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If you believe in a calorie in/ calorie out system of weight loss


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Not an expert, but my own experience: exercise burns calories, but not that many. So my 1hr morning walk burns 200 calories, which is something, but doesn't compensate for me pigging out all day. I think a lot of people delude themselves into thinking that if they exercise, they should be able to eat what they want and lose weight. That was not my experience.

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Maybe because it is much more difficult to burn off X number of calories through exercise than it is to eliminate that same number of calories through your diet. For example, I can choose to not eat that doughnut or I can go for a 30 min. run. The net caloric impact is about the same. It's easier not to eat the doughnut. So perhaps people say exercise isn't as effective as restricting food, because people have a much more difficult time keeping up with the amount of exercise required to have the same weight loss effect as restricting food.

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I think a lot of the people who say that either don't believe in calories in/calories out, or have found that exercise makes them hungrier so they don't maintain the same number of calories in.

 

My own experience for my body is that it's practically impossible to lose weight if I'm not exercising.

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Well.... My mom and I both decided we wanted to lose weight. She joined a gym and works out about an hour a day, and hasn't really changed her diet. I decided to start eating Paleo, with no added exercise. It has been SO much easier for me to loose the weight! My mom may lose a few pounds one week, but then enjoys some extra snacks over the weekend and gains it all back again.

My naturopath also said that to lose weight, you really need to change your eating habits and get your metabolism reset before you start an exercise program.

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I think it is because exercise makes you more hungry, and people simply eat more, or think they now have earned the extra snack. (An hour of exercise burns deceptively little calories)

If you exercise and limit the access to food - such as on an extended backpack, where you hike all day and only have the food you can carry and have to ration to last the week- everybody loses weight. But that is not the situation for people who return from the gym to a house with a full pantry and fridge.

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I think it is because exercise makes you more hungry, and people simply eat more, or think they now have earned the extra snack. (An hour of exercise burns deceptively little calories)

If you exercise and limit the access to food - such as on an extended backpack, where you hike all day and only have the food you can carry and have to ration to last the week- everybody loses weight. But that is not the situation for people who return from the gym to a house with a full pantry and fridge.

 

the only time exercise has ever made me more hungry is when I was over exercising. (and some people will interpret thirst as hunger. try drinking more water. I've also interpreted fatigue as hunger. taking a nap was more effective.) it's really easy to think we can do more than our bodies are really up to, and we need to listen to our bodies.

 

I do about 45 minutes of things to build muscle every day, I haven't changed what I eat. (I do try to drink more water and eat more protein, but my appetitite hasn't changed.) I most certainly haven't restricted my access to food. (especially not chocolate. must. have. chocolate. . . .) I'm losing and toning, and pulling things from the back of my closet. the more muscle you have, the more calories you will burn even if you are asleep.

 

keep in mind, for many people who haven't exercised, they can lose fat, gain muscle, and the scale will remain neutral while still losing inches. I've a friend who is a trainer. she gained 20lbs, and lost two dress sizes when she started training.

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Exercise helps, but unless you are working out like Michael Phelps you have to watch what you eat. The problem usually comes in when someone does exercise, burning maybe 250 or 300 calories, but then rewards herself with a treat that is even more calories. If you are good with your calories and you exercise you will lose weight faster, plus exercise will help with your baseline metabolism, especially as you build muscle. If you are struggling to lose weight with just calorie restriction alone then your best bet is to add some cardio (2x to 3x a week) and then at least 2x a week of weights (it can be body weight exercises, you don't have to use "weights").

 

The thing is your body may need to reach a certain working out threshold before exercise starts helping you lose weight. That happened with me. Until I was running around 45 minutes a day 4 days a week, plus doing yoga, it didn't help. I had to reach some sort of tipping point. I think a lot of people give up before they get to that point.

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why do people say that adding exercise isn't as effective as restricting food in losing weight? I mean, wouldn't that still change the equation of calories so that you should lose weight? (This is assuming that intake is a fairly steady caloric intake that you could factor into an equation and not bingeing.)

 

 

There are 2 reasons. 1) The body likes to burn about the same amount of calories each day, so if you suddenly become very physically active, your body will adjust at a cellular level to burn less calories. This was shown in a very interesting study of the Hadza hunter-gatherers in Africa. Despite walking/ hunting a great deal each day, the Hadza burn the same number of calories per day as sedentary Americans. So the real reason americans are fatter is because we eat so much more than they do.

 

Reason 2) is that when we exercise, we think we can eat more. Even if you think you're being very controlled about it, chances are you will let yourself eat more "because you worked out." This can work at a very subliminal level and you may not even notice that you're eating more, but study after study has shown that exercise does not really help with weight loss.

 

Or it can work at a conscious level where you think you deserve X amount of food because of your workout so you treat yourself. There is the classic anecdote of stopping at starbucks after the gym, and eating twice as much than you burned. Most people don't realize just how calorie laden many foods are.

 

Of course if a person really enjoys exercise or has a sports hobby they should go for it... but exercise is an unreliable cause of weight loss.

 

I think it's better just to "stay active." Take stairs instead of the elevator, park far away, try not to sit around all the time. But once it becomes "exercise" in your mind you're susceptible to problem #2.

 

I decided to start eating Paleo, with no added exercise. It has been SO much easier for me to loose the weight!

 

 

High protein foods suppress appetite so you are probably eating fewer calories than she is.

 

There have been studies where in controlled settings (where people are literally locked in and only given food by the researchers) that high protein diets do not cause more weight loss than high carb diets.

 

But in an uncontrolled setting high protein/ low carb diets do help because the appetite suppression of protein is a natural "diet aid."

 

Fat also suppresses appetite, more than carbs, but not as much as protein.

 

A person on a low carb diet will naturally eat about 1700 cal/ day (according to studies) even if they're unrestricted as long as they really do stick to low carb and don't cheat.

 

The typical american eats about 3700 calories a day.

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plus exercise will help with your baseline metabolism, especially as you build muscle.

 

 

Sadly, according to the articles I linked to above that's not true.

 

From the NY Times article:

 

As in the Hadza study, human metabolism appears to be less revved by activity than was once believed.

“There’s this expectation that if you exercise, your metabolism won’t drop as you lose weight or will even speed up,†says Diana Thomas, a professor of mathematics at Montclair State University in New Jersey, who led the study.

But she says close mathematical scrutiny of past studies of exercise and weight loss shows that that happy prospect is, sad to say, unfounded. One of the few studies ever to have scrupulously monitored exercise, food intake and metabolic rates found that volunteers’ basal metabolic rates dropped as they lost weight, even though they exercised every day. As a result, although they were burning up to 500 calories during an exercise session, their total daily caloric burn was lower than it would have been had their metabolism remained unchanged, and they lost less weight than had been expected.

 

From the Times magazine article:

 

According to calculations published in the journal Obesity Research by a Columbia University team in 2001, a pound of muscle burns approximately six calories a day in a resting body, compared with the two calories that a pound of fat burns. Which means that after you work out hard enough to convert, say, 10 lb. of fat to muscle — a major achievement — you would be able to eat only an extra 40 calories per day, about the amount in a teaspoon of butter, before beginning to gain weight. Good luck with that.

 

I exercise because it makes me feel good. I exercise because I hope it'll help me age well. But I don't exercise because I think it will help me lose weight.

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Sadly, according to the articles I linked to above that's not true.

 

Right. I think those who say they do lose weight while exercising are probably either very good about restricting, just naturally eat less, or are in the rare category where physical activity actually inspires them to eat healthier/ less.

 

There are benefits to physical activity (although extreme exercise can actually harm the body) but weight loss probably shouldn't be considered one of those benefits.

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There are 2 reasons. 1) The body likes to burn about the same amount of calories each day, so if you suddenly become very physically active, your body will adjust at a cellular level to burn less calories. This was shown in a very interesting study of the Hadza hunter-gatherers in Africa. Despite walking/ hunting a great deal each day, the Hadza burn the same number of calories per day as sedentary Americans. So the real reason americans are fatter is because we eat so much more than they do......

High protein foods suppress appetite so you are probably eating fewer calories than she is.

 

There have been studies where in controlled settings (where people are literally locked in and only given food by the researchers) that high protein diets do not cause more weight loss than high carb diets.

 

But in an uncontrolled setting high protein/ low carb diets do help because the appetite suppression of protein is a natural "diet aid."

 

Fat also suppresses appetite, more than carbs, but not as much as protein.

 

A person on a low carb diet will naturally eat about 1700 cal/ day (according to studies) even if they're unrestricted as long as they really do stick to low carb and don't cheat.

 

The typical american eats about 3700 calories a day.

 

 

Excellent post. Science can prove calories in/calories out but the human factor can't be ignored. For myself, I started to lose weight with calorie restriction but it didn't really speed up until I added exercise. The more muscular I become the better it works so it's like a snowball effect. Perhaps my lean muscle mass burns more, perhaps I'm just more active all the time because I feel better, maybe it's because exercise seems to kill my appetite. It doesn't really matter in the end as long as it works. Even if exercise doesn't help with weight loss it adds so many benefits to life it should be added just for those. I also think we each have such unique behaviors that one size fits all won't work.

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Right. I think those who say they do lose weight while exercising are probably either very good about restricting, just naturally eat less, or are in the rare category where physical activity actually inspires them to eat healthier/ less.

 

 

 

This is me. When I work out, I feel good, and I don't want to mess with that good feeling. So I proceed throughout my day being super careful about what I consume. I finally kicked it into gear in January and slowly but surely have lost 20 pounds. I'm more toned, can lift heavier and heavier weights, my balance is better (yay squats!), and my cardio has improved. I know, however, that if I just exercised at this intensity but didn't SERIOUSLY control my caloric intake, I wouldn't have lost as much.

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According to people like Bob Harper, Jillian Michaels, and all the exercise books I've read the fact is that as you age your metabolism slows down. A person in their 20s (and even sometimes 30s) can eat what they want and exercise alone will be enough to burn the extra. However, once that metabolism slows you need to hit weight loss from both angles of eating less and exercising.

 

My dh is a perfect example of this. He worked out but the weight wasn't coming off. I kept telling him exercise wasn't enough.He had to cut carbs. It took him several years before he finally gave it a go. He's lost 20 lbs and hasn't changed his exercise routine. The only difference was he cut carbs.

 

Also, the type of exercise matters. Do cardio alone won't help much. You have to build muscle too. The more muscle you have the more calories you burn even while not exercising. This is why yoga can be a great exercise.

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I think a lot of the people who say that either don't believe in calories in/calories out, or have found that exercise makes them hungrier so they don't maintain the same number of calories in.

 

My own experience for my body is that it's practically impossible to lose weight if I'm not exercising.

 

Yes, this is true for me as well. And I think it IS a numbers game. Can someone lose weight by doing just one of these, diet OR exercise? Sure. But it's not nearly as good or efficient, IMO, as doing BOTH.

 

It also depends on whether or not you are doing intense exercise or just continue to jog 30 minutes a day. As you lose weight, you burn fewer calories doing the same old exercise routine. If you don't increase your intensity, even in short bursts, then you're not doing the most efficient calorie burning that you can. And anyone can usually lose weight by going on a 1200 calorie diet, but that isn't going to tone your body or help you gain muscle mass which *helps* burn more calories.

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And yes, agreeing with posters who say that one problem is people have a mindset of "I worked out today I deserve a little treat" and then treat themselves to food. The treats should be non-food items.

 

But what do I know......I just got down working out and then ate a piece of chocolate from my box of See's candy. Best candy in the world, btw.

 

(However, I am not looking to lose weight)

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There are so many studies, many of them conflicting. Honestly, you need to eat less. If you exercise more (about an hour a day) and eat less, you will lose weight faster. I do think it's been shown that after 6 weeks your body adjusts to your "activity" which is why people like Jillian Michaels have you switch it up. Even if you just run, it's a good idea to change up what you do, either with hill work or speed work. This is good not only for your metabolic system, but for your muscles which need a change.

 

And really, I agee, I exercise for my overall health, not for weight loss. But exercise will assist with weight lose, if you do enough of it at a high enough intensity. Many of those studies focus on people who do 30 minutes of cardio 3x's a week. That is not enough.

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I think it is because exercise makes you more hungry, and people simply eat more, or think they now have earned the extra snack. (An hour of exercise burns deceptively little calories)

 

 

 

Yup--this was me! I even got to the point where I could run--okay, I use the term loosely, but still--8 miles and I still wasn't losing weight. It just made me more hungry.

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Jean, you might be interested in The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance, which discusses a lot of these exercise issues with supporting research. While the primary context is LCHF, obviously, the authors do discuss the calories in/out model and compare various models, if I recall correctly (it's been awhile since I looked at it). You might check your library.

 

One point in the book is that yes, exercise makes many people (not eating LC) feel hungry. I'll try to look back at it for some specifics later...

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