If I do regular 20 minutes exercise and diet, how fast can I loose weight
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FitAgainBy55 wrote: »missysippy930 wrote: »A year is very doable if you are at a calorie deficit. Exercise is great for overall health, but not necessary for weight loss. Calorie deficit is how weight is lost.
As you said, a calorie deficit is how you lose weight. Exercise can help create that deficit, so it's not just for health. My sedentary TDEE is around 2100 but my actual TDEE is closer to 2700. That difference alone is good for over 1 lb per week weight loss.
that's true, but not everyone is fit enough to work out that much day in day out, and many people will never be. If you happen to be a woman this is even more difficult. For me, I'd need to run 10km every single day to get a 500 calorie exercise burn.
Yes! It’s important not to rely too much on exercise to create your deficit as it’s easy to shift into the “exercise is punishment for eating” zone.
This is why I favor working it in upfront rather than using it as a fallback if you overeat. But there's absolutely nothing about planning to use activity/exercise as part of the deficit that inherently leads to exercise as a punishment. I've always included it since for me the idea to to be healthier and more fit, and exercise is an important part of that. (That sounds like what OP is going for too, and that she intends/wants to include adding in exercise as part of her plan, although it would be nice if she'd come back and tell us what she's thinking and how it's going.)
I agree with this, and always recommend here that people find a form(s) of exercise/activity that's enjoyable, or at least tolerable, in part in order to *want* to do it, and continue being active long term for health reasons, as well as secondarily to have a permanently higher calorie budget.
I don't see a problem with warning that "exercise = bigger deficit or more food" can, for some, be a toe on a slippery slope toward dysfunctional thinking about activity, food and diet. (The dysfunction could be "exercise as punishment" or it could be exercise obsession, which we do see in the forums once in a while, or other undesirable thought patterns.) Clearly, those things are not a risk for everyone, and (I hope) we each have a better feel for our own psychological risks than others may have. (It's tempting to feel that everyone else is similar to me, beyond what reality justifies!)
Like you, I wish we'd hear from OP. The post concerned me somewhat that she was thinking - as many people do starting out - that eating "healthy" (varied definitions) plus exercise is how one loses weight. Clearly, those can be in the picture, but as someone who spent around a decade eating mostly "healthy" while training and sometimes competing as an athlete, but stayed obese the whole time, it's completely vivid to me that there's more to the story than healthy food plus exercise.4 -
Exercise is good, all helps and all that, but most people simply cannot do the sort of exercise that makes a significant difference to their weight.
Be it time limitations or fitness limitations.
@freda78 I actually believe MOST people can but many chose not to put the work in. Those of us who have learned the benefit of exercise in maintaining and losing weight don't mind putting the work in.
When I first started losing weight for the first time 10 years ago I only worked out 15 minutes per day. I alternated between lifting one day and walking on a treadmill the next day. My treadmill walks weren't even 1 mile. I wasn't fit enough to run and my HR was very high just walking. As I got stronger and more fit I increased a little each week. The 'do a little more every week' approach led me to running a 3:32 Marathon within 2 years of only being able to walk 15 minutes on a treadmill.
My workouts are an average of 1 hour per day right now and average ~600 calories. As I said in an earlier post, walking is fine but it's one of the most inefficient methods of exercise in terms of calories per hour. An hour walk for me burns about 270 calories for me -- that's still good for .5 lb per week weight loss. I walk to relax, not as part of exercise -- it's just not an efficient use of my time when there are other higher impact exercises. But, like I said earlier, when all I could do was walk -- I walked -- until I could run.
Any able bodied person could eventually build up to this but it does take work. I prefer this approach because I can eat over 2000 calories per day and still lose 1.5 lbs per week.
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FitAgainBy55 wrote: »
People talk about that quite regularly, actually, with the all or nothing thinking and restrict binge cycles and guilt associated with 'messing up' and the problems that causes. It's almost exactly as common as people using exercise to punish themselves - but exercise to punish yourself as part of that guilt cycle is discussed WAY less.4 -
If you happen to be a woman this is even more difficult. For me, I'd need to run 10km every single day to get a 500 calorie exercise burn.
Don't take this wrong because I am a HUGE equality advocate and when women talk about things being harder in the workforce I do believe them.
BUT, when it comes to weight loss and fitness I think the male advantage is exaggerated.
I put my wife's stats into a calculator. We are both currently over weight, BTW. She's 3 years younger, I'm 5'7" and she is around 5'2"ish. We both weigh about the same right now.
A 1 hour run for her would be 591 calories (at a 12 minute mile). A 12 minute mile for me would be 599 calories. I run faster than that so I burn more calories but I intentionally picked a "slower" pace because women do average somewhere around 2 minutes mile slower.
So, the male advantage here is 8 calories per 1 hour run.
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FitAgainBy55 wrote: »
Exercise is good, all helps and all that, but most people simply cannot do the sort of exercise that makes a significant difference to their weight.
Be it time limitations or fitness limitations.
@freda78 I actually believe MOST people can but many chose not to put the work in. Those of us who have learned the benefit of exercise in maintaining and losing weight don't mind putting the work in.
I've noticed lately that this attitude exists in a LOT of areas. I don't know if it's a kind of learned helplessness, an excuse to avoid feeling like a failure because things are hard, a weird kind of neo-gnosticism, or what.
I was chatting with an acquaintance the other day about gardening, and then I translated it to my own thoughts about weight loss over the year (which has felt impossible for me until recent months, despite a few fits and starts over the past decade or so.) This person was flabbergasted that I would even try, that I wasn't "that kind of person," isn't it difficult to figure out the soil, and the right planting time, and what if I forget to water them, and I don't actually harvest anything, etc. etc. This person says, "Wow, that feels like way too much work," about just about everything I say to her. (When I first began running, she also expressed skepticism that I would ever be able to do a 5k. I ran my first about four months later.) I'm kind of stuck with this person, so just "dumping" her really won't work, but having that insight into her general approach to life kind of wowed me. I can't imagine living like that. And while I can't make her change her mind (although I hope and pray she does), I know now that she's wrong.
But even so, I recognized that I made excuses for myself like that with weight loss. After all, like @AnnPT77, I was eating foods most people would consider healthy and I'm certainly no slouch with physical activity. I'm not lazy or afraid to work. But I had built up in my mind that I must not be "the right kind of person" to lose weight, that I was "just naturally fat," that I didn't have the right kind of coordination or emotional control to learn any different way. And anytime I hated being overweight those were the sorts of things I would repeat to myself in some bizarre kind of comforting ritual.
It is probably true that I will never be an elite athlete. But the two options aren't "the absolute best" and "total failure." There's this whole big part in between, and I can always get better if I choose to, working within the parameters. Which are usually pretty generous, for most of us, if we look.7 -
I don't see a problem with warning that "exercise = bigger deficit or more food" can, for some, be a toe on a slippery slope toward dysfunctional thinking about activity, food and diet. (The dysfunction could be "exercise as punishment" or it could be exercise obsession, which we do see in the forums once in a while, or other undesirable thought patterns.)
I don't see that as a problem either, but sometimes I think the message goes too far to the other extreme, that exercise should never be thought of as part of the deficit or has nothing to do with weight loss, only health, and I think that calls for a counter-message, that's all.3 -
I think in most cases the 'I can't do this' actually translates into "I do not find the cost (time, money, effort, taken from other areas of life' worth the reward (results).
And. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Not one single thing.
I think it's important to acknowledge, to yourself, that that is the case. I think it's important so you don't limit yourself by self-definition.
But in a casual discussion? I don't want to, I can't (because I'd have to make sacrifices in areas that would lead to enjoying life less), I don't have time (without taking away from things that are more important to me), whatever as shorthand because really, it's all personal stuff and *Casual conversation*? Are all fine.
And overanalyzing such statements - in casual conversations, not here or when problem solving - is probably just not necessary.5 -
wunderkindking wrote: »I think in most cases the 'I can't do this' actually translates into "I do not find the cost (time, money, effort, taken from other areas of life' worth the reward (results).
And. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Not one single thing.
I think it's important to acknowledge, to yourself, that that is the case. I think it's important so you don't limit yourself by self-definition.
But in a casual discussion? I don't want to, I can't (because I'd have to make sacrifices in areas that would lead to enjoying life less), I don't have time (without taking away from things that are more important to me), whatever as shorthand because really, it's all personal stuff and *Casual conversation*? Are all fine.
And overanalyzing such statements - in casual conversations, not here or when problem solving - is probably just not necessary.
I don't know if you necessarily meant to direct this at me, but after reading this I did reread my post and I did come off as really judgmental, and I'm sorry for that because it wasn't my intention at all. People are absolutely entitled to their privacy and don't have to share their reasons for doing anything with anybody if they don't feel like it. I just meant to use my example as a springboard for how I got to thinking about these things within myself.2 -
alisdairsmommy wrote: »wunderkindking wrote: »I think in most cases the 'I can't do this' actually translates into "I do not find the cost (time, money, effort, taken from other areas of life' worth the reward (results).
And. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Not one single thing.
I think it's important to acknowledge, to yourself, that that is the case. I think it's important so you don't limit yourself by self-definition.
But in a casual discussion? I don't want to, I can't (because I'd have to make sacrifices in areas that would lead to enjoying life less), I don't have time (without taking away from things that are more important to me), whatever as shorthand because really, it's all personal stuff and *Casual conversation*? Are all fine.
And overanalyzing such statements - in casual conversations, not here or when problem solving - is probably just not necessary.
I don't know if you necessarily meant to direct this at me, but after reading this I did reread my post and I did come off as really judgmental, and I'm sorry for that because it wasn't my intention at all. People are absolutely entitled to their privacy and don't have to share their reasons for doing anything with anybody if they don't feel like it. I just meant to use my example as a springboard for how I got to thinking about these things within myself.
Nah, not accusing you directly just doing what you did. I took the springboard about how I relate to people and it reminded me of some stuff I'm prone to do. Like someone says 'I don't have time to knit' and I WANT to be like "Oh please I knit most of the time when I'm waiting in lines, how much tv do you want" and have to stop myself and realize what they actually mean is 'I don't want to give up that time in those places' or whatever.
It helps me sort of balance the self-definition limitations and my tendency to, in my head, be judgy as heck. I have to (mentally) remind myself a lot.1 -
wunderkindking wrote: »I think in most cases the 'I can't do this' actually translates into "I do not find the cost (time, money, effort, taken from other areas of life' worth the reward (results).
Sure, and I agree that's okay -- and for that matter, I've lost the reference point, but I think it's worth noting that OP started by including exercise as part of her fitness plan, so I'm assuming she wants to.1 -
FitAgainBy55 wrote: »
Exercise is good, all helps and all that, but most people simply cannot do the sort of exercise that makes a significant difference to their weight.
Be it time limitations or fitness limitations.
@freda78 I actually believe MOST people can but many chose not to put the work in. Those of us who have learned the benefit of exercise in maintaining and losing weight don't mind putting the work in.
When I first started losing weight for the first time 10 years ago I only worked out 15 minutes per day. I alternated between lifting one day and walking on a treadmill the next day. My treadmill walks weren't even 1 mile. I wasn't fit enough to run and my HR was very high just walking. As I got stronger and more fit I increased a little each week. The 'do a little more every week' approach led me to running a 3:32 Marathon within 2 years of only being able to walk 15 minutes on a treadmill.
My workouts are an average of 1 hour per day right now and average ~600 calories. As I said in an earlier post, walking is fine but it's one of the most inefficient methods of exercise in terms of calories per hour. An hour walk for me burns about 270 calories for me -- that's still good for .5 lb per week weight loss. I walk to relax, not as part of exercise -- it's just not an efficient use of my time when there are other higher impact exercises. But, like I said earlier, when all I could do was walk -- I walked -- until I could run.
Any able bodied person could eventually build up to this but it does take work. I prefer this approach because I can eat over 2000 calories per day and still lose 1.5 lbs per week.
I agree with you on the math: Exercising creates a bigger calorie budget, and as long as the overall deficit is reasonable, a person can think of the exercise as increasing their deficit, or letting them eat more food. Without some kind of obsession or anxiety (etc.) in the picture, either view is "right". Worrying about the distinction is like trying to figure out which water droplets from a pitcher made it into the cup I'm drinking. Just doesn't matter. (We account for the exercise calories differently in MFP, which makes people think of them as special. They're not.)
I think we're all a little biased by our own experiences, though. For you, increasing exercise was an important part of your personal formula for health improvement (and that's great). For me, exercise had virtually no impact on what I did to accomplish needed weight loss, and weight loss was the essential goal for me. I didn't want to or need to increase exercise, and am still doing roughly the same amount I was doing for years, including for about a decade before 2015 when I lost weight. (My routine generally exceeds common recommendations for health, volume-wise, to be clear.)
Exercise is a great thing, calorie-appropriate nutritious diet is a great thing, and they work together to accomplish a greater synergistic whole.
Like you, I don't think 500 calories of exercise is out of reach for women, in the abstract, though different people have different constraints to consider.
One factor is size. Men tend to be bigger on average (drives up calorie budget), have higher muscularity as a percent of that bodyweight on average (drives up calorie budget a bit per pound of bodyweight). It's a fairly small difference, as you observe in your running example, but it's meaningful. Further, that calorie difference is more meaningful as a percentage of TDEE to someone who's smaller. Over, an hour of 12-minute miles, that's 48 calories. The USDA says the average man burns 400-600 calories more daily than the average woman, so 48, though still small, is more meaningful.
Another factor is power. Now, I'd be the last person to say that women can't be powerful, but if you look at differences in power in the population at large, those implications are meaningful, too. Men on average can develop more power, which permits higher per-minute calorie burn in certain types of exercise. Biking is an example: Men on average produce higher watts, statistics suggest higher watts per pound, too . . . and watts per time period equate to calories burned per time period. It takes the average woman longer to burn the same number of calories as the average man, for many activities. Even you noted that the average woman runs slower, and that equates to more time to burn equal calories, even at the same body size.
On the time side, it's still statistically true, at least in the US, that the average woman spends more time on household and child care responsibilities than the average man, and many have similarly time-demanding outside jobs. Those aren't universals, but they are factors.
So, yeah, 500 calories of exercise is achievable for women in theory and practice (I've been hitting that some days recently, as a woman, and not a very big one). It is a question of personal priorities, yes. But whether the numbers work out is pretty individual, and realistically it's a bit more of a challenge for the *average* woman.
As an aside, it's not that I'm "willing to put the work in". I'm not, probably, though it would be more virtuous if I were, probably. I'm willing to do fun stuff that coincidentally burns calories, and I'm lucky to have the time to do it without dropping important responsibilities. I'm grateful for both.
In context of the OP, much of this is academic, though: If the OP wants to exercise 20 minutes daily, which IMO is a good place to start if currently sedentary as she says, she's not going to be burning 500 exercise calories daily right away, probably never in just 20 minutes, and not really soon (IMO) in any non-punitive exercise scenario. Took you a while to get to 500 calories, took me a while to get there, too.
For her, now, the key thing is getting calorie intake a bit below calorie output (whether she counts the calories or not), and starting on the path to happy, healthy exercise.3 -
I don't see a problem with warning that "exercise = bigger deficit or more food" can, for some, be a toe on a slippery slope toward dysfunctional thinking about activity, food and diet. (The dysfunction could be "exercise as punishment" or it could be exercise obsession, which we do see in the forums once in a while, or other undesirable thought patterns.)
I don't see that as a problem either, but sometimes I think the message goes too far to the other extreme, that exercise should never be thought of as part of the deficit or has nothing to do with weight loss, only health, and I think that calls for a counter-message, that's all.
Agreed, 100%.
Not you, but the PP, kind of triggered a couple of my pet peeves,
(1) Assuming our (or associates') psychological risk points are the same for other people, and
(2) More generally, making assumptions about the state of things inside another person's head, when they've given no real hint.
OTOH, I'm sure I do those things myself, because human (vaguely). 😆1 -
As a short, older woman, I find that burning 200 calories a day on the treadmill gives me flexibility in my diet which would otherwise be quite constrained. Those extra calories mean the difference between feeling deprived and feeling ok. Health benefits are also important, but truthfully, not uppermost in my mind.5
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@AnnPT77 before I reply, first let me say I always enjoy reading your posts. They are well thought out, well organized and I appreciate your perspective. I don't disagree with anything you said but I do want to highlight some of the stats.
Second, I want to be clear ... I respect anyone's decision of how they create their deficit. Everyone's situation is unique. I enjoy exercise. It's stress relief for me AND it helps me lose weight fast. Others hate exercise and I always say 'Never do anything to lose weight that you aren't willing to continue doing after you reach your goal.'
My objection is to others telling the OP that exercise doesn't matter in weight loss. Does it have to ? No. Can it ? Of course. A calorie burned is equal to one not eaten. This is one of my triggers and I've seen it a lot here and on other weight loss/fitness boards.Further, that calorie difference is more meaningful as a percentage of TDEE to someone who's smaller. Over, an hour of 12-minute miles, that's 48 calories. The USDA says the average man burns 400-600 calories more daily than the average woman, so 48, though still small, is more meaningful.
The average (United States) male is 5'9" 197 lbs whereas female is 5'4" 170 lbs. For a 40 year old, here are the calorie burn differences:
Overall there isn't that big of a difference in exercise calories burned once you adjust for BMR.
For comparison, due to my size and age, I'm actually closer to the average 40 year old female than the 40 year old male in terms of BMR. In fact, after adjusting for BMR, the average women burns more calories from exercise than I do
My BMR is only 119 calories higher than the average 40 year old female.
BTW, I think there is some 'power' bias in my stats above, which you have pointed out and I agree with. For example, my exercise calories show my workouts burn fewer calories (when adjusted for BMR) than the average women even though the average moderate exercise TDEE is actually higher after adjusting for BMR. My assumption is this difference is in the power assumption -- whereas in my example I guess it assumes equal power. I tried to adjust for this by lowering MY power. My average runs are @ 10 minutes per mile and I log my circuit training as vigorous vs the examples above are moderate.
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I often hear/see "exercise is for health" and not necessary for weight loss-but why do we need to separate the two? Losing weight to get to a healthy weight range is good for our health, and so is exercise--so why make it two distinct things? Also, I think if we took the word "exercise" out of it and just put in "make efforts to be more active" may sound less intimidating. We've all heard these strategies before: park far away, take the stairs, etc.--but all those little things really do add up!
I personally think that was part of my problem in viewing both eating healthier/less and exercise--it was really just so I could look better in clothes and swimsuits and fit into smaller sizes. There's nothing wrong with that, but I had to find a bigger, overarching goal for me to be successful.
An exercise routine has usually been a pretty easy thing for me to maintain. If I didn't like an activity or got bored with it, I'd find something new. I think the fact that it almost always made me feel better afterwards (a more immediate reward) was probably the main reason why I stuck with it. With eating better/less--the reward is not usually so immediate.
I also used to think that if I got my formal exercise in, I could be lazy the rest of the day. Nope--doesn't work that way. I've made a conscious effort over the past few years to just be more active throughout my day. Having a reliable fitness tracker really helps with that, as I can see what all those little moves do. I also know that with me, the law of inertia applies: objects in motion tend to stay in motion; objects at rest tend to stay at rest. The more I sit, the more I don't want to get up and move.2 -
FitAgainBy55 wrote: »Overall there isn't that big of a difference in exercise calories burned once you adjust for BMR.
If you adjust for equal fitness, there's a difference -- it's not surprising that many of the fit and active men burn around 3000 here, and the burns for fit and active women tend not to be anywhere near that.
Here's me at 5'3 (which is barely under average height for a woman) and 120 (my goal weight), which is 21.3 BMI. For a 6 mile run, I burn about 540 cal. At sedentary, I burn 1553 cal/day. Can I get the 1553 up to 2053 without burdensome additional work? Sure, on that you and I agree.
But I think you go too far by claiming it makes little difference whether one is an average woman or man.
For someone 5'9 (even ignoring that their muscle percentage is likely higher, which makes even more of a difference), an analogous BMI is 145, and the running cals would be 650. So sure, only a 110 cal difference, but that's also 20% more for the same work, which isn't really irrelevant. And going to sedentary cals, it's 250 more to start with (1804).
You can't really do what you are doing and compare an in-shape man at, say, 5'9, 145, and an out of shape and overweight woman at 5'3, 145 (let alone the stats many people start with, and no experience in exercise) and say it's easy to add vigorous exercise to get an additional 500 cals, since you yourself at the same basic weight can easily run 6 miles regularly (or whatever), and all that determines burn is total weight. It must be obvious that this is not realistic.
Can someone choose to increase overall burn significantly from what it would be at sedentary? Sure, we (again) agree on that, but that it is easy for you to burn 500 cals by just deciding to exercise regular an hour a day (or that the same is true for me, even), doesn't mean that everyone can just do this, especially when they are going from sedentary. You need to compare people at similar fitness levels.
Again -- I keep repeating myself -- I think even someone who is a relatively small woman starting from sedentary can make activity an important part of her deficit if she wants, and I think OP has indicated she plans to do that, but it's more discouraging than encouraging if you insist that's because it's no big thing to run 10K/day or the like. (I'm a longtime recreational runner, I'm training for a half marathon, and yet I don't think I should run 10K/day, let alone some person who has been sedentary until yesterday. That seems like a good way to encourage someone to injure themselves or, at best, burn out on exercise.)5 -
FitAgainBy55 wrote: »Overall there isn't that big of a difference in exercise calories burned once you adjust for BMR.
If you adjust for equal fitness, there's a difference -- it's not surprising that many of the fit and active men burn around 3000 here, and the burns for fit and active women tend not to be anywhere near that.
Here's me at 5'3 (which is barely under average height for a woman) and 120 (my goal weight), which is 21.3 BMI. For a 6 mile run, I burn about 540 cal. At sedentary, I burn 1553 cal/day. Can I get the 1553 up to 2053 without burdensome additional work? Sure, on that you and I agree.
But I think you go too far by claiming it makes little difference whether one is an average woman or man.
For someone 5'9 (even ignoring that their muscle percentage is likely higher, which makes even more of a difference), an analogous BMI is 145, and the running cals would be 650. So sure, only a 110 cal difference, but that's also 20% more for the same work, which isn't really irrelevant. And going to sedentary cals, it's 250 more to start with (1804).
You can't really do what you are doing and compare an in-shape man at, say, 5'9, 145, and an out of shape and overweight woman at 5'3, 145 (let alone the stats many people start with, and no experience in exercise) and say it's easy to add vigorous exercise to get an additional 500 cals, since you yourself at the same basic weight can easily run 6 miles regularly (or whatever), and all that determines burn is total weight. It must be obvious that this is not realistic.
Can someone choose to increase overall burn significantly from what it would be at sedentary? Sure, we (again) agree on that, but that it is easy for you to burn 500 cals by just deciding to exercise regular an hour a day (or that the same is true for me, even), doesn't mean that everyone can just do this, especially when they are going from sedentary. You need to compare people at similar fitness levels.
Again -- I keep repeating myself -- I think even someone who is a relatively small woman starting from sedentary can make activity an important part of her deficit if she wants, and I think OP has indicated she plans to do that, but it's more discouraging than encouraging if you insist that's because it's no big thing to run 10K/day or the like. (I'm a longtime recreational runner, I'm training for a half marathon, and yet I don't think I should run 10K/day, let alone some person who has been sedentary until yesterday. That seems like a good way to encourage someone to injure themselves or, at best, burn out on exercise.)
The thing is, even if you love activity and think that people should generally shoot to be more active, it's undeniable that for the average sedentary person, running 10k a day (or similar exertion in another activity) is a big lifestyle change and setting it as goal is likely to result in burnout or injury.
Without a doubt there are people who enjoy being that active and ARE that active. But if our sedentary overweight woman WAS that person, she'd already be doing it. I do know -- from my own experience and that of others -- that it's possible for that sedentary person to BECOME a person who enjoys being active. But it's not happening in one jump. If I'd told myself I had to run 10K when I started running, I probably never would have become a runner.
It IS a big thing to run 10K a day. It's something that most people need to work up to, not just the ability to do it, but the state of mind where you even want to do it. Those of us who have no issues doing a 10K run shouldn't forget that we're the exception (and like you said, just because we can do it doesn't mean we're necessarily doing it daily). When I run 10K, it doesn't impact my energy for the rest of the day and I don't need time to recover, but that's not the experience of a sedentary person. We're not helping people when we act like this is a casual level of fitness.
I think there are encouraging ways to talk about the calorie burns from activity, but assuming that everyone is capable of knocking out active person levels of cardio daily isn't it. It was something I had to work up to as a sedentary person -- not just physically, but mentally. I had to learn how to make it fit into my life and I had to learn that I enjoyed it and it was worth it to me. Those were not mental habits I had as a sedentary person, where I absolutely approached activity like a medicine in that I was trying to calculate the minimum effective dose.6 -
... but it's more discouraging than encouraging if you insist that's because it's no big thing to run 10K/day or the like. (I'm a longtime recreational runner, I'm training for a half marathon, and yet I don't think I should run 10K/day, let alone some person who has been sedentary until yesterday. That seems like a good way to encourage someone to injure themselves or, at best, burn out on exercise.)
I've never suggested that anyone run 10k per day. I've provided examples of walking an hour, circuit training for an hour. I've also pointed out that when I first started I could only do 15 minutes per day.
My personal routine is to alternate running and strength training right now. I run 20 miles per week and strength train 2 - 4 times per week. Some days I run 3 miles, some days 7 miles..
You can't really do what you are doing and compare an in-shape man at, say, 5'9, 145, and an out of shape and overweight woman at 5'3, 145.
I never compared an in shape man to an out of shape women. I compared two average weight (overweight, btw) but fit individual calorie burns..
...(let alone the stats many people start with, and no experience in exercise) and say it's easy to add vigorous exercise to get an additional 500 cals, since you yourself at the same basic weight can easily run 6 miles regularly (or whatever), and all that determines burn is total weight. It must be obvious that this is not realistic.
I never said it was 'easy', I just simply said it's feasible. I'm on my second trip of fat to fit. I already explained my first trip fat to fit and that I started with only 15 minutes per day, no running, only walking and lifting. I'm on my second trip now, starting Dec 20th 2020 (3 months ago) -- I weighed in 2 lbs away from an obese BMI. I once again started with 15 minutes of lifting. I didn't run my first week, so I started by walking 3 miles per day. I did ramp up really fast in my second time around because I had a prior base to build on. The first time around it was slower -- I just looked back at my log from 10 years ago. One month in I was burning around 300 calories per day -- which is good enough for .6lbs per week deficit.0 -
FitAgainBy55 wrote: »@AnnPT77 before I reply, first let me say I always enjoy reading your posts. They are well thought out, well organized and I appreciate your perspective. I don't disagree with anything you said but I do want to highlight some of the stats.
Second, I want to be clear ... I respect anyone's decision of how they create their deficit. Everyone's situation is unique. I enjoy exercise. It's stress relief for me AND it helps me lose weight fast. Others hate exercise and I always say 'Never do anything to lose weight that you aren't willing to continue doing after you reach your goal.'
My objection is to others telling the OP that exercise doesn't matter in weight loss. Does it have to ? No. Can it ? Of course. A calorie burned is equal to one not eaten. This is one of my triggers and I've seen it a lot here and on other weight loss/fitness boards.Further, that calorie difference is more meaningful as a percentage of TDEE to someone who's smaller. Over, an hour of 12-minute miles, that's 48 calories. The USDA says the average man burns 400-600 calories more daily than the average woman, so 48, though still small, is more meaningful.
The average (United States) male is 5'9" 197 lbs whereas female is 5'4" 170 lbs. For a 40 year old, here are the calorie burn differences:
Overall there isn't that big of a difference in exercise calories burned once you adjust for BMR.
For comparison, due to my size and age, I'm actually closer to the average 40 year old female than the 40 year old male in terms of BMR. In fact, after adjusting for BMR, the average women burns more calories from exercise than I do My BMR is only 119 calories higher than the average 40 year old female.
BTW, I think there is some 'power' bias in my stats above, which you have pointed out and I agree with. For example, my exercise calories show my workouts burn fewer calories (when adjusted for BMR) than the average women even though the average moderate exercise TDEE is actually higher after adjusting for BMR. My assumption is this difference is in the power assumption -- whereas in my example I guess it assumes equal power. I tried to adjust for this by lowering MY power. My average runs are @ 10 minutes per mile and I log my circuit training as vigorous vs the examples above are moderate.
I don't disagree with that, in any major factual way. It's more the implications, in this context. (I'll explain, ideally at less length than I usually do 🙄).
In my PP, the one you're commenting on, I tried to repeatedly say "small but meaningful". I agree with your numbers in this post, but I still think the differences are "small but meaningful". I won't knowingly slip back and forth between averages and individuals, because I think that's a disservice to discussion. On average, the differences between men and women are small but meaningful, and their average social context gives them additional meaning.
The bigger point I was trying to make about context (in a smaller part of my post 😉) is that for the OP, in the current context, most of this doesn't matter. It's a side trip.
Most of us tend to assume other people think of things the same way we do, and they don't. OP didn't give much indication of her whole thought process, more that she planned to eat in a more healthy way (however she defines that), and do what she sees as moderate exercise, and that she hopes to lose weight in a certain general time. It doesn't really matter whether she thinks of exercise as increasing her deficit, or as a way to eat more, or part of a larger plan to be healthier.
As long as a deficit exists, and is reasonable (not riskily large, not so small as to be near-nonexistent), that can work. What is not clear from the OP is whether she's understood the centrality of that deficit to her main expressed goal.
Doing 20 minutes of exercise is a good thing, if the current amount is less than that. It isn't going to burn 500 calories, so the math, let alone gender math, is kind of beside the point. Twenty minutes of super-calorie-efficient exercise that a beginner can do regularly without accumulating excess fatigue (at OP's current size), is probably going to amount to, hmm, 150 calories, plus or minus 50? (I'm OP's height, was near her weight (mid-180s), while training regularly. I think 150 is generous, though conceivable, unless someone is believing crazy-high numbers from an optimistically-calibrated machine, or thinking a heart rate monitor estimates HIIT accurately, or something like that.)
I think OP's making good plans, heading in a good direction, has decent odds of success, especially if she has or will take on board the idea that she needs to get her calorie intake around 500 calories below her expenditure (whether by calorie counting or other means). Most of the rest of this discussion is just academic, though admittedly fun.
The point is to try to help OP, I think?
P.S. I didn't click "disagree" on your post, though I see someone did.3
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