Exercising your way to weight loss

[Grogu]

Why exercise isn't much help if you are trying to lose weight

When we exercise more, our bodies may compensate by using less energy for other things – especially if we eat less too

www.newscientist.com

Not a ton of news here.... People can't exercise themselves to weightloss. I've always thought that weightloss is 90% diet and 10% exercise, but now I even wonder about that 10%. Seems the body compensates for the increased energy consumption by descreasing consumption in other functions.

I think that the important nugget in the article is that not all exercise is the same. Aerobic exercises appear to display this compensating effect of the body adjusting for the extra energy consumption, but that resistance training results in true extra energy consumption without compensation, but no weight loss due to increased muscle mass. Damned if you do and you're damned if you don't, but I wish I had down more resistance training over the last year...

 

[mraajr]

I believe articles and studies like this do nothing but serve as an excuse for people not to exercise. Although I believe that the right kind of exercise can ABSOLUTELY be an aid in weight loss (as long as the duration and frequency are adequate), there are many more benefits to exercise than just losing weight.

The problem is people think moving around for 30 minutes a couple times a week is exercise. It is beyond ridiculous. 20-30 minutes of Zone 2 cardio EVERY DAY. Period. No excuses. There should also be weight training with progressive overload thrown in there too (much more than I am making it seem like), but for the time being, 20-30 mins of Zone 2 cardio every day is it. Do that, eat healthy and in a deficit, and you will lose weight and get healthier at the same time.

 

[Calm Logic]

there are many more benefits to exercise than just losing weight.

Yeah, exactly, like for the cardiovascular system, such as by raising HDL and doing other things to help prevent LDL from converting to plaque. And avoiding junk food is just as important.

 

[cldfront]

The few times I was temporarily successful with weight loss pre-peptides, exercise was definitely a player in that game. It truly is so bizarre to go to the gym these days with the only goal being overall maintenance of health and wellness and increasing quality of life etc. instead of weight loss though. I don't allow myself to punish myself for overeating at the gym anymore, mostly because I no longer overeat.

 

[lessthanhalf]

I Found this study to be very interesting. I was trying to work out if there was any evidence that losing weight from a BMI of about 25 to lower than that like 22 or so makes any difference to cardiovascular risk. Having lost a lot of weight and for a while managing to walk 4 to 11 km a day I had found it hard to keep it going and had slowly been going less and less often and now it is less than once a week. Looking at this I should be focusing on exercise more.

From my reading of the research exercise does not help much with weight loss. And when I was losing weight the extra calories that should have been used up by that walking made zero difference, I lost weight at the same rate , eating the same number of calories a day, whether I was exercising or not. Exercise has definitely been shown to improve the chances of maintaining weight loss afterwards though.

But this study shows cardiovascular fitness affects your chances of heart disease and dying more than weight does, you are better off being fit and overweight or even obese than skinny and inactive and unfit. Of course in practice people who are overweight and obese are less likely to be exercising regularly for a lot of different reasons, both physical and social. And being overweight or obese tends to make you have lower cardiorespiratory fitness in general.

Cardiorespiratory fitness, body mass index and

mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/bjsports/59/5/339.full.pdf

 

[Grogu]

I believe articles and studies like this do nothing but serve as an excuse for people not to exercise. Although I believe that the right kind of exercise can ABSOLUTELY be an aid in weight loss (as long as the duration and frequency are adequate), there are many more benefits to exercise than just losing weight.

There is the flip side to this too, that people who exercise regularly and going to the gym all the time thinking that they should be able to eat more food and still lose weight.

The benefits of exercise to overall health is undeniable and the article starts with, “Exercise is tremendously beneficial for our health in many ways”. So, I missed the part that this provided an excuse for not exercising, but I see your point.

 

[AxlBundy]

Two completely different modalities that are harmonious when combined.

Nutrition is king. It’s far easier to consume 300 calories in a moment than burning an additional 300cal through activity.

I do think people get caught up on what the threshold for exercise is. Any activity above your baseline is exercise when your starting from zero. Parking at the back of a parking lot and getting an extra hundred steps maybe your starting point. GPP (general physical preparedness).

 

[SpaceJumper]

The few times I was temporarily successful with weight loss pre-peptides, exercise was definitely a player in that game. It truly is so bizarre to go to the gym these days with the only goal being overall maintenance of health and wellness and increasing quality of life etc. instead of weight loss though. I don't allow myself to punish myself for overeating at the gym anymore, mostly because I no longer overeat.

I resonate with this completely. Oddly enough though, when I started going to the gym without trying to torture myself to do all of the goal oriented “hill climbing”, my body started to change.

Turns out I was going more and staying log er when I was not pressuring myself to max lit every time.

 

[woundcarping]

Increased expenditure from excise on a reduced intake of food can result in a decrease in NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis). That’s a concept I’ve learned over the last few months learning about GLP. NEAT can account for 10-50% of all calories burned.

Theory being if you work hard in the gym you tend to have less energy to do the little things because you’re recovering/flat on energy… similar idea to the blah feeling that can come with Tirz.

Another seemingly minor but important caveat of perspective is fat loss ≠ weight loss, or the scale moving either way probably isn’t the actual goal.

For me, the low impact exercise of walking 500 calories every day of actual exercise was a starting objective… do that until it becomes boring/normal/easy adherence, then add resistance training with simple, efficient compound movements.

The greatest exercise benefits in terms of percent change come when you go from nothing to something. Diminishing returns increase non linearly from there.

 

[Beast-of-Burnley]

Why exercise isn't much help if you are trying to lose weight

When we exercise more, our bodies may compensate by using less energy for other things – especially if we eat less too

www.newscientist.com

Not a ton of news here.... People can't exercise themselves to weightloss. I've always thought that weightloss is 90% diet and 10% exercise, but now I even wonder about that 10%. Seems the body compensates for the increased energy consumption by descreasing consumption in other functions.

I think that the important nugget in the article is that not all exercise is the same. Aerobic exercises appear to display this compensating effect of the body adjusting for the extra energy consumption, but that resistance training results in true extra energy consumption without compensation, but no weight loss due to increased muscle mass. Damned if you do and you're damned if you don't, but I wish I had down more resistance training over the last year...

From personal experience you have to have the diet first to achieve anything and then the exercise accelerates things.

For example I've lost around 6 stone in about 10 months through calorie counting, hitting my protein targets and running 10km around 5/6 times a week.

I've recently injured the sleeve on my Achilles and have gone from 5/6 runs a week to 2 smaller runs in the last 4 weeks to test the Achilles and I've gone from laying weight every week to just maintenance

 

[mraajr]

There is the flip side to this too, that people who exercise regularly and going to the gym all the time thinking that they should be able to eat more food and still lose weight.

The benefits of exercise to overall health is undeniable and the article starts with, “Exercise is tremendously beneficial for our health in many ways”. So, I missed the part that this provided an excuse for not exercising, but I see your point.

Oh, I am not saying the article is saying that. But, people read the headline, don't read the article, and are just like, "See, I knew exercising was useless."

People that exercise regularly and go to the gym all the time absolutely should be able to eat more food and still lose weight. It is calories in, calories out. If you have more being burned, you can put more in, and as long as you are still in a deficit, you can still lose weight. I specifically work out and do more cardio just so I can eat more protein while still in a deficit. It is very hard for me to eat in a deficit and still get 180-200g of protein without any cardio or strength training. I do 40-50 minutes of Zone 2-3 cardio every single day and lift 6-7 days a week, and it is very easy for me to get my protein intake right while still staying in a deficit.

 

[randompersonrandom]

The only weight loss benefits I've ever seen from exercise is that 1) if I'm out and about for hours on my razor scooter, that's time when I'm not sitting and snacking. 2) just having less fat on me isn't enough. I want to look good and feel good WHILE having less fat, and exercise is needed for that.

 

[FlowerFairy]

The only times I have had success with exercise was when I was doing 90 minutes on the stairmaster then completing circuit machines, 7 days a week, no excuses. It was great until I got an upper respiratory infection and couldn’t tolerate my usual routine. And why 90 minutes on the stairmaster? It had the computer that let you enter your weight, et cetera- and 90 minutes burned 1500 calories before I started my day. Then my knees started to hurt when I moved and changed gyms (not as good equipment) and knowing even 30 minutes was going to hurt before doing the rest of my workout, I wasn’t as happy to go. Then moved in w/my mom and had more demands on my time, changed jobs, had added stress, started clinical nursing studies.. and without that 7 day workout I slowly gained back the weight. Then I got married and my ex actively discouraged me from going to the gym.. then the good habits were broken. I need to try and get back to the gym. I do walk the dogs a mile or more daily and use my vibration plate but I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt to do more.. but I kind of wish I still had a gym buddy.

 

[AxlBundy]

The problem is, I doubt you burned anywhere close to 1500 calories during that period.

 

[FlowerFairy]

The problem is, I doubt you burned anywhere close to 1500 calories during that period.

Maybe not, but the computer said I did, based on my weight- and I weighed considerably more than my compatriots at that gym. Whether it really did or not, it was a huge motivation to stay the full 90 minutes.