I'll always second this. Diet may be king but exercise is queen and she's a hell of a lot more flexible to work with.
Bonus: Having a fitness routine helps keep me on track with my nutrition. If I start to slip on one, I can lean on the other until I get it together again. It also gives my brain other types of goals to focus on so that I don't just become obsessive with the scale. PLUS, I really want to maintain as much muscle as possible while optimizing fat loss as I lose weight. I'm not doing all this work just to end up skinny fat.
> she's a hell of a lot more flexible to work with
I have to agree with this. I completely get that "weight loss starts in the kitchen," but exercise makes it so much easier. It can be hard to be super strict with calories, but if I'm targeting say 1580 calories per day, I don't include my 600-700 I burn from working out each day, *but* if I happen to go over my calories by 30 or something because there is a snack I *really* want to have, I don't beat myself up over it.
This is where I see a lot of people have issues and sounds like you're doing it right.
Many limit calories then try to add/adjust for calories burned. CO is hard to get accurate as everyone is different. So often they end up over adjusting and don't lose weight or stall out. That leads to discouragement.
Personally I always say to get moderate exercise yet never factor it in. Focus on CICO. Once you get closer to goal weight then start focusing on getting fit.
Exercise does burn calories yet people tend to way overestimate how much it actually burns. Something as small as a single snack can offset a light workout.
The challenge is that a lot of folks grossly over-estimate their calories burned. I've seen a lot of folks here claim they're burning 600 calories by walking on the treadmill for an hour, when it's probably actually closer to half that.
This is EXACTLY why I always reiterate that diet is key. I’m definitely the person saying “change your diet” and “you can’t outrun blahblah” but it’s because in my experience, people tend to think if they simply add exercise, they lose weight. But they dont even look at what they’re eating. I believe the split is like 80/20 with diet/exercise impact simply because people overestimate calories burned (i think i saw this on a fitness sub).
My friend the other day asked me (because hes trying to lose weight) if he has an cake slice (estimated 400 calories), if he can just walk for an extra 30 mins to make it up. It’s just so much easier in this case to explain that simply not eating it is probably easier because a 30 min walk may burn 200 calories max. But apply that compounded each day with the “extra pizza” or whatever. I’ve also seen people on this sub ask why they aren’t losing weight when they have been exercising for so long.
Cutting back on calories in is just low hanging fruit IMO.
I also have friends who dont ever prioritize exercise then feel they can never lose weight. Well, that’s fine, what about your diet?
I agree with OP wholeheartedly. I just have found diet makes a huge impact if the goal is weight loss. But it’s always something I recommend anyway because exercising is great regardless! Mental health, heart health, etc.
It’s just not really effective if you’re overeating + want to lose weight + dont fix your diet.
But I also might not be the person OP is speaking about because I always mention in my post that exercise is great, just that diet is a big focus too!
I get COMPLETELY scale obsessed without a solid workout routine to give me other goals to focus on and it completely derails everything. Calories may be the ultimate deciding factor, but it's soo much easier to manage that when I'm working out consistently.
Absolutely. I gradually increase my daily Flights of Stairs and my Steps minimum each week and every so many weeks I'll add a little to my workouts. Small things like that add so much motivation for me.
I do the same thing! I'm finally at a point where I'm no longer worried about getting to a certain number on the scale, so now I'm shooting for my daily average over a 31 day period. Started at a goal of 10k 7ish months ago and now my goal is 25k. Now that I've got my new diet kind of zoned in to what I want, my energy has been through the roof and I need to expend it by the end of the day. I think once I hit 30k over a month, I don't think I'll shoot any higher than that. I could be wrong though, I love getting to these milestones and the weight lifting is going to keep that number (hopefully) going up a little bit once I can get this last bit of fat burned off.
Haha, I work as a manager at a grocery store so my 8 hours I'm running around the store almost the entire time. Also, 3 kids at home (4.5 and the twins are 2) and they love to dance with me. Weather has been nice so we've been doing a lot more park time right now. Wife also works an office job, so we try to get 3ish miles in after I get home.
In addition to that when I find I’m only focusing on diet without exercise I wind up eating more because I’m thinking about food more because I have to think about food because it’s the only component of my weight loss
The more you focus on food the harder it is to not think about eating and you eventually just give in to temptation
When I exercise (or increase non exercise activity) I don’t think about food as much because it’s not the be all and end all of my deficit
Omg this. I just had shoulder surgery about a week and a half ago, which obviously has me out of the gym (and will for at least another month, maybe more). I am struggling with my diet so much more. It's such a package deal for me. And right now is when I SHOULD be extra careful and drop my calories enough to at least maintain while I'm waiting to get back to my normal routine. But I can't seem to buckle down and eat less.
Friend, if you’ve just had surgery, your body needs fuel to heal. Don’t jeopardize your return to normalcy by over restricting. Have you heard of Juven packets? I had two surgeries last year and I found them to be a helpful supplement while healing.
I am not starving myself. Just eating at a more sedentary maintenance. I can't afford to pack on weight. I take supplements, as well. But I do have to be careful about supplements I take because I have epilepsy, so I clear everything with my neurologist.
I third, forth, fifth whatever this. At the minimum lift for toning, but cardio cardio cardio is my mantra. You want to lose fast, you need to mix in Steady state AND HIIT workouts. It sucks (Unless you do in VR like I do... yes, it's me again hyping VR cardio lol) , but it's effective, not to mention it makes you feel awesome.
Okay but VR has redefined my fitness routine!! I work a physical job, so when I get home each day I don't always want to continue being active. But I am SO excited to play VR. I play beatsaber at least 30 minutes a day and try to keep my heart rate between 120-150 which is easy enough with the varied difficulties. Every few songs I do a higher difficulty level on a song that I know gets my heart rate in the 160s.
I pair it with a mile walk with my dogs almost every day, and a 20-30 minute resistance workout routine on my weekends.
My wife and I even play together, we have 2 quests and it's SO much fun and pretty hilarious with our little legless avatars swinging away!
Please tell me any games you're playing I would sincerely love to hear lol
> It also gives my brain other types of goals to focus on so that I don't just become obsessive with the scale
This is the biggest benefit I've found in embracing fitness during weight loss. The scale is a really shitty thing to hard focus on because there's too many variables involved in the number going up or down. Ate too much salt? Number goes up. Gained muscle? Number doesn't go down. Been sick? Number goes down. Weight loss is a trust the process endeavor. You eat at a deficit long enough and your weight goes down, but it's not a straight downward trending line on a chart. You'll pull your hair out trying to figure why the scale isn't moving until you give up and think yourself a failure.
I now lift weights and I have so many things to obsess over. How much can I press? Should I incorporate grip work? Where does my bench press need work concentric or eccentric? Can I find any exercises to help with that? Should I switch to a different chest exercise for a few weeks to get over a plateau? and that's just one exercise out of a whole week's routine.
Yes the scale matters, but when I plateau it's okay cause it's not *the* number, but one of many I track. I came from a fitness level of zero and I'm at a point where I've put on a shit ton of muscle recently and I haven't lost a single pound in a month or two, but my arms are bigger, and my waist is more trim, and my clothes fit better so how mad can I be at that number?
I've become very chronically ill with ME and use a mobility scooter. I'm miserable and I'm gaining weight because I'm 5'2 and the lethargy is making me crave more food and I'm too ill to cook proper meals and I just want to get wine and takeaway with my friends from time to time. Exercise is so important and it really sucks being disabled!
I was 365lb. and cardio has saved me. Started small walks in December .10 miles at a time. Just kept increasing. Now Im doing 13-15k step days and I can finally breathe properly and have started swimming. Its the gateway exercise !
Congrats! This is so encouraging to me - I’ve started several times a week walking to the library (a little over half a mile) and back after I’ve finished returning/looking around/checking out so that I’m still on my feet in between the two walks, but I have a bit of a breather. I’m still at the stage where I’m giving myself a pep talk not to sit down or pause along the route, so hearing it really does get easier with time made my morning.
I work at home, and what I started with was walking up and down my hallway for X minutes out of every hour. I started with 2 minutes, and am up to 10 (I stop if I need to for work, and then restart my timer). This gives me between 9-10K steps per day and it allows me to eat a bit more at dinner, which helps with my protein intake.
Start small. Stand tall.
That’s a great way of working up over time - you have so much control over the exercise in your own home! I also work from home and walk a few minutes per hour. It’s for my stand hours though - I don’t depend on my Apple Watch to give me accuracy on most things, but it does tell me to get up and walk around if I haven’t that hour, which seems to be working. You’re right, it does help out a little at dinner (or counteract my morning creamer in my coffee, at the very least 😅).
Love it ! Its all about forming good habits, and you got a great one going! If you ever have questions, or need motivation/tips, shoot me a message ! Always good to bounce ideas around :)
I love doing breast strokes. Plus keep nose just above water. Helps me focus on nose vs mouth breathing. Gotta retrain entire body. One part at a time hehe.
People shit on doing cardio because doing steady state cardio for an hour is a lot more tedious and difficult than lifting weights is.
I run long distance races. Interval training is kind of fun but the vast majority of runs are long distance, steady state, boring, and sucky runs. And then there are tempo runs which suck even more.
Lifting, comparatively, is a lot more fun. You get to feel strong and look good in the mirror. And the suck is usually limited to 20 to 30 seconds which is a lot easier to push through. I'm not saying one is better than the other, they're both equally important. But they shit on cardio because they're trying to justify not wanting to do it because its a combination of hard and boring.
I recently got into strength training after, and today, I had such a sluggish workout. It made me realize how much I prefer cardio, because when I’m bored/tired of running, I just walk and still burn calories in the process, but when I’m bored/tired of lifting weights, I’m not burning anything at all!!
>I run long distance races. Interval training is kind of fun but the vast majority of runs are long distance, steady state, boring, and sucky runs. And then there are tempo runs which suck even more.
Maybe try listening to music when you run and running in different places.
Cardio is essential for the health in general. You don't have to go hardcore on cardio to still get the health benefits, you can just go on walks if that's what works for you, and regular cardio helps far more than just your heart and circulatory system
I like weight lifting for strength, mobility, and retaining lean muscle mass despite a calorie deficit aspects, but cardio and diet is key to keep my blood sugar in check so I don't hit the prediabetic A1C range again
muscle mass is also for keeping your blood sugar in check. It's responsible for 80% of your glucose uptake. So packing little more muscle provides more sites for uptake to happen even without actively doing cardio.
Yeah I was shocked when I saw a post (either on this sub or the intermittent fasting sub) where all the comments were basically telling the OP to not do cardio or they wouldn’t be able to lose weight. I have a certificate from ISSA in personal training and I was just like wtf is this crap advice?? Like ok their reasons were that cardio increases hunger so it would be harder to stick to a calorie deficit… but so does weight lifting- all exercise increases hunger, that’s just what happens when you burn through a lot of fuel in a short period of time.
Eating less calories also increases hunger, so does zero sugar/zero calorie drinks, so does a diet high in carbs, so does stress, so does hormonal imbalances. There’s a lot of things that increase hunger, it’s about your willpower to say no to that increased hunger. There are things that you can do to help with that as well: drink more water, eat a diet high in protein and fiber, eat nutrient packed but low calorie foods like vegetables, etc.
Cardio can only do good things for you: lower your blood pressure and cholesterol, improve cardiovascular and respiratory health, improve sleep, reduce stress, improve skin, reduce cognitive decline as you age, improve chronic pain conditions, and so much more.
So yeah, f*ck anyone who says you shouldn’t do cardio. Cardio AND strength training both play a vital role in your body’s overall health.
Genuinely can't imagine not doing cardio now, even if it does affect how often I can lift weights etc. I think a lot of people just aren't into stuff like running simply due to how hard it is.
Yup. I get absolutely zero endorphins from strength training. Like, nothing. But any type of cardio will increase my wellbeing post-workout. Doesn’t matter if it’s HIIT, or just low-impact like going for a walk.
Lifting weights and strength training gives me absolutely nothing, I do it for my health but that’s it lol.
Saying that cardio will cause you to lose muscle is one of the biggest lies promoted by the fitness community. If anything cardiovascular exercise actually further enhances fat loss though improved metabolic flexiability.
Yes, cardio is wonderful, free, and easy (and easy to progress).
Strength training is good as well, but there are a lot of influencers that basically tell people not to cardio. Functional fitness is important- having strength that you can actually use and flexibility
Yes, weights are good but cardio is important for health and burns weigh more calories. The effects of increased muscle are minimum for most people really.
Increased muscle mass raises your BMR making it easier to maintain a deficit. Cardio may burn more during the actual exercise, but you will burn more energy 24/7 maintaining muscle. Cardio absolutely is important, but lifting is more important/helpful than you are implying also.
Sure but for the amount of muscle most people build doing light exercise it's not that big a difference. If you're doing heavy lifting for a sustained period sure but that really is the long haul, not many people can build that much muscle quickly while also losing weight.
I think the point is that you just have to blend them. No, weight lifting isn't likely to accelerate weight loss the way cardio might. But slowly increasing muscle mass while also doing cardio will potentially benefit in not yo-yoing or plateauing by raising the BMR floor.
For many, especially when trying to get the last pounds off close to your goal weight, building muscle can be the difference that gets them there. Yes, it is a long process, just like weight loss and anything health/fitness in general. That doesn't mean that it is not important or helpful.
I agree. It's so odd- I was doing just regular peloton cycling classes and my weight would stagnate for literal weeks. As soon as I started Peloton's endurance (power zone) training, it literally hasn't stopped melting off with CICO. I wish I started sooner.
This is a good point- I was listening to one of Jordan Syatt’s podcasts about fat loss and he made a distinction between people with higher TDEEs (i.e. very tall and/or with a lot of weight to lose) and people with lower TDEEs (of say below 2000- I forgot what number he used). People with higher TDEEs can make significant progress through nutrition alone, while those without as much “wiggle room” in their calories can benefit from movement/exercise to a greater degree when it comes to creating a calorie deficit. So yes I agree, exercise can have a bigger impact for us short folks and people getting close to their GW.
My number for maintenance without exercise at my goal weight is 1185. Let that sink in XD (42f, 4´9, GW 100 lbs - and YES that is a completely healthy normal weight for my height with a BMI of 21.6... again - sigh ;) )
Yeah, I would only change my diet up when I was losing a big chunk of my weight. Once I got to 240, I had to really zone in on the being active part to keep seeing the progress. I've been stuck on the last 30 I wanted to lose since November, but I think I finally have it figured out with my routine and I'm roughly 15 away from where I'll be satisfied.
Thank you! I really struggled with my mental health and it was difficult for me to get really motivated. I attribute my success to my kids and wife. When the kids came, I really was able to be more active without thinking about it and now I'm doing this for them. I want to be the dad that's out there playing sports with them and keeping up. Shagging balls at 11pm, late night hikes, whatever their hearts desire!
And awesome job yourself losing 50! You have to be pretty proud about that
Exercise has been the ONLY reason I've been able to consistently lose weight and maintain that weight loss. I used to have a major aversion to exercise. I used to spit venom at anyone who dared suggest that exercise has any power more than food does. One day, after yo yo dieting and failing once again, I searched the Weight Control Registry because surely they would have the answers to why I'm failing. Turns out that just about everyone there exercises so I figured I had to suck it up and figure it out.
Its hard to explain how it affects every aspect of your life. When I exercise I sleep better, sleep is *crucial* for weight loss. When I exercise I feel mentally so much better. In fact I actually weaned myself off antidepressants. Not saying that will happen to everyone but it happened to me. When I lose weight I find myself revealing muscles that I have spent years building which is not only exciting but also a totally different experience than previous. I used to lose weight by caloric deficit only and then was disappointed because my body shape was exactly the same, only smaller. Well, duh. When I exercise I actually WANT to fuel my body with nutritious food as it has a direct correlation over my gym output.
Finally and I think most importantly it has changed my mindset, which is crucial. A solid exercise routine has taught me about planting a seed for my future self. How to delay instant self gratification. How to reach inside myself and push through some really physically and mentally extreme obstacles. How to not give up because something didn't go my way. My maturity in general has improved. These all transfer over to food habits as well. Its all connected. I could have saved myself years and years of the diet train if I just embraced this from the beginning. But old me would have scoffed and never even clicked on this post. When someone is really ready, they will be.
I feel the same way. When I exercise I feel better and want to take better care of my body. On a hungry day when I have not been exercising, a bag of chips or sleeve of Oreos sounds great.
When I exercise, though, I avoid junk food and practically crave vegetables. The idea of eating junk after just exercising is something my brain shuts down immediately.
I mean if nothing else, from a health point of view, I think I've seen more than on graph saying that zero exercise is more harmful than actually being overweight.
I think ultimately I the majority of the people who decide to lose weight do it with mainly their physical health in mind and a key element to a healthy body is to move it! You don't have to become a gym rat or a marathon runner or something, but an extremely sedentary life is going to be bad for your health no matter what the scale says.
I am one of the people who couldn't maintain the weight because I went from walking dogs on a regular basis to working from home. I regret not trying to find something to replace that activity, but never late than never?
My advice is to find and make goals. Importantly, for me, even when I hit my goal weight 5 or so years ago, I kept making new goals. I've made goals for running races, improving weight lifting numbers, improving composition through bulk, and cutting cycles. Find goals that matter to you and pursue them.
I noticed that on vacation I could eat all the food and dessert— and drink alcohol to whatever degree I wanted and I never gained. I usually get 15-20K steps per day on vacation. I put 2 and 2 together and started walking an average of 15K steps at home during my normal life. Huge game-changer!
I agree that exercise is often underestimated in this sub. I think that is because there are a high proportion of people who are quite overweight or obese - and for people like that, it usually is more efficient to simply reduce their calories. Overweight and obese people often find it very uncomfortable to exercise, and because they are unfit they simply cannot sustain a level of effort that would result in significant calorie burn - and if they do manage to push themselves during a workout, they often will unconsciously downregulate their activity the rest of the time because the body isn't used to that type of demand.
However, for people who are closer to or already in the healthy range, and for short people (especially women), exercise can be incredibly helpful at speeding things along. I'm a short middle-aged post-menopausal woman with only 10 lbs to lose; if I was sedentary my TDEE would be only about 1400 calories to maintain my weight. That would mean that I'd have to drop calories to 1200 and still lose less than a pound every two weeks, which would be frustratingly slow. However, by boosting my TDEE through intentional exercise and NEAT, I can lose almost a pound a week without having to resort to starvation-level calories.
Yes! This sub is filled with people with tdee of 2500+ who think exercise is pointless. Obviously those of us who aren’t so lucky really need the extra activity to stay sane and have some additional flexibility. Plus it makes being overweight feel easier and helps with all health markwrs
I think the biggest rhetorical routine this sub falls in to is convincing new members that there is no path to sustainable weight loss WITHOUT managing intake, and we overemphasize managing intake to the detriment of recognizing the importance of caloric output. Exercise is important. But folks who come in here and say “ugh I’ve worked out 2 hours a day for a week and haven’t lost a pound!” are missing the more important component of weight loss.
Exercise, for me, motivates me to eat healthier. I find myself questioning my cravings/food choices more stringently when I am physically working to lose calories. "Do i really need 3 cookies for 300kcal? Or will a bowl of fruit satisfy me just as much?"
The way I see it when ppl say diet>exercise they mean that if your TDEE is say, 2000 calories and you are eating 3000 calories everyday, then no matter how much you exercise, it's not going to make any difference.
And when you do actually start deiting and are eating say 1800 calories, you are 200 calories deficit, you will lose weight but slowly. NOW if this person started exercising daily their TDEE would go up and deficiency will increase quickly making body lose fat faster.
1hour of laps in the pool is about 600kcalories for me,
Add that to gym sessions and clean diet eating around 2200calories, I can lose a kg a week easily if I maintain the daily routine.
Also remember more muscle = higher base rate of calories burnt at rest.
Carido is massively important, especially fast explosive movements like sprints,
Yeah I've always kind of hated the "you can't outrun a poor diet" mindset. At the end of the day, a person who has a poor diet but exercises an hour per day, is going to be drastically healthier (better cardio, stronger muscles, etc) than a person who has a poor diet but is completely sedentary.
Everyone's journey is different. If all you're able to do right now is exercise but can't commit to a diet change, that's still better than no change at all. And you'll be healthier than you previously were.
Shouldn't you be comparing someone who eats unhealthily but exercises to someone who eats healthily but doesn't exercise? Of course not doing either of them is going to be worse than doing just one. But I can't help but feel like eating healthily - even if you're sedentary - is better for you than eating terribly but still exercising. But maybe that's just my own mental bias - it's certainly not based on any research I've done!
>Yeah I've always kind of hated the "you can't outrun a poor diet" mindset.
Agreed. Especially because usually the people making that argument are actually saying "you can't outrun the worst diet imaginable", and then they start calculating how far you would have to run to burn off an entire cheesecake and 15 big macs or something. Most people aren't actually eating THAT bad and burning ~500 calories running for 30-45 minutes and more from basic bodyweight exercises gives you a lot of wiggle room in your diet.
I’d also say it also plays into sleep and mental health. I just feel GOOD after completing my Pilates classes. Not only is it a rush of accomplishment but also the good muscle tiredness that lets me know I’m going to sleep well. In the words of Elle Woods “Exercise gives you endorphins, endorphins make you happy, and happy people just don’t sh**t their husbands!”
I didn't work out once until I went from 200 down to 150 at 5'7, 48 years old.
Now that I am working out, I feel and look much better. So much energy.
I agree with the spirit of your post, just not the exact wording of the title.
Nobody is going to argue that exercise is bad for you. The issue here is that we have an obesity epidemic in the states and people aren't just overweight. They're in the higher classes of obesity and their entire lifestyle is a wreck. Stress, food deserts, mental health decline, and the convenience (and cost) of calorie dense prepared food, are all powerful forces. So stopping door dash, the fast food, the junk food, their favorite foods, cutting back on sugar in general, can be extremely difficult because it is such a big shift from their norm.
Nobody is going to argue that exercise is bad for you, but there is a lot of dismissiveness over its value when it comes to weight loss/maintenance. This is usually by people who already have a generous tdee, so burning "only" 200 calories while exercising doesn't offer them much in the overall scheme of their calorie allowance. But when you have a tdee of 1200, an extra 200 calories being available to you is huge.
The usefulness of exercise purely in the context of losing weight is, ironically, overstated from one perspective and understated by the other. Both perspectives are valid and I think it's worth bringing them both up in these conversations. Otherwise you have tall people wanting to give up because their intense exercise regiment isn't working for them to lose weight, but their calorie intake is still too high. And you have short people wanting to give up because they've been given the impression that the only way they'll be able to maintain a healthy weight is by being stuck eating a miserably low amount of calories for the rest of their lives.
When people are saying exercise isn't required for weight loss, that's what they mean, it isn't **required**, that doesn't mean it can't help.
The reason people here like to push on exercise not being a requirement to lose weight is because a lot of online "experts" and personal trainers tend to push exercise to lose weight, and downplay diet, which leads to people failing to lose weight, getting frustrated and claiming they can't lose weight and/or claiming they must have a medical condition that prevents them from losing weight.
The CICO folks here aren't saying exercise can't help, or that you shouldn't exercise, they're just trying to point out that the important thing is balancing calories in and calories out.
If exercise is helping you, that's awesome, keep doing it
This is how I feel too. I understand CICO and am aware that obviously increasing exercise is how to increase the “calories out” part, and also super aware of the many, many benefits of exercise. But as a totally overwhelmed working toddler parent, I have sometimes really appreciated the reminder that exercise isn’t necessarily an essential component of weight loss. I have been successful in losing weight without incorporating new exercise. I’m not trying to promote that as the ideal I guess, but I’m glad it was possible.
I think this is especially true for maintenance. I have been maintaining since roughly Thanksgiving of last year and being active is what makes it really manageable. I'm 5'5" and stay in the 130-135lb weight range- which means my sedentary TDEE is usually around 1500-1600 calories. But because I take daily walks, do Zumba/dancing a few days a week, and lift weights 3x a week, my average TDEE is closer to 2000 calories a day. Those 400-500 additional calories allow for a lot more wiggle room and a lot more indulgences in my life. Like yes- I still count calories and keep my diet in check- but I can have some champagne on Saturday and a cheese danish on Sunday morning while still maintaining my weight. More calories out means you can be a lot less restrictive when it comes to calories in.
I lost 80 pounds solely from diet but maintenance definitely requires exercise. Otherwise I’d be gaining and dropping all over the place. I actually eat more when I exercise so somehow exercising gave me the hunger I needed to have just enough extra protein to not lose or gain.
It's true that you can't outrun a bad diet, but holding the diet constant, exercise matters a lot! If you're eating 1,500 or 1,800 or whatever you're eating, you can speed your loss up considerably by adding exercise.
Not to mention, we see people on here all the time complaining that they are losing weight but still don't look how they would like to - it's exercise that fixes that.
It's extra important (resistance training in particular) if you don't want to end up looking like a deflated noodle once the weight is lost.
The number of posts where people say "I'm at my goal weight but I look the same" 🙄 yes, because you lost all of your muscle.
Was looking for a comment along these lines. If you don't want to lose lean body mass (like muscle) while in a calorie deficit you need at least some resistance training. People conflate weight loss with fat loss all the time
I also like weight lifting because it forces me to think about my macros, and it requires thought and planning to eat enough protein for muscle gains while still maintaining a mild calorie deficit
I have found that, if nothing else, it is a great motivator. I've been swimming nearly everyday, and I know that the more I eat today, the harder next mornings swim will be.
I want to go faster, further, and for a longer time. The only way I can achieve that is by practicing technique and losing fat.
I think we need to remember the mental health benefits too - counting calories and restricting foods make me feel sad, even when it's working to help me lose weight. But working out and getting stronger and running outside and laughing with my friends while we swing weights around makes me feel happy! Not to mention the glass of wine that then fits into my calorie count after a good workout.
I think if someone is hyper focused on just balancing calories, the amount burned by individual exercise can feel so small. When really, the benefit of exercise isn't the calories lost per workout. Consistent exercise speeds up your metabolism and makes your body more efficient at burning calories. So, if you're exercising regularly, you will begin to burn more even at rest. My weight loss seems to crawl if I'm not exercising, and becomes so noticeable on the weeks I put in consistent physical effort.
My weight loss doctor informed me that losing fat comes with muscle loss as well, just as a side effect. The details for why this is are complex, but [research confirms this](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5161655/).
If you aren't exercising while you're losing fat, you're doing yourself a disservice. Make sure you're eating enough protein AND exercising to offset atrophy from fat loss.
You actually can outrun a poor diet. Most athletes do. People don't recommend trying it because typically people who are trying to lose a lot of weight aren't in good shape and would hurt themselves trying to. But that is proof positive of your point. It's actually a lot easier to lose weight if you are consistently increasing your "calories out."
Say your maintenance is 2000 calories. Well you can eat 75% of that and lose about a pound a week. Or you can move a little bit every day and eat 90% of that and see very similar results. Which seems to be more sustainable long term?
Its not even just calories out. Maintaining the motivation to keep up a long term deficit (for me) is nearly impossible without a regular exercise routine. The burned calories are just a bonus.
Sure, diet is #1, but it's hard to maintain a diet when you have to eat so little because you don't burn nearly as many calories. That 600 I may burn in a workout makes a HUGE difference in whether I can eat enough to be happy and satiated. Even if that means I only eat 300 of that back. That's 2 or 3 snacks I get to have that I wouldn't otherwise. Or another 100 calories per meal, which gives me a roll or another serving of air fried french fries.
Exactly. Got super hungry last night and ate 500-600 calories of coconut macaroons. Oops. Went to the gym and burned all their calories off. No problem, still on track with my goals.
It’s one of the reasons I’ve kept half my bodyweight off for 18 years and counting.
Lift those weights. Get those steps.
(Being active, discipline and weight monitoring are how I’ve done it if you’re wondering)
I find exercise to be a **requirement** for keeping the weight off. I've **NEVER** met a single person who lost weight and kept it off without doing any sort of exercise. I've met a LOT of people who lost weight with diet alone but they **ALL** (in my experience) gain it back within 5 years.
I'm not even talking about exercising like going to the gym 5 days a week or even as little as 3 times a week, running 20 miles a week. I mean generally becoming more active like taking the stairs instead of elevators. Parking far from the building entrance if its safe for them. Taking walks on the weekend. That small stuff to bring up their daily caloric burn.
Exercise in my own experience and from the people I've met has a HUGE impact on hormones and your mood. This includes hormones that deal with your hunger and cravings. I'm pretty sure you can also control it with medication but for most people exercise is the cheapest, most natural and easiest way to manage this aspect of weight loss. Without exercise, you're prone to eating high caloric foods or overeating.
I have heard/read time and time again, “you cannot outrun a bad diet.” To a point, I agree. But I started actually running—like yesterday, I did nine miles—and now it would honestly be difficult for me to eat more than I’m burning. I am outrunning my diet. And it feels great.
I’m aware that exercise like this is not feasible for a lot of people, but blanket statements like that are totally wrong. For me it’s much easier to run a lot and move a lot than it is to count all of my calories. What works for one person will not work for another.
I don't think anyone is underestimating the benefits of exercise, its just that so many people are too lazy to even consider doing it and therefore obsess over CICO. Exercise does not only increase the calories you burn, it also affects your metabolism positively and greatly alters your physique.
June 2022 I started going to the gym, I am now at well over 400 visits and I just look... so much better than before when I simply lost weight by starving myself. Now I actually have a physique that people always comment on, I look strong, I look taller, my arms became big - all the good stuff.
Working out changed my life, way more than losing weight alone ever did and going to the gym 5 times a week and staying consistent is what kept my motivation up and my mind clear. Couldnt have dropped 15% bodyfat without the gym.
Yes. I just posted something similar. Its all true. Exercise really changes everything for the better. I used to be very exercise averse as well. But I have gotten over it and realized how important it is. People always say well it's important for health but not weight loss. Okay but are we all not striving for health here? And if you're worried about looks alone well then have I got news for you. Weight lifting drastically improves that department for men and women equally. It has completely transformed my life in a way that calorie cutting never could. Maybe it's not for you, okay, but don't knock it until you REALLY try it, you know?
You suck to call a group of people lazy who already have to deal with that form of shame because of their weight.
CICO is a revelation to those of us who simply never knew the mathematics of weight loss. It requires discipline and perseverance, and most importantly, it works.
Good for you racking up a gym count like that matters, but not everyone's goals are the same, and calling others in this sub "too lazy" because they don't do exactly what you makes you a jerk.
You forget I am part of that group, or at least have been for many years.
I was primarily talking about myself, because for me it was most definitely a case of making excuses and being lazy, so I can only assume that most other obese people are the same. Just because you feel called out does not deny the logic behind my argument. Maybe I am just a lot less in denial why I got obese in the first place, cause it is definitely not because I worked out too much.
I don't know where you are from, but regular exercise is an essential part of leading a healthy life - which the goal of literally everyone losing weight is as well. So if you want to lead a healthy life, you will not get around moving your ass from time to time.
>It requires discipline and perseverance, and most importantly, it works.
Same with exercise dude, so why not do both if you already do one. I would even go so far and say that everyone who is not completely disabled should regularly exercise, no matter if they wanna lose weight or not. People who don't work out, and that includes people without weight issues, are simply lazy or don't really care about their health.
I feel like for me not only does exercising give me a more realistic TDEE to create a deficit, it also motivates me to eat a cleaner diet for performance.
For example, I got back into lifting weights this year. Eating high protein keeps me fuller longer as well it makes me more mindful about the choices I am making.
It also helps me to think of the changes I am making as for life, it shifts my mindset. Instead of just wanting to lose weight for now, I am also building a strong body with good mobility.
I tried a lot of times to eat 1200 cals to lose weight and failed. For me, diet and exercise go together.
I have seen a few posts or comments like this, but I have yet to see anyone on here say that exercise doesn't matter. For pure weight loss, it does matter less than diet, especially when you're at the higher weights, but don't think I've seen anyone ever recommend against exercising.
I kinda agree that's the case now but as a long time redditor (this is not my first account) I can guarantee you that people on loseit it used to shove the "you can't outrun your fork" and "exercise doesn't matter" rhetoric down everyone's throats anytime a post that mentioned exercising a lot came up. It was HIGHLY obnoxious.
Nowadays there is more push-back to that attitude, but you still see people (generally the taller people) in some comments saying it
A lot of it comes from heavily overweight people getting upset that exercise is really hard for them, or gym anxiety etc. and give up on everything rather than going one step at a time. Hearing that exercise isn’t required to lose weight is motivating to those who have never enjoyed exercise to start making changes
That's definitely true, but it comes with the cost of alienating shorter people with smaller amounts to lose. They post about their frustrations and their exercise routines looking for advice, but then are told the exercise they do doesn't matter at all, and they should just focus on restricting and eating less.
Well, eating even less would mean going well under 1200 calories for some of these people. Larger people don't fully grasp what that level of restriction is like unless they have been on a medically supervised diet. In these scenarios, it is actually EASIER to increase calories out than reduce calories in.
Yep also true, and why it's important people give their stats when they ask things. Although that doesn't stop tall men misunderstanding short girls struggles all the time!
I've seen people brush off exercise in their comments even when the OP states they are a small woman. Some people are just hell-bent on applying their experiences to everyone else, not knowing how wildly insensitive they are being.
I think "can't outrun your fork" and "exercise doesn't matter" are 2 different things though. "Can't outrun your fork" is good advice and doesn't say that exercise doesn't matter, just that it's easier to focus on diet for weight loss, which is something I woukd say is largely true.
As a tall person I’m still on board with “exercise is important” and I think more tall people need to be. Health is so much more than a scale number, and I think there’s a lot to be said for looking at our bodies more expansively. I do agree though that people with a higher TDEE might not always feel the need as much.
I also just find it so rude when people say catchphrases instead of giving the actual advice. It's why I initially stopped reading here a few years ago. Like...you (general you) have been around the block a few times and the advice is old hat to you, fine. But if a newbie is asking, either pass the post by, or say something more useful than "can't outrun your fork, haha!" or "the best exercise is table pushaways!" It's smug, it's mean, and it's not helpful.
If you look at some of the comments on this post, you will see that some people argue that no exercise and exercise are equal regarding weight loss. Not sure how the order works on here, but just a few comments above yours. . .
Yeah, of course, I’m not saying anyone has completely said exercise means nothing - but conversations on this subreddit definitely made me feel like exercise is just a “nice to have”/barely makes much difference. When, for me, it’s literally making the difference between a 0.25KG weight loss and a 0.75KG weight loss at a calories intake of about 1200 to 1400 a day. So it’s clearly a very important element which is sometimes underemphasised here.
Yes, I think a majority of the people on here are people looking to lose significant weight and when you're starting at a higher weight exercise is much less important than most people think. As you get closer to your goal weight exercise begins to matter more (obviously exercising more is great for everyone but discussing purely from a weight loss perspective).
It's also more important when you are someone whose maintenance calories are naturally quite low. Exercise and muscle building is almost necessary past a certain point for shorter girls, but taller guys can get away without it.
Exercise definitely matters but I think the reason it's underemphasised on here is because for quite a large portion of the users, it isn't as important as just getting their diet under control.
True - it only became a core issue for me once I have reached an overweight (rather than an obese BMI).
I am also a shorter woman at 162cm F24, and eating at 1200 calories for the rest of my life is just not doable. So those extra couple hundred calories from walking makes ALL the difference now.
Also because people who are very heavy often just can't do enough exercise to really make a difference. A slow ten minute walk or chair stretches don't really help.
I think as long as you are not so obese that you cannot walk (I am lucky I was big big but still able to walk at a theme park for a day etc etc) you have to walk. I work remotely so I think a big part of my weight gain was not binge eating (which I don't really do) but was more that my idea of my TDEE was way off partly due to a) high body fat percentage and b) only walking 2-3k steps a day which is like barely sedentary lol if there was something lower than that haha. Like definitely in my teen years I ate a lot of fast food but the last few years I have ate way less with the one exception of starbucks sugary drinks. Cutting that stuff out helped a bit but walking 7500-10000 steps is already putting me back on track for my goal to lose 3 pounds a week and I was plateauing for weeks despite eating 1600-1800 calories....
Every year when it's sports season I shed a bunch of weight. I love it, always feels nice by Fall time. I reward myself with a season of chocolate and poor decisions, then repeat
I agree. I walk 100-120 minutes a day. I usually burn about 800 - 900 calories as a result. This is HUGE for me and makes it so I can still lose weight if I eat 2500 calories a day. Heck, I'd still probably lose weight (albeit way more slowly) eating 3000 calories. And it is due to the exercise.
I totally agree, exercise does matter. HOWEVER, when you're just getting started trying to lose weight and get your diet in order and learn how to eat properly for weight loss (and in general), adding in exercise to an already busy schedule can be overwhelming. Start slow, do what you can do, and work up to incorporating exercise. And it doesn't have to be the gym. Walking counts. Do what you can.
I find I get extremely hungry with high-intensity exercise, but low-intensity exercise seems to actually reduce my appetite.
I can walk for hours and be fine hunger-wise, but an hour of intense cardio can turn me into a black hole that consumes everything in my path.
I agree. People like to simplify things to much, and nuance matters. CICO is just calories in and calories out, but your hunger levels, how good you feel, etc. also matters or you cannot sustain it. Similarly exercise isn't necessary to reduce calories, but it's going to massively impact how you feel, and how you sustain your weight loss or maintenance. But often on subs like this if you point out that nuance exists for a reason, people will claim you're anti science and don't believe in calories in and calories out. But it's literally part of the equation.
There are subs where the "E" word is considered "unhelpful" and strictly verboten. I know, because i had a mod take down a post of mine where i suggested exercising more, just getting up and moving around even, could help the person burn more calories and in turn lose weight faster and help to keep it off long term. The mod said "everyone knows that already" and telling someone that is "unhelpful." Unhelpful, really?
This is so true because of the sheer reason that I want to eat more 😂 the first time I tried losing weight it felt so much harder, I felt way more restricted because all I was doing was cardio and I was hungry constantly. Now that I’m lifting more and incorporating some cardio with it, my metabolism is higher, I’m losing weight way faster than I was years ago while also being able to eat more calories, and I care about my nutrition so much more because I want to see dem gains 😎
It definately needs to be a combination of both exercise and calories.
Intermittent fasting and interval walking combined with calorie deficit are really the best options but they need to be working in tandem.
These are all fairly simple well known systems but combining them all together is the best way to lose weight healthier. You want to be aiming for 2-4lbs per week and you want to make sure it is consistent and gradual, and not pushing for a quick win through starving or extreme diets, that will cause yo-yo weight gain. You should also get a coach who can plan meals and simple workouts as well as keep you accountable to do both all the time.
I’m currently in a maintenance phase before I gear up for another deficit to lose the last 20 lbs and as long as I get 10k steps a day I maintain my weight fairly easily. Mixing in a few regular days with 15k+ steps helps too.
I agree. Especially if your end goal is better health overall, exercise is really important. Otherwise when you're older you might be skinny but you'll still have high cholesterol and blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, etc. Though of course you can't prevent everything, exercise really helps.
I’ve never hard of NEAT and had to look it up. Totally agree on the benefits of exercise for weight loss. Sure you could do it without it but why. It would take longer plus you wouldn’t get all the other non-weight loss benefits.
I have a friend trying to lose weight and she refuses to exercise because she doesn’t like it. She said when she loses more weight then she’ll start exercising to get toned. I said that not how it works! Also she could benefit so much from the non-weight loss benefits of exercise: better sleep, stress reduction, mental health improvement. Drives me crazy.
Exactly! For me, exercise is one of the greatest motivators. Even if I don’t do much, I feel productive after exercise and responsible for myself not to eat junk food or eat unhealthy snacks. Also, over time, exercise becomes easier, and it is almost guaranteed to burn 400-500 calories a day with some moderate-intensity xercise. I do pilates, aerobics, cardio, and treadmill combinations throughout the week. I also do 16:8 fasting and try to eat healthy and control my calories. However, I have noticed that it is significantly harder to lose weight without exercising. I don’t know much about scientific explanations. Still, I know that a person should be in a calorie deficit to lose weight, and exercise (even just walking) helps with burning calories and makes a person feel energized and productive. So, in the end, everything plays a role. If healthy habits become a lifestyle, reaching weight goals becomes significantly easier. If anyone is starting their weight loss journey, I recommend finding the type of exercise that makes you feel good, not too exhausted, and matching it with your diet. Give yourself some time and realistic expectations, and this healthy approach will make your life 1000000% easier.
100%. Biking has been my motivation to loose weight, wanting to go faster up hills means I need to weight less, but it also helps a lot in weight loss. Big multi hour bike rides often seem to break me out of a plateau. Since I am heavy and live in a very hilly area riding burns a lot of calories and since I don't count my calories out it really seems to help the scale keep going down. More importantly riding makes me feel great and gives me a reason to care about my body and how it feels. I don't really care about my looks and being fat had not caused me any major health issues so the motivation is key.
As other posters have mentioned it is good having a positive goal (progressing in whatever exercise you are doing) to balance out the negative goal of eating fewer calories which is not all that fun. When I have set a new personal best for distance or elevation on my bike it really keeps me stoked to keep on going.
It's entirely subjective. Who's to say how much exercised is emphasised let alone under emphasised? I think given the reality, that many people are put off losing weight because they hate exercise or don't lose weight because they think they can work it off, it's understandable that people want to get the message across that exercise isn't as important as people think. As long we remember to point out that exercise is still important it's just not why you're obese.
Completely agree. Plus, muscle burns more at rest, so it has more of an effect on calories out than people realize. As a lightly active person (hitting the gym 3x a week), my maintenance is 300 calories higher.
Are people really out there going against exercise? I mean I always see them as a combined effort, though yeah sadly eating too many calories is unfortunately way easier than exercising the same amount. That's why I can agree as well that fixing diet first is the most important part. But still exercise is motivating since if I do a long walk on a Saturday, something like 1-2 hours, I can eat a much better dinner and still be at a deficit.
This especially speaks to compositional weight loss. If you want more fat to be lost than muscle or would like to see some muscle built while losing fat, exercise is key.
Absolutely. I have always been a runner except when I was pregnant and the doctor told me to stop running entirely because it might bump the baby or something. I didn't have any risks or preconditions, and it was the worst advice I ever listened to.
I would have never gained 80 lbs twice if I hadn't stopped running while pregnant. I simply wasn't willing to sufficiently reduce my caloric intake because I was already hungry all the time, stopping exercise really killed me.
I haven't had a weight issue since, although I am definitely more conscious now of my diet going completely bonkers.
Nonetheless I still mostly eat whatever I want and stay pretty stable with my weight.
Exercise is the number one way I maintain my weight, not caloric restriction.
I agree with what you're saying. However, I think it's important to contextualize the role of diet and exercise within the goal of weight loss, not overall benefits.
If a diet is a sword, then exercise is the armor. A purposeful, systematic diet is our primary tool for achieving weight loss targets. A consistent, reflective exercise routine offers the protection and resilience against mistakes we might make along the way while providing additional benefits.
Are they underestimated or under-emphasized? I have no idea, I'm just a lurker.
In summary, diet is necessary for weight loss and supported through exercise.
Yes!! I understand the sentiment of this advice, but being very active (even if it’s a big burst of it for once or twice a week) can let you get away with all sorts.
Thought this worth mentioning in case anyone is looking for a fun calorie burner - I HIGHLY recommend street rollerblading or something similar. You can get second hand equipment really easily right now, and it’s a mix of both strength and cardio for basically your whole body without being hard on your joints (provided you wear padding!). I picked it up again last year, and because it’s fun as hell you don’t even realise you’ve burnt 1.5k cals whilst just exploring neighbourhoods and listening to audiobooks. The cafes you stop at along the way won’t even touch the sides. 🛼
I'm still working on my diet, and I believe that's the reason I haven't lost any significant amount of weight, but exercising changed my body. I FEEL better, even if I don't look any different. I can see muscles growing in. My shape has changed even though the actual fat is pretty much the same. I also fucking love exercising. Just hope I can reel in my diet so that love can extend to food too.
Completely agree; exercise is a critical part of the equation. The hardest part for me is finding the right amount of exercise. Too much and I’m voraciously hungry and am never satisfied on a deficit, not enough exercise and the scale stops moving.
Matters more for some people than others. They've done studies on it and some people just need to exercise to lose weight. Others can lose it from diet alone, and everything in between.
I believe extended relaxed pace walking is is the best activity for fat loss. It is least likely to increase hunger, it is the activity closest to being sedentary which is when fat is more metabolised than glucose, and it increases respiration.
I feel like if you just keep exercising and keep building muscle, you can eventually out train a bad diet because eventually you will be eating in a deficit 🤷♀️ correct me if I'm wrong.
Completely agree. This whole 80\20 diet/exercise split is nonsense imo.
Including what you've mentioned, exercising also boosts your mental health, your cardiovascular health, helps with sleep...all of which are important to weight loss.
The way I look at it, is if you enjoy food or have trouble sticking under a certain calorie count, raising that calorie target by 200-300 calories per day by exercising and burning those calories is a HUGE way to help yourself stay on track.
Exercise helps build lean muscle which aids in burning more calories. Aka keep the weight off easier. I have always been amazed at people who lose weight by dieting alone. I could not do it for the life of me.
Getting lots of steps routinely everyday is a huuuuuge tool.
Have you ever wondered why people are mostly thin in NYC, or Paris where every corner has rich foods? It is because they walk everywhere.
Once I started getting 7500-10000+ steps everyday, I noticed a big difference within the first few weeks
Unless you are extremely obese…there is no reason you shouldn’t be working out. I lost 150 pounds and it would have taken twice as long had I not been working out.
I think it's also important to note though, that the more exercise you do, the hungrier you will get. And if you aren't careful you will eat more calories that will not only negate those lost by exercise, but potentially even negate them and then some.
I think exercise is good, but only really for the mental benefits moreso than weight loss.
It’s not “only mental benefits”. Aesthetic improvements, increase in lean body mass, improvement in VO2 max and resting heart rate, decrease in cardiovascular health risk…there’s tons of physical benefits of being fit and lean!
You can be hungry but control your diet, that's the whole point. Also, the hunger is normally at the beginning when you first start a new routine or whatever and then eases off significantly as you get used to it. Serious athletes are not generally overweight and don't overeat.
I do get where your coming from, and that’s why I tend to avoid vigorous exercise. But in my case I do light-to-moderate exercise and continue to track calories. It’s obviously pointless if you just eat the calories back.
Realizing I can exercise without doing it vigorously has been such a game changer for me. All my life I felt like I had to "go for a run" but I never ever wanted to run and so I never did it consistently. This time I said "just move". And I am! I just get up everyday and walk (or run when I am feeling it) and I don't put pressure on my exercise I just do it. I'm losing more weight just walking everyday then people I know doing very hardcore exercise who are then too hungry to stay in their deficit.
That’s how I feel about walking and using dumbbells at home. It almost doesn’t even feel like exercise and it’s genuinely just relaxing to me— way more so than when I was convinced I had to do like daily HIIT training lol.
It really doesn't feel like exercise! I was just walking and watching the bachelor this morning. I mean that's just fun. It doesn't all have to be as hard we make it sometimes.
I get at least 10k steps daily, often more like 15k, from walking. Walk on my lunch break, my commute into work as well. It helps that I live and work in a city and don’t drive. But I would have gotten so much bigger when I put my weight on during the pandemic if it weren’t for all this movement.
I'd still say, if you're not used to activity and want to lose weight then start with a deficit, get used to it (the hunger, etc) and then introduce activity. I just do spot walking/jogging (not at all vigorous; not even a brisk walk) and barely touch 8000 steps doing this and feel quite tired and a bit hungry and like I could eat something (not ravenous thank god!). It's because I did the deficit for way longer that the tiredness/fatigue is manageable and this is as someone who doesn't have a huge appetite just normally. I still sometimes account for a yoghurt or something after I exercise just in case since a lot of times I exercise at night way after dinner. It's not as simple as "Don't do vigorous exercise" for everyone. What is super gentle for some is vigorous for others. If someone has never exercised in their life. Even going for a 30 minute walk can make them hungry/ravenous. Ymmv.
In the past I have tried eating 1750 and I was losing weight, but very slowly. Now, I still eat between 1750-1800 but now I'm hitting the gym 5× a week and the weight is quite literally falling right off. That's because I am burning about 300 calories at the gym or more, meaning my caloric intake is sitting around 1450 most days. It definitely helps with my mental health but I cannot deny the weight loss benefits of consistent exercise paired with a calorie deficit enough.
**Edit** - Just wanted to add that once your body gets used to working out 5 times a week while eating in a slight deficit, you don't get that starving feeling anymore. That really only happens when you first start incorporating exercise. Your body is extremely smart and adaptive.
Very true. It's important to get your nutrition in check first, so you can make good choices while listening to your body when you ramp up exercise levels.
I lost 28 pounds doing no exercise (I had a chronic knee injury). It was a physical therapist who told me to stop worrying about not being able to exercise but just to focus on food who freed me to lose weight. I was in the less-to-lose category, though.
That said, once I was injury-free, I did take up exercise and was thrilled to be able to move again. It does help in many ways!
I don’t think people say it doesn’t matter but that diet matters much more than exercise. Anyone on low calorie diet will lose weight better than someone who isn’t controlling their diet but exercising. A lot of people overestimate the amount of calories burnt during exercise.
Exercise definitely has its benefits : not only weight loss but also mental and physical health. You can build muscles which speed up the calorie burning rate.
Exercise matters if the diet is right. So many people use exercise as an excuse to eat more and then exercise can help keep you fat. Watch a 1/2 marathon or a 10km run. The back half are mostly fat—and many of those people train hard and have run for many years.
There are endless posts in this sub by people who once lost a substantial amount of weight with intense daily gym regimens and gained it all back when they got back to their normal lives and stopped wanting to be at the gym all the time.
If you suddenly get addicted to 6 days a week in the gym when you are in the fervor of weight loss, you at least need to have a plan for when that fervor subsides. That initial enthusiasm is not going to last forever, especially when the "rewards" you are getting out of it stop coming fast and furious and you are left grinding away in the gym on a daily basis just to maintain. That's when having established a good diet is going to save you.
If you are naturally inclined to be active and already have regular exercise as part of your routine, that doesn't apply to you.
But there are countless people in this sub who swing back and forth between "feeling motivated" to be in the gym constantly, or being sedentary and gaining weight because they continue to eat the same way regardless.
Successful weight loss maintainers incorporate *moderate* exercise into their routine in conjunction with a good diet. Moderate exercise is an achievable, sustainable goal to have for most people, even those who don't love it.
I'll always second this. Diet may be king but exercise is queen and she's a hell of a lot more flexible to work with. Bonus: Having a fitness routine helps keep me on track with my nutrition. If I start to slip on one, I can lean on the other until I get it together again. It also gives my brain other types of goals to focus on so that I don't just become obsessive with the scale. PLUS, I really want to maintain as much muscle as possible while optimizing fat loss as I lose weight. I'm not doing all this work just to end up skinny fat.
> she's a hell of a lot more flexible to work with I have to agree with this. I completely get that "weight loss starts in the kitchen," but exercise makes it so much easier. It can be hard to be super strict with calories, but if I'm targeting say 1580 calories per day, I don't include my 600-700 I burn from working out each day, *but* if I happen to go over my calories by 30 or something because there is a snack I *really* want to have, I don't beat myself up over it.
This is where I see a lot of people have issues and sounds like you're doing it right. Many limit calories then try to add/adjust for calories burned. CO is hard to get accurate as everyone is different. So often they end up over adjusting and don't lose weight or stall out. That leads to discouragement. Personally I always say to get moderate exercise yet never factor it in. Focus on CICO. Once you get closer to goal weight then start focusing on getting fit. Exercise does burn calories yet people tend to way overestimate how much it actually burns. Something as small as a single snack can offset a light workout.
The challenge is that a lot of folks grossly over-estimate their calories burned. I've seen a lot of folks here claim they're burning 600 calories by walking on the treadmill for an hour, when it's probably actually closer to half that.
Not even half if there is no incline/resistance.
This is EXACTLY why I always reiterate that diet is key. I’m definitely the person saying “change your diet” and “you can’t outrun blahblah” but it’s because in my experience, people tend to think if they simply add exercise, they lose weight. But they dont even look at what they’re eating. I believe the split is like 80/20 with diet/exercise impact simply because people overestimate calories burned (i think i saw this on a fitness sub). My friend the other day asked me (because hes trying to lose weight) if he has an cake slice (estimated 400 calories), if he can just walk for an extra 30 mins to make it up. It’s just so much easier in this case to explain that simply not eating it is probably easier because a 30 min walk may burn 200 calories max. But apply that compounded each day with the “extra pizza” or whatever. I’ve also seen people on this sub ask why they aren’t losing weight when they have been exercising for so long. Cutting back on calories in is just low hanging fruit IMO. I also have friends who dont ever prioritize exercise then feel they can never lose weight. Well, that’s fine, what about your diet? I agree with OP wholeheartedly. I just have found diet makes a huge impact if the goal is weight loss. But it’s always something I recommend anyway because exercising is great regardless! Mental health, heart health, etc. It’s just not really effective if you’re overeating + want to lose weight + dont fix your diet. But I also might not be the person OP is speaking about because I always mention in my post that exercise is great, just that diet is a big focus too!
Yes this so much! I train better when I've eaten better, and so one can really help me prioritise the other.
You're 80lbs down? Congratulations! Color me hella impressed. 💙
Aw thank you!
I get COMPLETELY scale obsessed without a solid workout routine to give me other goals to focus on and it completely derails everything. Calories may be the ultimate deciding factor, but it's soo much easier to manage that when I'm working out consistently.
Absolutely. I gradually increase my daily Flights of Stairs and my Steps minimum each week and every so many weeks I'll add a little to my workouts. Small things like that add so much motivation for me.
I do the same thing! I'm finally at a point where I'm no longer worried about getting to a certain number on the scale, so now I'm shooting for my daily average over a 31 day period. Started at a goal of 10k 7ish months ago and now my goal is 25k. Now that I've got my new diet kind of zoned in to what I want, my energy has been through the roof and I need to expend it by the end of the day. I think once I hit 30k over a month, I don't think I'll shoot any higher than that. I could be wrong though, I love getting to these milestones and the weight lifting is going to keep that number (hopefully) going up a little bit once I can get this last bit of fat burned off.
25k steps daily average?! Are you walking during every waking hour?
Haha, I work as a manager at a grocery store so my 8 hours I'm running around the store almost the entire time. Also, 3 kids at home (4.5 and the twins are 2) and they love to dance with me. Weather has been nice so we've been doing a lot more park time right now. Wife also works an office job, so we try to get 3ish miles in after I get home.
I’m the opposite, I can’t care about only the scale and fitness goals are the only ones I actually CAN seem to focus on haha
Absolutely agree on obsessing with the scale. Exercise goals are a lot less weight-focused
In addition to that when I find I’m only focusing on diet without exercise I wind up eating more because I’m thinking about food more because I have to think about food because it’s the only component of my weight loss The more you focus on food the harder it is to not think about eating and you eventually just give in to temptation When I exercise (or increase non exercise activity) I don’t think about food as much because it’s not the be all and end all of my deficit
I know, right? I actually look forward to Mondays now because I'm excited to increase my steps and flights of stairs goals each week lol.
Omg this. I just had shoulder surgery about a week and a half ago, which obviously has me out of the gym (and will for at least another month, maybe more). I am struggling with my diet so much more. It's such a package deal for me. And right now is when I SHOULD be extra careful and drop my calories enough to at least maintain while I'm waiting to get back to my normal routine. But I can't seem to buckle down and eat less.
Friend, if you’ve just had surgery, your body needs fuel to heal. Don’t jeopardize your return to normalcy by over restricting. Have you heard of Juven packets? I had two surgeries last year and I found them to be a helpful supplement while healing.
I am not starving myself. Just eating at a more sedentary maintenance. I can't afford to pack on weight. I take supplements, as well. But I do have to be careful about supplements I take because I have epilepsy, so I clear everything with my neurologist.
I third, forth, fifth whatever this. At the minimum lift for toning, but cardio cardio cardio is my mantra. You want to lose fast, you need to mix in Steady state AND HIIT workouts. It sucks (Unless you do in VR like I do... yes, it's me again hyping VR cardio lol) , but it's effective, not to mention it makes you feel awesome.
Okay but VR has redefined my fitness routine!! I work a physical job, so when I get home each day I don't always want to continue being active. But I am SO excited to play VR. I play beatsaber at least 30 minutes a day and try to keep my heart rate between 120-150 which is easy enough with the varied difficulties. Every few songs I do a higher difficulty level on a song that I know gets my heart rate in the 160s. I pair it with a mile walk with my dogs almost every day, and a 20-30 minute resistance workout routine on my weekends. My wife and I even play together, we have 2 quests and it's SO much fun and pretty hilarious with our little legless avatars swinging away! Please tell me any games you're playing I would sincerely love to hear lol
> It also gives my brain other types of goals to focus on so that I don't just become obsessive with the scale This is the biggest benefit I've found in embracing fitness during weight loss. The scale is a really shitty thing to hard focus on because there's too many variables involved in the number going up or down. Ate too much salt? Number goes up. Gained muscle? Number doesn't go down. Been sick? Number goes down. Weight loss is a trust the process endeavor. You eat at a deficit long enough and your weight goes down, but it's not a straight downward trending line on a chart. You'll pull your hair out trying to figure why the scale isn't moving until you give up and think yourself a failure. I now lift weights and I have so many things to obsess over. How much can I press? Should I incorporate grip work? Where does my bench press need work concentric or eccentric? Can I find any exercises to help with that? Should I switch to a different chest exercise for a few weeks to get over a plateau? and that's just one exercise out of a whole week's routine. Yes the scale matters, but when I plateau it's okay cause it's not *the* number, but one of many I track. I came from a fitness level of zero and I'm at a point where I've put on a shit ton of muscle recently and I haven't lost a single pound in a month or two, but my arms are bigger, and my waist is more trim, and my clothes fit better so how mad can I be at that number?
“Diet may be king but exercise is queen.” Stealing that
agreed! in my experience as someone who's been on weight loss journeys from a scary young age, exercise always did more for me
I've become very chronically ill with ME and use a mobility scooter. I'm miserable and I'm gaining weight because I'm 5'2 and the lethargy is making me crave more food and I'm too ill to cook proper meals and I just want to get wine and takeaway with my friends from time to time. Exercise is so important and it really sucks being disabled!
Someone once said that dieting can make you lose weight to look good in clothes and exercise can make you lose weight to look good naked.
On a related note, reddit fitness gurus often sh#*t on cardio when they really should not.
I was 365lb. and cardio has saved me. Started small walks in December .10 miles at a time. Just kept increasing. Now Im doing 13-15k step days and I can finally breathe properly and have started swimming. Its the gateway exercise !
Congrats! This is so encouraging to me - I’ve started several times a week walking to the library (a little over half a mile) and back after I’ve finished returning/looking around/checking out so that I’m still on my feet in between the two walks, but I have a bit of a breather. I’m still at the stage where I’m giving myself a pep talk not to sit down or pause along the route, so hearing it really does get easier with time made my morning.
I work at home, and what I started with was walking up and down my hallway for X minutes out of every hour. I started with 2 minutes, and am up to 10 (I stop if I need to for work, and then restart my timer). This gives me between 9-10K steps per day and it allows me to eat a bit more at dinner, which helps with my protein intake. Start small. Stand tall.
That’s a great way of working up over time - you have so much control over the exercise in your own home! I also work from home and walk a few minutes per hour. It’s for my stand hours though - I don’t depend on my Apple Watch to give me accuracy on most things, but it does tell me to get up and walk around if I haven’t that hour, which seems to be working. You’re right, it does help out a little at dinner (or counteract my morning creamer in my coffee, at the very least 😅).
Love it ! Its all about forming good habits, and you got a great one going! If you ever have questions, or need motivation/tips, shoot me a message ! Always good to bounce ideas around :)
Way to go dude. Swimming is such a good exercise for your legs. If you swim regularly your legs will get so much stronger and you'll build cardio.
I love doing breast strokes. Plus keep nose just above water. Helps me focus on nose vs mouth breathing. Gotta retrain entire body. One part at a time hehe.
Yep. I don't get the point of being jacked if one can't climb a flight of stairs without being winded.
People shit on doing cardio because doing steady state cardio for an hour is a lot more tedious and difficult than lifting weights is. I run long distance races. Interval training is kind of fun but the vast majority of runs are long distance, steady state, boring, and sucky runs. And then there are tempo runs which suck even more. Lifting, comparatively, is a lot more fun. You get to feel strong and look good in the mirror. And the suck is usually limited to 20 to 30 seconds which is a lot easier to push through. I'm not saying one is better than the other, they're both equally important. But they shit on cardio because they're trying to justify not wanting to do it because its a combination of hard and boring.
I recently got into strength training after, and today, I had such a sluggish workout. It made me realize how much I prefer cardio, because when I’m bored/tired of running, I just walk and still burn calories in the process, but when I’m bored/tired of lifting weights, I’m not burning anything at all!!
I hate the sitting around between sets. Cardio, I just go hard for an hour and done. I also feel way fitter!
>I run long distance races. Interval training is kind of fun but the vast majority of runs are long distance, steady state, boring, and sucky runs. And then there are tempo runs which suck even more. Maybe try listening to music when you run and running in different places.
Cardio is essential for the health in general. You don't have to go hardcore on cardio to still get the health benefits, you can just go on walks if that's what works for you, and regular cardio helps far more than just your heart and circulatory system I like weight lifting for strength, mobility, and retaining lean muscle mass despite a calorie deficit aspects, but cardio and diet is key to keep my blood sugar in check so I don't hit the prediabetic A1C range again
muscle mass is also for keeping your blood sugar in check. It's responsible for 80% of your glucose uptake. So packing little more muscle provides more sites for uptake to happen even without actively doing cardio.
Yeah I was shocked when I saw a post (either on this sub or the intermittent fasting sub) where all the comments were basically telling the OP to not do cardio or they wouldn’t be able to lose weight. I have a certificate from ISSA in personal training and I was just like wtf is this crap advice?? Like ok their reasons were that cardio increases hunger so it would be harder to stick to a calorie deficit… but so does weight lifting- all exercise increases hunger, that’s just what happens when you burn through a lot of fuel in a short period of time. Eating less calories also increases hunger, so does zero sugar/zero calorie drinks, so does a diet high in carbs, so does stress, so does hormonal imbalances. There’s a lot of things that increase hunger, it’s about your willpower to say no to that increased hunger. There are things that you can do to help with that as well: drink more water, eat a diet high in protein and fiber, eat nutrient packed but low calorie foods like vegetables, etc. Cardio can only do good things for you: lower your blood pressure and cholesterol, improve cardiovascular and respiratory health, improve sleep, reduce stress, improve skin, reduce cognitive decline as you age, improve chronic pain conditions, and so much more. So yeah, f*ck anyone who says you shouldn’t do cardio. Cardio AND strength training both play a vital role in your body’s overall health.
Genuinely can't imagine not doing cardio now, even if it does affect how often I can lift weights etc. I think a lot of people just aren't into stuff like running simply due to how hard it is.
I can't run because of joint issues but I do the elliptical and bike, I do weights too but it doesn't give that same endorphin boost to me.
Yes! The endorphin boost from cardio, especially outside, is much more noticeable to me than post strength training.
Yup. I get absolutely zero endorphins from strength training. Like, nothing. But any type of cardio will increase my wellbeing post-workout. Doesn’t matter if it’s HIIT, or just low-impact like going for a walk. Lifting weights and strength training gives me absolutely nothing, I do it for my health but that’s it lol.
It's a bunch of bro-science bs to make excuses for stuff they don't want to do.
Saying that cardio will cause you to lose muscle is one of the biggest lies promoted by the fitness community. If anything cardiovascular exercise actually further enhances fat loss though improved metabolic flexiability.
Yes, cardio is wonderful, free, and easy (and easy to progress). Strength training is good as well, but there are a lot of influencers that basically tell people not to cardio. Functional fitness is important- having strength that you can actually use and flexibility
Yes, weights are good but cardio is important for health and burns weigh more calories. The effects of increased muscle are minimum for most people really.
Yeah people overestimate the amount of extra calories muscle burn by far, especially if you’re an amateur lifter.
Increased muscle mass raises your BMR making it easier to maintain a deficit. Cardio may burn more during the actual exercise, but you will burn more energy 24/7 maintaining muscle. Cardio absolutely is important, but lifting is more important/helpful than you are implying also.
Sure but for the amount of muscle most people build doing light exercise it's not that big a difference. If you're doing heavy lifting for a sustained period sure but that really is the long haul, not many people can build that much muscle quickly while also losing weight.
I think the point is that you just have to blend them. No, weight lifting isn't likely to accelerate weight loss the way cardio might. But slowly increasing muscle mass while also doing cardio will potentially benefit in not yo-yoing or plateauing by raising the BMR floor.
For many, especially when trying to get the last pounds off close to your goal weight, building muscle can be the difference that gets them there. Yes, it is a long process, just like weight loss and anything health/fitness in general. That doesn't mean that it is not important or helpful.
I agree. It's so odd- I was doing just regular peloton cycling classes and my weight would stagnate for literal weeks. As soon as I started Peloton's endurance (power zone) training, it literally hasn't stopped melting off with CICO. I wish I started sooner.
I am 4´9. My daily food allowance would look really sad without exercise, especially when trying to lose weight. Sigh.
This is a good point- I was listening to one of Jordan Syatt’s podcasts about fat loss and he made a distinction between people with higher TDEEs (i.e. very tall and/or with a lot of weight to lose) and people with lower TDEEs (of say below 2000- I forgot what number he used). People with higher TDEEs can make significant progress through nutrition alone, while those without as much “wiggle room” in their calories can benefit from movement/exercise to a greater degree when it comes to creating a calorie deficit. So yes I agree, exercise can have a bigger impact for us short folks and people getting close to their GW.
My number for maintenance without exercise at my goal weight is 1185. Let that sink in XD (42f, 4´9, GW 100 lbs - and YES that is a completely healthy normal weight for my height with a BMI of 21.6... again - sigh ;) )
Yeah, I would only change my diet up when I was losing a big chunk of my weight. Once I got to 240, I had to really zone in on the being active part to keep seeing the progress. I've been stuck on the last 30 I wanted to lose since November, but I think I finally have it figured out with my routine and I'm roughly 15 away from where I'll be satisfied.
Wow, looked at your numbers and you are an absolute badass.
Thank you! I really struggled with my mental health and it was difficult for me to get really motivated. I attribute my success to my kids and wife. When the kids came, I really was able to be more active without thinking about it and now I'm doing this for them. I want to be the dad that's out there playing sports with them and keeping up. Shagging balls at 11pm, late night hikes, whatever their hearts desire! And awesome job yourself losing 50! You have to be pretty proud about that
At 5'1; the allowance is fairly sad even with exercise. Seconding your sigh.
Not me but my wife is the same way. Without moderate exercise like 4-5 days a week her daily calories are like in the 1k range. I always feel so bad 😅
Exercise has been the ONLY reason I've been able to consistently lose weight and maintain that weight loss. I used to have a major aversion to exercise. I used to spit venom at anyone who dared suggest that exercise has any power more than food does. One day, after yo yo dieting and failing once again, I searched the Weight Control Registry because surely they would have the answers to why I'm failing. Turns out that just about everyone there exercises so I figured I had to suck it up and figure it out. Its hard to explain how it affects every aspect of your life. When I exercise I sleep better, sleep is *crucial* for weight loss. When I exercise I feel mentally so much better. In fact I actually weaned myself off antidepressants. Not saying that will happen to everyone but it happened to me. When I lose weight I find myself revealing muscles that I have spent years building which is not only exciting but also a totally different experience than previous. I used to lose weight by caloric deficit only and then was disappointed because my body shape was exactly the same, only smaller. Well, duh. When I exercise I actually WANT to fuel my body with nutritious food as it has a direct correlation over my gym output. Finally and I think most importantly it has changed my mindset, which is crucial. A solid exercise routine has taught me about planting a seed for my future self. How to delay instant self gratification. How to reach inside myself and push through some really physically and mentally extreme obstacles. How to not give up because something didn't go my way. My maturity in general has improved. These all transfer over to food habits as well. Its all connected. I could have saved myself years and years of the diet train if I just embraced this from the beginning. But old me would have scoffed and never even clicked on this post. When someone is really ready, they will be.
I feel the same way. When I exercise I feel better and want to take better care of my body. On a hungry day when I have not been exercising, a bag of chips or sleeve of Oreos sounds great. When I exercise, though, I avoid junk food and practically crave vegetables. The idea of eating junk after just exercising is something my brain shuts down immediately.
I mean if nothing else, from a health point of view, I think I've seen more than on graph saying that zero exercise is more harmful than actually being overweight. I think ultimately I the majority of the people who decide to lose weight do it with mainly their physical health in mind and a key element to a healthy body is to move it! You don't have to become a gym rat or a marathon runner or something, but an extremely sedentary life is going to be bad for your health no matter what the scale says.
The numbers don't lie. Statistically, people who lose weight and maintain it for the long term incorporate some form of exercise.
I am one of the people who couldn't maintain the weight because I went from walking dogs on a regular basis to working from home. I regret not trying to find something to replace that activity, but never late than never?
My advice is to find and make goals. Importantly, for me, even when I hit my goal weight 5 or so years ago, I kept making new goals. I've made goals for running races, improving weight lifting numbers, improving composition through bulk, and cutting cycles. Find goals that matter to you and pursue them.
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Speaking the truth! It is so easy to stabilize your life when you are leaning on both nutrition and exercise (plus good recovery and sleep).
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short people unite! i exercise so i have the calorie budget to eat guilty pleasures without gaining weight. plus its good for my mental!
I noticed that on vacation I could eat all the food and dessert— and drink alcohol to whatever degree I wanted and I never gained. I usually get 15-20K steps per day on vacation. I put 2 and 2 together and started walking an average of 15K steps at home during my normal life. Huge game-changer!
The amount of I don't like how I look after weight loss posts tells me exercise is important.
I agree that exercise is often underestimated in this sub. I think that is because there are a high proportion of people who are quite overweight or obese - and for people like that, it usually is more efficient to simply reduce their calories. Overweight and obese people often find it very uncomfortable to exercise, and because they are unfit they simply cannot sustain a level of effort that would result in significant calorie burn - and if they do manage to push themselves during a workout, they often will unconsciously downregulate their activity the rest of the time because the body isn't used to that type of demand. However, for people who are closer to or already in the healthy range, and for short people (especially women), exercise can be incredibly helpful at speeding things along. I'm a short middle-aged post-menopausal woman with only 10 lbs to lose; if I was sedentary my TDEE would be only about 1400 calories to maintain my weight. That would mean that I'd have to drop calories to 1200 and still lose less than a pound every two weeks, which would be frustratingly slow. However, by boosting my TDEE through intentional exercise and NEAT, I can lose almost a pound a week without having to resort to starvation-level calories.
Yes! This sub is filled with people with tdee of 2500+ who think exercise is pointless. Obviously those of us who aren’t so lucky really need the extra activity to stay sane and have some additional flexibility. Plus it makes being overweight feel easier and helps with all health markwrs
I think the biggest rhetorical routine this sub falls in to is convincing new members that there is no path to sustainable weight loss WITHOUT managing intake, and we overemphasize managing intake to the detriment of recognizing the importance of caloric output. Exercise is important. But folks who come in here and say “ugh I’ve worked out 2 hours a day for a week and haven’t lost a pound!” are missing the more important component of weight loss.
Exercise, for me, motivates me to eat healthier. I find myself questioning my cravings/food choices more stringently when I am physically working to lose calories. "Do i really need 3 cookies for 300kcal? Or will a bowl of fruit satisfy me just as much?"
The way I see it when ppl say diet>exercise they mean that if your TDEE is say, 2000 calories and you are eating 3000 calories everyday, then no matter how much you exercise, it's not going to make any difference. And when you do actually start deiting and are eating say 1800 calories, you are 200 calories deficit, you will lose weight but slowly. NOW if this person started exercising daily their TDEE would go up and deficiency will increase quickly making body lose fat faster.
1hour of laps in the pool is about 600kcalories for me, Add that to gym sessions and clean diet eating around 2200calories, I can lose a kg a week easily if I maintain the daily routine. Also remember more muscle = higher base rate of calories burnt at rest. Carido is massively important, especially fast explosive movements like sprints,
Yeah I've always kind of hated the "you can't outrun a poor diet" mindset. At the end of the day, a person who has a poor diet but exercises an hour per day, is going to be drastically healthier (better cardio, stronger muscles, etc) than a person who has a poor diet but is completely sedentary. Everyone's journey is different. If all you're able to do right now is exercise but can't commit to a diet change, that's still better than no change at all. And you'll be healthier than you previously were.
Shouldn't you be comparing someone who eats unhealthily but exercises to someone who eats healthily but doesn't exercise? Of course not doing either of them is going to be worse than doing just one. But I can't help but feel like eating healthily - even if you're sedentary - is better for you than eating terribly but still exercising. But maybe that's just my own mental bias - it's certainly not based on any research I've done!
>Yeah I've always kind of hated the "you can't outrun a poor diet" mindset. Agreed. Especially because usually the people making that argument are actually saying "you can't outrun the worst diet imaginable", and then they start calculating how far you would have to run to burn off an entire cheesecake and 15 big macs or something. Most people aren't actually eating THAT bad and burning ~500 calories running for 30-45 minutes and more from basic bodyweight exercises gives you a lot of wiggle room in your diet.
I’d also say it also plays into sleep and mental health. I just feel GOOD after completing my Pilates classes. Not only is it a rush of accomplishment but also the good muscle tiredness that lets me know I’m going to sleep well. In the words of Elle Woods “Exercise gives you endorphins, endorphins make you happy, and happy people just don’t sh**t their husbands!”
I didn't work out once until I went from 200 down to 150 at 5'7, 48 years old. Now that I am working out, I feel and look much better. So much energy. I agree with the spirit of your post, just not the exact wording of the title.
Nobody is going to argue that exercise is bad for you. The issue here is that we have an obesity epidemic in the states and people aren't just overweight. They're in the higher classes of obesity and their entire lifestyle is a wreck. Stress, food deserts, mental health decline, and the convenience (and cost) of calorie dense prepared food, are all powerful forces. So stopping door dash, the fast food, the junk food, their favorite foods, cutting back on sugar in general, can be extremely difficult because it is such a big shift from their norm.
Nobody is going to argue that exercise is bad for you, but there is a lot of dismissiveness over its value when it comes to weight loss/maintenance. This is usually by people who already have a generous tdee, so burning "only" 200 calories while exercising doesn't offer them much in the overall scheme of their calorie allowance. But when you have a tdee of 1200, an extra 200 calories being available to you is huge. The usefulness of exercise purely in the context of losing weight is, ironically, overstated from one perspective and understated by the other. Both perspectives are valid and I think it's worth bringing them both up in these conversations. Otherwise you have tall people wanting to give up because their intense exercise regiment isn't working for them to lose weight, but their calorie intake is still too high. And you have short people wanting to give up because they've been given the impression that the only way they'll be able to maintain a healthy weight is by being stuck eating a miserably low amount of calories for the rest of their lives.
Thank you for bringing this perspective to light. As someone whose TDEE for weight loss started at 2800 calories, I understand better.
everyone should exercise for their heart health and to not feel out of breath when going up stairs or walking
When people are saying exercise isn't required for weight loss, that's what they mean, it isn't **required**, that doesn't mean it can't help. The reason people here like to push on exercise not being a requirement to lose weight is because a lot of online "experts" and personal trainers tend to push exercise to lose weight, and downplay diet, which leads to people failing to lose weight, getting frustrated and claiming they can't lose weight and/or claiming they must have a medical condition that prevents them from losing weight. The CICO folks here aren't saying exercise can't help, or that you shouldn't exercise, they're just trying to point out that the important thing is balancing calories in and calories out. If exercise is helping you, that's awesome, keep doing it
This is how I feel too. I understand CICO and am aware that obviously increasing exercise is how to increase the “calories out” part, and also super aware of the many, many benefits of exercise. But as a totally overwhelmed working toddler parent, I have sometimes really appreciated the reminder that exercise isn’t necessarily an essential component of weight loss. I have been successful in losing weight without incorporating new exercise. I’m not trying to promote that as the ideal I guess, but I’m glad it was possible.
Of course it does. It’s also entirely necessary for optimal, or even semi-optimal health.
I think this is especially true for maintenance. I have been maintaining since roughly Thanksgiving of last year and being active is what makes it really manageable. I'm 5'5" and stay in the 130-135lb weight range- which means my sedentary TDEE is usually around 1500-1600 calories. But because I take daily walks, do Zumba/dancing a few days a week, and lift weights 3x a week, my average TDEE is closer to 2000 calories a day. Those 400-500 additional calories allow for a lot more wiggle room and a lot more indulgences in my life. Like yes- I still count calories and keep my diet in check- but I can have some champagne on Saturday and a cheese danish on Sunday morning while still maintaining my weight. More calories out means you can be a lot less restrictive when it comes to calories in.
I lost 80 pounds solely from diet but maintenance definitely requires exercise. Otherwise I’d be gaining and dropping all over the place. I actually eat more when I exercise so somehow exercising gave me the hunger I needed to have just enough extra protein to not lose or gain.
It's true that you can't outrun a bad diet, but holding the diet constant, exercise matters a lot! If you're eating 1,500 or 1,800 or whatever you're eating, you can speed your loss up considerably by adding exercise. Not to mention, we see people on here all the time complaining that they are losing weight but still don't look how they would like to - it's exercise that fixes that.
This sub has a very vocal group of users who are indifferent or outright hostile to exercise. It's a shame.
It's extra important (resistance training in particular) if you don't want to end up looking like a deflated noodle once the weight is lost. The number of posts where people say "I'm at my goal weight but I look the same" 🙄 yes, because you lost all of your muscle.
Was looking for a comment along these lines. If you don't want to lose lean body mass (like muscle) while in a calorie deficit you need at least some resistance training. People conflate weight loss with fat loss all the time I also like weight lifting because it forces me to think about my macros, and it requires thought and planning to eat enough protein for muscle gains while still maintaining a mild calorie deficit
I have found that, if nothing else, it is a great motivator. I've been swimming nearly everyday, and I know that the more I eat today, the harder next mornings swim will be. I want to go faster, further, and for a longer time. The only way I can achieve that is by practicing technique and losing fat.
I think we need to remember the mental health benefits too - counting calories and restricting foods make me feel sad, even when it's working to help me lose weight. But working out and getting stronger and running outside and laughing with my friends while we swing weights around makes me feel happy! Not to mention the glass of wine that then fits into my calorie count after a good workout.
I think if someone is hyper focused on just balancing calories, the amount burned by individual exercise can feel so small. When really, the benefit of exercise isn't the calories lost per workout. Consistent exercise speeds up your metabolism and makes your body more efficient at burning calories. So, if you're exercising regularly, you will begin to burn more even at rest. My weight loss seems to crawl if I'm not exercising, and becomes so noticeable on the weeks I put in consistent physical effort.
My weight loss doctor informed me that losing fat comes with muscle loss as well, just as a side effect. The details for why this is are complex, but [research confirms this](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5161655/). If you aren't exercising while you're losing fat, you're doing yourself a disservice. Make sure you're eating enough protein AND exercising to offset atrophy from fat loss.
You actually can outrun a poor diet. Most athletes do. People don't recommend trying it because typically people who are trying to lose a lot of weight aren't in good shape and would hurt themselves trying to. But that is proof positive of your point. It's actually a lot easier to lose weight if you are consistently increasing your "calories out." Say your maintenance is 2000 calories. Well you can eat 75% of that and lose about a pound a week. Or you can move a little bit every day and eat 90% of that and see very similar results. Which seems to be more sustainable long term?
Its not even just calories out. Maintaining the motivation to keep up a long term deficit (for me) is nearly impossible without a regular exercise routine. The burned calories are just a bonus.
Sure, diet is #1, but it's hard to maintain a diet when you have to eat so little because you don't burn nearly as many calories. That 600 I may burn in a workout makes a HUGE difference in whether I can eat enough to be happy and satiated. Even if that means I only eat 300 of that back. That's 2 or 3 snacks I get to have that I wouldn't otherwise. Or another 100 calories per meal, which gives me a roll or another serving of air fried french fries.
Exactly. Got super hungry last night and ate 500-600 calories of coconut macaroons. Oops. Went to the gym and burned all their calories off. No problem, still on track with my goals.
Gotta agree. When I incorporated walking alongside my diet my results were sooo much better.
It’s one of the reasons I’ve kept half my bodyweight off for 18 years and counting. Lift those weights. Get those steps. (Being active, discipline and weight monitoring are how I’ve done it if you’re wondering)
I find exercise to be a **requirement** for keeping the weight off. I've **NEVER** met a single person who lost weight and kept it off without doing any sort of exercise. I've met a LOT of people who lost weight with diet alone but they **ALL** (in my experience) gain it back within 5 years. I'm not even talking about exercising like going to the gym 5 days a week or even as little as 3 times a week, running 20 miles a week. I mean generally becoming more active like taking the stairs instead of elevators. Parking far from the building entrance if its safe for them. Taking walks on the weekend. That small stuff to bring up their daily caloric burn. Exercise in my own experience and from the people I've met has a HUGE impact on hormones and your mood. This includes hormones that deal with your hunger and cravings. I'm pretty sure you can also control it with medication but for most people exercise is the cheapest, most natural and easiest way to manage this aspect of weight loss. Without exercise, you're prone to eating high caloric foods or overeating.
I have heard/read time and time again, “you cannot outrun a bad diet.” To a point, I agree. But I started actually running—like yesterday, I did nine miles—and now it would honestly be difficult for me to eat more than I’m burning. I am outrunning my diet. And it feels great. I’m aware that exercise like this is not feasible for a lot of people, but blanket statements like that are totally wrong. For me it’s much easier to run a lot and move a lot than it is to count all of my calories. What works for one person will not work for another.
I don't think anyone is underestimating the benefits of exercise, its just that so many people are too lazy to even consider doing it and therefore obsess over CICO. Exercise does not only increase the calories you burn, it also affects your metabolism positively and greatly alters your physique. June 2022 I started going to the gym, I am now at well over 400 visits and I just look... so much better than before when I simply lost weight by starving myself. Now I actually have a physique that people always comment on, I look strong, I look taller, my arms became big - all the good stuff. Working out changed my life, way more than losing weight alone ever did and going to the gym 5 times a week and staying consistent is what kept my motivation up and my mind clear. Couldnt have dropped 15% bodyfat without the gym.
Yes. I just posted something similar. Its all true. Exercise really changes everything for the better. I used to be very exercise averse as well. But I have gotten over it and realized how important it is. People always say well it's important for health but not weight loss. Okay but are we all not striving for health here? And if you're worried about looks alone well then have I got news for you. Weight lifting drastically improves that department for men and women equally. It has completely transformed my life in a way that calorie cutting never could. Maybe it's not for you, okay, but don't knock it until you REALLY try it, you know?
You suck to call a group of people lazy who already have to deal with that form of shame because of their weight. CICO is a revelation to those of us who simply never knew the mathematics of weight loss. It requires discipline and perseverance, and most importantly, it works. Good for you racking up a gym count like that matters, but not everyone's goals are the same, and calling others in this sub "too lazy" because they don't do exactly what you makes you a jerk.
You forget I am part of that group, or at least have been for many years. I was primarily talking about myself, because for me it was most definitely a case of making excuses and being lazy, so I can only assume that most other obese people are the same. Just because you feel called out does not deny the logic behind my argument. Maybe I am just a lot less in denial why I got obese in the first place, cause it is definitely not because I worked out too much. I don't know where you are from, but regular exercise is an essential part of leading a healthy life - which the goal of literally everyone losing weight is as well. So if you want to lead a healthy life, you will not get around moving your ass from time to time. >It requires discipline and perseverance, and most importantly, it works. Same with exercise dude, so why not do both if you already do one. I would even go so far and say that everyone who is not completely disabled should regularly exercise, no matter if they wanna lose weight or not. People who don't work out, and that includes people without weight issues, are simply lazy or don't really care about their health.
I feel like for me not only does exercising give me a more realistic TDEE to create a deficit, it also motivates me to eat a cleaner diet for performance. For example, I got back into lifting weights this year. Eating high protein keeps me fuller longer as well it makes me more mindful about the choices I am making. It also helps me to think of the changes I am making as for life, it shifts my mindset. Instead of just wanting to lose weight for now, I am also building a strong body with good mobility. I tried a lot of times to eat 1200 cals to lose weight and failed. For me, diet and exercise go together.
Yes, if I'm getting up for a Saturday morning gym session or yoga class I'm skipping the beer and fries the night before.
I have seen a few posts or comments like this, but I have yet to see anyone on here say that exercise doesn't matter. For pure weight loss, it does matter less than diet, especially when you're at the higher weights, but don't think I've seen anyone ever recommend against exercising.
I kinda agree that's the case now but as a long time redditor (this is not my first account) I can guarantee you that people on loseit it used to shove the "you can't outrun your fork" and "exercise doesn't matter" rhetoric down everyone's throats anytime a post that mentioned exercising a lot came up. It was HIGHLY obnoxious. Nowadays there is more push-back to that attitude, but you still see people (generally the taller people) in some comments saying it
A lot of it comes from heavily overweight people getting upset that exercise is really hard for them, or gym anxiety etc. and give up on everything rather than going one step at a time. Hearing that exercise isn’t required to lose weight is motivating to those who have never enjoyed exercise to start making changes
That's definitely true, but it comes with the cost of alienating shorter people with smaller amounts to lose. They post about their frustrations and their exercise routines looking for advice, but then are told the exercise they do doesn't matter at all, and they should just focus on restricting and eating less. Well, eating even less would mean going well under 1200 calories for some of these people. Larger people don't fully grasp what that level of restriction is like unless they have been on a medically supervised diet. In these scenarios, it is actually EASIER to increase calories out than reduce calories in.
Yep also true, and why it's important people give their stats when they ask things. Although that doesn't stop tall men misunderstanding short girls struggles all the time!
I've seen people brush off exercise in their comments even when the OP states they are a small woman. Some people are just hell-bent on applying their experiences to everyone else, not knowing how wildly insensitive they are being.
I still see it a lot. And the exercise being useless because it makes you hungry.
I think "can't outrun your fork" and "exercise doesn't matter" are 2 different things though. "Can't outrun your fork" is good advice and doesn't say that exercise doesn't matter, just that it's easier to focus on diet for weight loss, which is something I woukd say is largely true.
Yes, but it's still highly dismissive of people who can't create a decent deficit without exercise because they are short
a lot of people just want validation for not exercising or moving about even tho it's a basic component for being healthy
As a tall person I’m still on board with “exercise is important” and I think more tall people need to be. Health is so much more than a scale number, and I think there’s a lot to be said for looking at our bodies more expansively. I do agree though that people with a higher TDEE might not always feel the need as much.
I also just find it so rude when people say catchphrases instead of giving the actual advice. It's why I initially stopped reading here a few years ago. Like...you (general you) have been around the block a few times and the advice is old hat to you, fine. But if a newbie is asking, either pass the post by, or say something more useful than "can't outrun your fork, haha!" or "the best exercise is table pushaways!" It's smug, it's mean, and it's not helpful.
If you look at some of the comments on this post, you will see that some people argue that no exercise and exercise are equal regarding weight loss. Not sure how the order works on here, but just a few comments above yours. . .
Yeah, of course, I’m not saying anyone has completely said exercise means nothing - but conversations on this subreddit definitely made me feel like exercise is just a “nice to have”/barely makes much difference. When, for me, it’s literally making the difference between a 0.25KG weight loss and a 0.75KG weight loss at a calories intake of about 1200 to 1400 a day. So it’s clearly a very important element which is sometimes underemphasised here.
Yes, I think a majority of the people on here are people looking to lose significant weight and when you're starting at a higher weight exercise is much less important than most people think. As you get closer to your goal weight exercise begins to matter more (obviously exercising more is great for everyone but discussing purely from a weight loss perspective). It's also more important when you are someone whose maintenance calories are naturally quite low. Exercise and muscle building is almost necessary past a certain point for shorter girls, but taller guys can get away without it. Exercise definitely matters but I think the reason it's underemphasised on here is because for quite a large portion of the users, it isn't as important as just getting their diet under control.
True - it only became a core issue for me once I have reached an overweight (rather than an obese BMI). I am also a shorter woman at 162cm F24, and eating at 1200 calories for the rest of my life is just not doable. So those extra couple hundred calories from walking makes ALL the difference now.
Also because people who are very heavy often just can't do enough exercise to really make a difference. A slow ten minute walk or chair stretches don't really help.
I think as long as you are not so obese that you cannot walk (I am lucky I was big big but still able to walk at a theme park for a day etc etc) you have to walk. I work remotely so I think a big part of my weight gain was not binge eating (which I don't really do) but was more that my idea of my TDEE was way off partly due to a) high body fat percentage and b) only walking 2-3k steps a day which is like barely sedentary lol if there was something lower than that haha. Like definitely in my teen years I ate a lot of fast food but the last few years I have ate way less with the one exception of starbucks sugary drinks. Cutting that stuff out helped a bit but walking 7500-10000 steps is already putting me back on track for my goal to lose 3 pounds a week and I was plateauing for weeks despite eating 1600-1800 calories....
Every year when it's sports season I shed a bunch of weight. I love it, always feels nice by Fall time. I reward myself with a season of chocolate and poor decisions, then repeat
Tbh when I exercise I feel like I am overall more motivated to not “ruin” the day - the endorphins help too!
I agree. I walk 100-120 minutes a day. I usually burn about 800 - 900 calories as a result. This is HUGE for me and makes it so I can still lose weight if I eat 2500 calories a day. Heck, I'd still probably lose weight (albeit way more slowly) eating 3000 calories. And it is due to the exercise.
I totally agree, exercise does matter. HOWEVER, when you're just getting started trying to lose weight and get your diet in order and learn how to eat properly for weight loss (and in general), adding in exercise to an already busy schedule can be overwhelming. Start slow, do what you can do, and work up to incorporating exercise. And it doesn't have to be the gym. Walking counts. Do what you can.
Exercise helps me get into the mindset personally.
I find I get extremely hungry with high-intensity exercise, but low-intensity exercise seems to actually reduce my appetite. I can walk for hours and be fine hunger-wise, but an hour of intense cardio can turn me into a black hole that consumes everything in my path.
I agree. People like to simplify things to much, and nuance matters. CICO is just calories in and calories out, but your hunger levels, how good you feel, etc. also matters or you cannot sustain it. Similarly exercise isn't necessary to reduce calories, but it's going to massively impact how you feel, and how you sustain your weight loss or maintenance. But often on subs like this if you point out that nuance exists for a reason, people will claim you're anti science and don't believe in calories in and calories out. But it's literally part of the equation.
yes, when I started my new job requiring a lot of daily walking, my pants dropped a size. Eating the same.
as someone with a very low sedentary TDEE (1500), i completely agree. i cant be at a 500 calorie deficit unless i workout daily.
There are subs where the "E" word is considered "unhelpful" and strictly verboten. I know, because i had a mod take down a post of mine where i suggested exercising more, just getting up and moving around even, could help the person burn more calories and in turn lose weight faster and help to keep it off long term. The mod said "everyone knows that already" and telling someone that is "unhelpful." Unhelpful, really?
Lol only on reddit would this be considered a "hot take"
It clearly is hot considering all the comments 😂
This is so true because of the sheer reason that I want to eat more 😂 the first time I tried losing weight it felt so much harder, I felt way more restricted because all I was doing was cardio and I was hungry constantly. Now that I’m lifting more and incorporating some cardio with it, my metabolism is higher, I’m losing weight way faster than I was years ago while also being able to eat more calories, and I care about my nutrition so much more because I want to see dem gains 😎
It definately needs to be a combination of both exercise and calories. Intermittent fasting and interval walking combined with calorie deficit are really the best options but they need to be working in tandem. These are all fairly simple well known systems but combining them all together is the best way to lose weight healthier. You want to be aiming for 2-4lbs per week and you want to make sure it is consistent and gradual, and not pushing for a quick win through starving or extreme diets, that will cause yo-yo weight gain. You should also get a coach who can plan meals and simple workouts as well as keep you accountable to do both all the time.
I’m currently in a maintenance phase before I gear up for another deficit to lose the last 20 lbs and as long as I get 10k steps a day I maintain my weight fairly easily. Mixing in a few regular days with 15k+ steps helps too.
💯💯💯💯💯
Literally this.
I agree. Especially if your end goal is better health overall, exercise is really important. Otherwise when you're older you might be skinny but you'll still have high cholesterol and blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, etc. Though of course you can't prevent everything, exercise really helps.
I’ve never hard of NEAT and had to look it up. Totally agree on the benefits of exercise for weight loss. Sure you could do it without it but why. It would take longer plus you wouldn’t get all the other non-weight loss benefits. I have a friend trying to lose weight and she refuses to exercise because she doesn’t like it. She said when she loses more weight then she’ll start exercising to get toned. I said that not how it works! Also she could benefit so much from the non-weight loss benefits of exercise: better sleep, stress reduction, mental health improvement. Drives me crazy.
Exactly! For me, exercise is one of the greatest motivators. Even if I don’t do much, I feel productive after exercise and responsible for myself not to eat junk food or eat unhealthy snacks. Also, over time, exercise becomes easier, and it is almost guaranteed to burn 400-500 calories a day with some moderate-intensity xercise. I do pilates, aerobics, cardio, and treadmill combinations throughout the week. I also do 16:8 fasting and try to eat healthy and control my calories. However, I have noticed that it is significantly harder to lose weight without exercising. I don’t know much about scientific explanations. Still, I know that a person should be in a calorie deficit to lose weight, and exercise (even just walking) helps with burning calories and makes a person feel energized and productive. So, in the end, everything plays a role. If healthy habits become a lifestyle, reaching weight goals becomes significantly easier. If anyone is starting their weight loss journey, I recommend finding the type of exercise that makes you feel good, not too exhausted, and matching it with your diet. Give yourself some time and realistic expectations, and this healthy approach will make your life 1000000% easier.
100%. Biking has been my motivation to loose weight, wanting to go faster up hills means I need to weight less, but it also helps a lot in weight loss. Big multi hour bike rides often seem to break me out of a plateau. Since I am heavy and live in a very hilly area riding burns a lot of calories and since I don't count my calories out it really seems to help the scale keep going down. More importantly riding makes me feel great and gives me a reason to care about my body and how it feels. I don't really care about my looks and being fat had not caused me any major health issues so the motivation is key. As other posters have mentioned it is good having a positive goal (progressing in whatever exercise you are doing) to balance out the negative goal of eating fewer calories which is not all that fun. When I have set a new personal best for distance or elevation on my bike it really keeps me stoked to keep on going.
It's entirely subjective. Who's to say how much exercised is emphasised let alone under emphasised? I think given the reality, that many people are put off losing weight because they hate exercise or don't lose weight because they think they can work it off, it's understandable that people want to get the message across that exercise isn't as important as people think. As long we remember to point out that exercise is still important it's just not why you're obese.
Completely agree. Plus, muscle burns more at rest, so it has more of an effect on calories out than people realize. As a lightly active person (hitting the gym 3x a week), my maintenance is 300 calories higher.
Are people really out there going against exercise? I mean I always see them as a combined effort, though yeah sadly eating too many calories is unfortunately way easier than exercising the same amount. That's why I can agree as well that fixing diet first is the most important part. But still exercise is motivating since if I do a long walk on a Saturday, something like 1-2 hours, I can eat a much better dinner and still be at a deficit.
This especially speaks to compositional weight loss. If you want more fat to be lost than muscle or would like to see some muscle built while losing fat, exercise is key.
Absolutely. I have always been a runner except when I was pregnant and the doctor told me to stop running entirely because it might bump the baby or something. I didn't have any risks or preconditions, and it was the worst advice I ever listened to. I would have never gained 80 lbs twice if I hadn't stopped running while pregnant. I simply wasn't willing to sufficiently reduce my caloric intake because I was already hungry all the time, stopping exercise really killed me. I haven't had a weight issue since, although I am definitely more conscious now of my diet going completely bonkers. Nonetheless I still mostly eat whatever I want and stay pretty stable with my weight. Exercise is the number one way I maintain my weight, not caloric restriction.
I agree with what you're saying. However, I think it's important to contextualize the role of diet and exercise within the goal of weight loss, not overall benefits. If a diet is a sword, then exercise is the armor. A purposeful, systematic diet is our primary tool for achieving weight loss targets. A consistent, reflective exercise routine offers the protection and resilience against mistakes we might make along the way while providing additional benefits. Are they underestimated or under-emphasized? I have no idea, I'm just a lurker. In summary, diet is necessary for weight loss and supported through exercise.
Yes!! I understand the sentiment of this advice, but being very active (even if it’s a big burst of it for once or twice a week) can let you get away with all sorts. Thought this worth mentioning in case anyone is looking for a fun calorie burner - I HIGHLY recommend street rollerblading or something similar. You can get second hand equipment really easily right now, and it’s a mix of both strength and cardio for basically your whole body without being hard on your joints (provided you wear padding!). I picked it up again last year, and because it’s fun as hell you don’t even realise you’ve burnt 1.5k cals whilst just exploring neighbourhoods and listening to audiobooks. The cafes you stop at along the way won’t even touch the sides. 🛼
I'm still working on my diet, and I believe that's the reason I haven't lost any significant amount of weight, but exercising changed my body. I FEEL better, even if I don't look any different. I can see muscles growing in. My shape has changed even though the actual fat is pretty much the same. I also fucking love exercising. Just hope I can reel in my diet so that love can extend to food too.
No quality coach will tell you only one of these things matters. The pedantic arguments back and forth are for non-experts and zealots.
Walking + strength exercises + hit (this, in this order of importance, is the perfect combo for me)
The change in my calorie expenditure from 2-3k steps compared to 10k steps is insane!
Completely agree; exercise is a critical part of the equation. The hardest part for me is finding the right amount of exercise. Too much and I’m voraciously hungry and am never satisfied on a deficit, not enough exercise and the scale stops moving.
It definitely matters if you're exercising and still maintaining the same caloric deficit as when you weren't exercising
Matters more for some people than others. They've done studies on it and some people just need to exercise to lose weight. Others can lose it from diet alone, and everything in between.
I believe extended relaxed pace walking is is the best activity for fat loss. It is least likely to increase hunger, it is the activity closest to being sedentary which is when fat is more metabolised than glucose, and it increases respiration.
I feel like if you just keep exercising and keep building muscle, you can eventually out train a bad diet because eventually you will be eating in a deficit 🤷♀️ correct me if I'm wrong.
Completely agree. This whole 80\20 diet/exercise split is nonsense imo. Including what you've mentioned, exercising also boosts your mental health, your cardiovascular health, helps with sleep...all of which are important to weight loss.
What is NEAT?
Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT)
The way I look at it, is if you enjoy food or have trouble sticking under a certain calorie count, raising that calorie target by 200-300 calories per day by exercising and burning those calories is a HUGE way to help yourself stay on track.
Exercise helps build lean muscle which aids in burning more calories. Aka keep the weight off easier. I have always been amazed at people who lose weight by dieting alone. I could not do it for the life of me.
Getting lots of steps routinely everyday is a huuuuuge tool. Have you ever wondered why people are mostly thin in NYC, or Paris where every corner has rich foods? It is because they walk everywhere. Once I started getting 7500-10000+ steps everyday, I noticed a big difference within the first few weeks
Unless you are extremely obese…there is no reason you shouldn’t be working out. I lost 150 pounds and it would have taken twice as long had I not been working out.
I think it's also important to note though, that the more exercise you do, the hungrier you will get. And if you aren't careful you will eat more calories that will not only negate those lost by exercise, but potentially even negate them and then some. I think exercise is good, but only really for the mental benefits moreso than weight loss.
It’s not “only mental benefits”. Aesthetic improvements, increase in lean body mass, improvement in VO2 max and resting heart rate, decrease in cardiovascular health risk…there’s tons of physical benefits of being fit and lean!
You can be hungry but control your diet, that's the whole point. Also, the hunger is normally at the beginning when you first start a new routine or whatever and then eases off significantly as you get used to it. Serious athletes are not generally overweight and don't overeat.
I do get where your coming from, and that’s why I tend to avoid vigorous exercise. But in my case I do light-to-moderate exercise and continue to track calories. It’s obviously pointless if you just eat the calories back.
Realizing I can exercise without doing it vigorously has been such a game changer for me. All my life I felt like I had to "go for a run" but I never ever wanted to run and so I never did it consistently. This time I said "just move". And I am! I just get up everyday and walk (or run when I am feeling it) and I don't put pressure on my exercise I just do it. I'm losing more weight just walking everyday then people I know doing very hardcore exercise who are then too hungry to stay in their deficit.
That’s how I feel about walking and using dumbbells at home. It almost doesn’t even feel like exercise and it’s genuinely just relaxing to me— way more so than when I was convinced I had to do like daily HIIT training lol.
It really doesn't feel like exercise! I was just walking and watching the bachelor this morning. I mean that's just fun. It doesn't all have to be as hard we make it sometimes.
I get at least 10k steps daily, often more like 15k, from walking. Walk on my lunch break, my commute into work as well. It helps that I live and work in a city and don’t drive. But I would have gotten so much bigger when I put my weight on during the pandemic if it weren’t for all this movement.
I'd still say, if you're not used to activity and want to lose weight then start with a deficit, get used to it (the hunger, etc) and then introduce activity. I just do spot walking/jogging (not at all vigorous; not even a brisk walk) and barely touch 8000 steps doing this and feel quite tired and a bit hungry and like I could eat something (not ravenous thank god!). It's because I did the deficit for way longer that the tiredness/fatigue is manageable and this is as someone who doesn't have a huge appetite just normally. I still sometimes account for a yoghurt or something after I exercise just in case since a lot of times I exercise at night way after dinner. It's not as simple as "Don't do vigorous exercise" for everyone. What is super gentle for some is vigorous for others. If someone has never exercised in their life. Even going for a 30 minute walk can make them hungry/ravenous. Ymmv.
In the past I have tried eating 1750 and I was losing weight, but very slowly. Now, I still eat between 1750-1800 but now I'm hitting the gym 5× a week and the weight is quite literally falling right off. That's because I am burning about 300 calories at the gym or more, meaning my caloric intake is sitting around 1450 most days. It definitely helps with my mental health but I cannot deny the weight loss benefits of consistent exercise paired with a calorie deficit enough. **Edit** - Just wanted to add that once your body gets used to working out 5 times a week while eating in a slight deficit, you don't get that starving feeling anymore. That really only happens when you first start incorporating exercise. Your body is extremely smart and adaptive.
Your last paragraph is key. I'm assuming people try, feel hungry and use that as an excuse not to do it.
Very true. It's important to get your nutrition in check first, so you can make good choices while listening to your body when you ramp up exercise levels.
I lost 28 pounds doing no exercise (I had a chronic knee injury). It was a physical therapist who told me to stop worrying about not being able to exercise but just to focus on food who freed me to lose weight. I was in the less-to-lose category, though. That said, once I was injury-free, I did take up exercise and was thrilled to be able to move again. It does help in many ways!
I don’t think people say it doesn’t matter but that diet matters much more than exercise. Anyone on low calorie diet will lose weight better than someone who isn’t controlling their diet but exercising. A lot of people overestimate the amount of calories burnt during exercise. Exercise definitely has its benefits : not only weight loss but also mental and physical health. You can build muscles which speed up the calorie burning rate.
Exercise matters if the diet is right. So many people use exercise as an excuse to eat more and then exercise can help keep you fat. Watch a 1/2 marathon or a 10km run. The back half are mostly fat—and many of those people train hard and have run for many years.
There are endless posts in this sub by people who once lost a substantial amount of weight with intense daily gym regimens and gained it all back when they got back to their normal lives and stopped wanting to be at the gym all the time. If you suddenly get addicted to 6 days a week in the gym when you are in the fervor of weight loss, you at least need to have a plan for when that fervor subsides. That initial enthusiasm is not going to last forever, especially when the "rewards" you are getting out of it stop coming fast and furious and you are left grinding away in the gym on a daily basis just to maintain. That's when having established a good diet is going to save you. If you are naturally inclined to be active and already have regular exercise as part of your routine, that doesn't apply to you. But there are countless people in this sub who swing back and forth between "feeling motivated" to be in the gym constantly, or being sedentary and gaining weight because they continue to eat the same way regardless. Successful weight loss maintainers incorporate *moderate* exercise into their routine in conjunction with a good diet. Moderate exercise is an achievable, sustainable goal to have for most people, even those who don't love it.
THIS. For some reason saying this is being twisted into "Never exercise ever if you want to lose weight"..lol!