Exercise -- why, again?

Muscle burns fat. The more muscle you have the more fat you will burn even when you are sleeping! If you have muscle you will loose weight a lot faster and keep it off a lot longer.

Okay, so. I have been doing MFP for 30 days now, and dieting for about 8 months. Ive broken 45 pounds as of this morning (I hit 45 pounds a couple days ago, but now I'm at a staggering 45.2). As one would logically expect, I've done this through diet and exercise?

Well, diet, anyway...

See, I went to the gym for a couple months on and off, and I try to take regular walks, but I just generally don't. I worked like crazy at the gym at first, then I skipped too much, and noticed I lost the same amount of weight. So far I've lost about 2 pant sizes, dropped 2 shirt sizes (XXL to L) and the affore-mentioned 45.2 pounds, and the last 15 or so have been with virtually no major exercise at all.

So my question is: why exercise? My research has told me that diet is the more important component, though some (i.e. people selling exercise books) believe in exercise more. I've read that exercise increases your metabolism, and that's important for losing weight, but if you stay within a healthy limit and eat nutritious foods, isn't that all you need?

By no means am I saying exercise is worthless. I'm just saying that so far I haven't had much use for it, and I'm wondering what it is I don't know. Smarter people than me believe in it, so there's gotta be something to it. So enlighten me! What do I not know here?

When muscle isn't conditioned from exercise, then sudden use of it will cause soreness. Unconditioned muscle is easier to injure (not saying you aren't susceptible to injury because you exercise) from common day things like lifting the garbage bag out of the container, carrying a bag of groceries, etc. But IMO, probably the most important is that exercise affects the body positively, especially when it comes to your bones. Bones that have no "stress" put on them become softer and less resistant to weight put on them. By not exercising your leg muscles your bones become your support instead of the leg muscles doing it. That leads to faster deterioration of the cartilage between joints. Hopefully you look at the benefit of exercise and not to it as a tedious thing you have to do to lose weight.

It is all about calories in and out. The more you exercise, the more calories you burn. It's a give and take... If you burn an extra 500 calories a day through exercise, you could eat an extra 500 calories a day and supposedly still lose the same amount of weight at the end of the week. If you burn and extra 500 calories but don't increase your calorie intake, then you should lose slightly more that week. If you don't exercise at all but drop your calorie intake by 500 per day, it would have the same weight-loss effect as keeping your diet the same and adding 500 calories of exercise. So yes, if you wanted to you could potentially leave exercise by the wayside and do all your calorie drops through diet alone.

The other theory is that muscle burns calories, and fat doesn't. The more muscle you have on your body, the more muscles are being activated during normal daily activities, and the more calories you burn during any of those daily activities. Basically the idea is that having more muscle on your body raises your metabolism slightly.

Another reason is not about actual pounds lost but about looks. If you build muscle tone and definition, it will make you appear thinner and healthier. The muscle tone will actually show through the thin layer of fat and make you look more fit. You can drop that fat layer off of your belly, but it still won't look nearly as fantastic if you don't have some ab muscles showing through!

And yes, the final reason is that it is not about weight loss but about being healthy. Having a strong heart, muscles, and cardiovascular system will allow you to participate in all sorts of life activities with ease as well as lower your blood pressure, relieve anxiety, depression, and all sorts of other health problems that creep up as you get older. Who doesn't want to be strong?

This will be the easiest question today.

(1) Exercise is good for you in all kinds of ways. If you are losing weight for your health which I hope you are then exercise strenghtens your heart, it improves cognitive function, it improves the quality of your sleep, it increases the density of your bone, it builds lean muscle which helps to burn additional calories (even at rest), it reduces appetite and increase caloric burn, etc., etc. etc.

(2) There will come a point where you will find that it gets increasing difficult to lose weight WITHOUT excercising. This is just simple mathematics. As your weight decreases your BMI also decreases. Think of this as the calories that your body burns as a result of just being alive and minimally moving around (no exercise). An obese person of a certain age and height will have a much higher BMI than a normal person of the same age and height. Logically, you can see that as you lose weight it becomes harder to lose weight. Everyone who diets experiences this. The way to offset this is to excercise. By excercising you will increase your metabolic rate which will maintain your weight loss.

(3) Excercise will make you look and feel better both physically and mentally. After a large weight loss effort skin can sag over the top of a weak frame. I promise you will look better if you tighten and shape those underlying skeletal muscles.

I could go on but I think you get the idea. Really I think you already knew the answer to this question. It can be very hard to get started but I promise that if you will just start small and then gradually inrease your effort you can do it. In a month you'll wonder why you didn't start sooner.

good luck buddy!

Go back and read your profile. The reasons you listed don't come fom just diet.

So my question is: why exercise?

You profile tells you why.

Great job on the loss, btw.

From your profile

Why I Want To Get In Shape
Health is the number one reason. Of course I want to look better, but I am in my twenties and for the last couple of years I've had an occasional physical problem due to excessive weight. The ocassional chest pain, sometimes my knee has hurt for no good reason (other than, I assume, because I'm out of shape and making it support too much weight!), things like that. So I wanted to get in better shape so I could...

1. Not suffer physical ailments like an old man whilst in my twenties, and

2. NOT DIE. Dying it the pits. I'm all about putting that off, you know...indefinitely.

My Inspirations
No longer dreading flights of stairs.
Not dying for like...a while.
Fitting my high school clothes.
Causing my ex girlfriends, upon seeing the new me, to curse their poor choices.

If health is your number 1 reason, then you need exercise to be healthy. Chest pain (you need to work your heart through cardio to make it stronger), joint pain (you need to stregthen your muscles and ligaments *i think ligaments can be strengthened* to better support your frame and your joints). You want to get in better shape, while Kate Moss does have a shape I don't think that's what you're going for here. You want to no longer dread flights of stairs, but you have to have some stamina and strength to power yourself up them. You want your ex girlfriends to curse their poor choices upon seeing you, I personally require a little muscle to get me started down the regret lane, there must be a hotness factor and to me that means that I don't look at you and think "yeah, I could take him."

Oh, and ninerbuff . . . that's one smarty pants.

Oh and another real important point...........................men and women who exercise keep testosterone higher which leads to more libido and a better sex life. Low testosterone isn't good for the heart. Exercise is a direct reason why testosterone in higher in fit individuals that those who are sedentary.

very smarty pants indeed.

I couldn't have done it by diet aline. I am small enough that to lose anything at all, even half a lb a week, I am on 1200 cals, and I did that for 4 months but it just wasn't sustainable for me. I was grumpy, freezing cold ALL the time and felt weak and hungry constantly, every waking moment. That isn't sustainable long term. If I do a lot of exercise I not only get more calories to play with, which stops me being a miserable *kitten*, but also makes me stronger and I feel so much better for that.

On top of which, I lost weight through diet alone 2 years ago, and gave up because my skin got all saggy and I looked ill, even though I was only just into healthy weight. With exercise, my skin has shrunk to fit me, and I look well.

If your only goal is weight loss, that can be done wihout exercise.

But as to why exercise -

1. you will lose faster by burning calories during exercise and increasing your metabolism so that you burn more when not exercising
2. regular exercise reduces your risk of most life threatening diseases
3. if you have developed internal (visceral) fat around your organs (sometimes referred to as fatty liver disease), dieting alone may not get rid of it.

The short-term benefit of exercise is weight loss. But as you've seen you can lose weight without exercising.

The long-term benefit is better all around health. There is plenty of research that shows people who exercise are less likely to have conditions like heart disease when they are older if they exercise regularly. Unfortunately there is also research that shows even if you exercise every day but work a 40hr/week desk job, you don't have as many health benefits as people with less sedentary jobs.

It pretty much goes without saying that while you can get the short term benefits of exercise without having to exercise, you DEFINITELY can't get the long-term benefits with out actually doing it.

I want to be able to outrun a zombie AND also prevent osteoporosis...

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I want to be able to outrun a zombie AND also prevent osteoporosis...

LOL . . . . Are Zombies really a problem in your neighborhood?!?!?

If you lose weigh just by diet and not exercise you will be soft, with no tone.....do you really want that?

It is true - you can lose weight without exercising, but is losing weight your only goal? I am trying to get healthy - and that means more than just the number on the scale - it has to do with quality of life.

Exercising strengthens your heart and lungs, helps moderate your blood pressure, helps control blood sugar, improves your metabolism, elevates mood, improves cognative function, increases flexibility, improves sexual performance, increases circulation, aids digestion, improves quality of sleep and increases endurance - and that's just for starters.

I don't do crazy workouts - most days I walk either outdoors or on a treadmill. I also do some gentle stretching and a bit of strength training with 2, 4 and 10 pound weights a couple of times a week - often while I'm watching a favorite TV show. I can personally attest to the listed benefits of getting exercise and I'm on the low end of the scale. It's worth the effort. Trust me.

That's why I love this place. Not only good answers, but like...a hundred million of them

I know all this stuff, of course...I think it's just that I haven't seen the need for it yet.

I suppose a better question might be "do I need to hit the gym and bust my butt?" I do pilates at home, and try to take a nightly walk for 30-60 minutes. Is that going to keep my heart and lungs and muscles happy? Because while I'd love to be cut like a DC hero, I don't want it bad enough to be at the gym all the time. I'm okay with being in shape and healthy, but I don't need rippling muscles. So is my current regime of walking and eastern exercise fads sufficient for a healthy body?

I might not be one of those a hundred millon who can give good answer, but that is exactly what I do: watch I eat with light exercise and stretches. I dont know if it's the best to MFP's common standard, but they make me happy, especially when I see my cute and toned belly.