories in a day, without that much effort. Those type of days are not getting outran, even if I went to my 90 minute Krav Maga class every day.
OMG, thank you for that! Every time I see that I think, "Yeah, well, my 125 lb weight loss says otherwise!"
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The percentage thing makes no sense to me, but how I would put it is that anyone who has been overweight for any length of time or, especially, obese, likely needs to find a way to control calorie intake as well as simply trying to rely on exercise.
I do find that exercising makes it easier for me to control calorie intake (I naturally tend to eat better and am less likely to overeat when exercising) in addition to being able to eat more.2 -
Agree with the 80/20 in general. Because the activity part of our calorie burn is relatively small, consumption is a far bigger driver for most of us - and it's the easiest to modify. But I live by 3 things, because for most of us it's about more than just weight loss - it's about what we can do and how we look (yeah I know - a little bit of vanity, even for us 50+ guys who may never look like a fitness model):
1. Calorie balance for weight (negative for losing fat, positive for gaining muscle mass)
2. Cardio for cardio fitness (ability to perform with endurance)
3. Weight training for shape (needs to be progressive overload) and strength
Leaving 1 of those out will generally leave me wanting.
But yeah, the 80/20 is good mental reminder of what is likely the most important.1 -
The percentage thing makes no sense to me, but how I would put it is that anyone who has been overweight for any length of time or, especially, obese, likely needs to find a way to control calorie intake as well as simply trying to rely on exercise.
I do find that exercising makes it easier for me to control calorie intake (I naturally tend to eat better and am less likely to overeat when exercising) in addition to being able to eat more.
Right, exercise is very important to me, but I would not be able to quantify this with a percentage.4 -
Whenever I miss my workouts for a couple/few days, the calories-in part of the formula starts to hit the skids. Without the sweaty workout and the feeling of working toward a better, healthier me, there seems to be no reason not to have that extra bag of chips. Conversely, a good workout puts me in a "healthy" mindset and makes it so much easier to resist temptation and stay on plan. All in all, I think 80/20 may be correct from an arithmetical, reductionist point of view, but at least for me there's a nuanced relationship between diet and exercise that the numbers don't quite capture.4
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You can work off the calories if you go backpacking. 4.5 months of backpacking eating 5000 calories a day. Hiking 27-32 miles a day on rocky terrain. I lost 30lb and looked emaciated by the end.3
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I agree. Former competitive soccer player here. I just gave up the sport so I’ve been reflecting about it a lot. Anyway, a lot of teammates were overweight because they didn’t watch their diet so despite the intense exercise they were still fat. Most people don’t even touch competitive sports so I can only imagine how much less people doing average workouts are burning.1
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For me, weight gain is 80% lack of exercise. I'm a short female and don't need many calories. When I become less active and lose, say, the 200 calories a day I had been burning, that's when I gain weight. I've never gained weight while being even moderately active. For example, a 45 minute brisk walk a day is enough to keep me in shape.
Then, when I'm not exercising, as others have said, I also get a little more careless with my food. I'll overindulge maybe 8 days a month instead of my more typical 4.
But that's me. The baseline calories that I'm naturally satisfied with are low enough that I'd have to make a deliberate effort to gain weight when I'm also somewhat active.3 -
I always said 75% diet, 25% exercise, but arguing one vs. the other seems like a waste of time.0
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If you have an appetite like mine then there's no way you could out run a bad diet. If you're just just going for general fat loss then simply making better choices can help but its really hard to gauge where your calorie deficit falls this way. You might lose some weight but you likely won't see a consistent rate of fat-loss.
If you want to see fat-loss drop like clockwork, then keeping track of your calories is really the best way to go about it. This doesn't need to be forever but it's much easier to maintain your weight once you've hit your fat-loss goal.
Good luck!
-Michael1 -
80% and 20% of what: Calories? Body weight? Time? Effort?
My take: The percentages are a figure of speech, not actual math with meaning. (That makes them reeealllly easy to argue about
).
Personal story: I was very active, working out quite intensely most days, even competing (not always unsuccessfully
) while obese . . . for around 15 years. It was easy to stay obese, even if eating primarily nutritiously: It's just a few hundred calories a day that makes the difference. I can eat that much extra whole wheat pasta, or full-fat Greek yogurt, or peanut butter, or whole nuts, or some combination of that sort of thing. Easy!
2015, come to MFP, get the intake dialed in at a sensible level, eating pretty much the same foods (in different portions and proportions), keep doing pretty much the same amounts of the same kinds of exercise . . . lose almost 1/3 of my body weight, and stay at a healthy weight since, the same way.
Does that make it 100% about diet? Only metaphorically, and only for me. 3 -
Of course you can outrun a "bad" diet and your fork if you are a competitive athlete, exercise a lot, are very active... UNTIL... you cannot do any of those activities because life and the myriad of reasons that may derail you from your high exercise and activity burns between age 2 and 102 get in the way.
I am the first to admit that I DO use activity as a regulator and adjunct to losing and maintaining weight and things ARE much more "interesting" when I can't engage in my (now) normal level of activity.
However, this go-around (starting about six years ago) was the first time that I explicitly de-coupled exercise from weight control and internalized that it was the caloric BALANCE that mattered, and that it is often a heck of a lot more effective to NOT eat an extra 250 Cal of Snickers bars <how come no one on MFP mentions Snickers bars anymore?> than to *rely* on an activity that will burn the same amount of calories to achieve the necessary balance.
Do I grab a snickers bar (or protein bar, or vanilla cone, or scone) on my way to a 1.5+ hour walk/hike? And/or eat something similar, or a donut, or soup, or chili, or burger on my way back from one, or as soon as I get home?
You bet! And I call this fueling my exercise (and keep track of it and add it to my daily totals)!
But do I guzzle a milk-shake, or decide that I can overeat under the self imposed "deal" that I am going to work it out later? ABSOLUTELY NOT. And i think that many here (and many no longer here) have experienced first hand the multiple problems with this approach, not the least of it being unhealthy obsessing.
Which leads to: in the long term you can't outrun your fork!0 -
Origin of the 80/20:
The Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule, the law of the vital few, or the principle of factor sparsity)[1][2] states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.[3] Management consultant Joseph M. Juran suggested the principle and named it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who noted the 80/20 connection while at the University of Lausanne in 1896, as published in his first work, Cours d'économie politique. In it, Pareto showed that approximately 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population.
It is an axiom of business management that "80% of sales come from 20% of clients
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle
It's not exact percents. All it is saying is, in the situation being discussed, is consumption is significantly more important than exercise in weight control. In another example, eating a diet with appropriate nutrients and calories is 80/20 (or probably a higher ratio) or more important to health and fitness goals than the timing of eating the appropriate diet.
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Of course you can outrun a "bad" diet and your fork if you are a competitive athlete, exercise a lot, are very active... UNTIL... you cannot do any of those activities because life and the myriad of reasons that may derail you from your high exercise and activity burns between age 2 and 102 get in the way.
I am the first to admit that I DO use activity as a regulator and adjunct to losing and maintaining weight and things ARE much more "interesting" when I can't engage in my (now) normal level of activity.
However, this go-around (starting about six years ago) was the first time that I explicitly de-coupled exercise from weight control and internalized that it was the caloric BALANCE that mattered, and that it is often a heck of a lot more effective to NOT eat an extra 250 Cal of Snickers bars <how come no one on MFP mentions Snickers bars anymore?> than to *rely* on an activity that will burn the same amount of calories to achieve the necessary balance.
Do I grab a snickers bar (or protein bar, or vanilla cone, or scone) on my way to a 1.5+ hour walk/hike? And/or eat something similar, or a donut, or soup, or chili, or burger on my way back from one, or as soon as I get home?
You bet! And I call this fueling my exercise (and keep track of it and add it to my daily totals)!
But do I guzzle a milk-shake, or decide that I can overeat under the self imposed "deal" that I am going to work it out later? ABSOLUTELY NOT. And i think that many here (and many no longer here) have experienced first hand the multiple problems with this approach, not the least of it being unhealthy obsessing.
Which leads to: in the long term you can't outrun your fork!
@PAV8888
I faced that situation last year with four big injuries that severely compromised my usual very high exercise levels. (Conservative estimate of just my cycling exercise in 2018 was c. 170,000 cals to give an idea of how much extra I get to eat.)
So I ate less (that's a huge advantage of the MyFitnessPal eat back exercise calories method or mindset).
Some of the dedication I normally focus on my training I switched to my diet and actually ended the year at a lower weight than normal.
It's not like you are locked into a certain pattern forever. Life and circumstances change and you adapt accordingly. Long term I am out exercising my fork in the sense that I have huge freedom over my diet (normally an extra meal or extra two snacks a day perhaps?) but at times the dietary budget gets restricted and requires more focus.
Normally in Spring my diet stays the same and my exercise ramps up to lose my winter fluff and get back to my preferred cycling weight (100% exercise 0% diet to use the flawed vernacular of percentages) but this Spring as I'm still rehabbing it's going to be about 50/50).1 -
@PAV8888 I faced that situation last year with four big injuries that severely compromised my usual very high exercise levels. (Conservative estimate of just my cycling exercise in 2018 was c. 170,000 cals to give an idea of how much extra I get to eat.)
So I ate less (that's a huge advantage of the MyFitnessPal eat back exercise calories method or mindset).
Some of the dedication I normally focus on my training I switched to my diet and actually ended the year at a lower weight than normal.
It's not like you are locked into a certain pattern forever. Life and circumstances change and you adapt accordingly. Long term I am out exercising my fork in the sense that I have huge freedom over my diet (normally an extra meal or extra two snacks a day perhaps?) but at times the dietary budget gets restricted and requires more focus.
Normally in Spring my diet stays the same and my exercise ramps up to lose my winter fluff and get back to my preferred cycling weight (100% exercise 0% diet to use the flawed vernacular of percentages) but this Spring as I'm still rehabbing it's going to be about 50/50).
I think we have less of a disagreement on substance and more on semantics.
I understand what you're doing to be NOT outrunning the fork.
You are eating WITHIN your caloric budget and you are not deliberately ramping up exercise to compensate for your food. When you cannot exercise you adjust the food.
This, to me, is textbook NOT outrunning.1 -
Well its the macros that count and lately falling back into comfort food and drink. the holidays. Need to get the food back on track to a deficit of 500cals a day for a pound per week.0
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@PAV8888 I faced that situation last year with four big injuries that severely compromised my usual very high exercise levels. (Conservative estimate of just my cycling exercise in 2018 was c. 170,000 cals to give an idea of how much extra I get to eat.)
So I ate less (that's a huge advantage of the MyFitnessPal eat back exercise calories method or mindset).
Some of the dedication I normally focus on my training I switched to my diet and actually ended the year at a lower weight than normal.
It's not like you are locked into a certain pattern forever. Life and circumstances change and you adapt accordingly. Long term I am out exercising my fork in the sense that I have huge freedom over my diet (normally an extra meal or extra two snacks a day perhaps?) but at times the dietary budget gets restricted and requires more focus.
Normally in Spring my diet stays the same and my exercise ramps up to lose my winter fluff and get back to my preferred cycling weight (100% exercise 0% diet to use the flawed vernacular of percentages) but this Spring as I'm still rehabbing it's going to be about 50/50).
I think we have less of a disagreement on substance and more on semantics.
I understand what you're doing to be NOT outrunning the fork.
You are eating WITHIN your caloric budget and you are not deliberately ramping up exercise to compensate for your food. When you cannot exercise you adjust the food.
This, to me, is textbook NOT outrunning.
My caloric budget is set by all factors including a major but variable contribution from exercise, yes it's not a budget that I exercise to attain. I exercise for enjoyment, health and fitness.
But as a bonus it contributes to an eating level (3,000 - 3,500 cals) that is both enjoyable and sustainable. We do disagree on the relative positions of the cart and the horse!
I would have to be a complete glutton to out eat my exercise. Then the problem would be gluttony which really isn't related to exercise.1
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