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> lastly, exercise is not they key to weight loss, proper eating is. This is very true in my personal experience, too. I can quite easily binge-eat an extra 5

> lastly, exercise is not they key to weight loss, proper eating is. This is very true in my personal experience, too. I can quite easily binge-eat an extra 500 calories for dinner because I'm feeling a bit too hungry, but to work that back off with exercise might take 30 - 45 minutes of cardio. With hectic work schedules, it's also very easy to skip exercise sessions, but good eating habits are "working" even at these times. Of course, sometimes we don't have time to eat well, but I find that it takes a lot less time (per calorie) to eat well, than it is to work it off. Another point I'd make is that small differences add up scarily quickly over time, as someone else pointed out. When I was just out of university, I started putting on 1 - 1.5 kgs of weight per year, nice and slow that it was hardly noticeable. Then, just a handful of years later, I was 10 kgs overweight - it creeps up on you. The opposite is also true, a nice steady decline is easy to arrange, and gives your body all the more time to adjust to your new eating habits, without it breaking your willpower.

gozo 11y ago
Yes, but it also a losing proposition for most people. Do we really think that people who are overweight, especially in a body focused society as the US, haven't tried to "just eat better"?
- danielbarla 11y ago
  Interesting point, though I do think people tend to do it the hard way. By that, I mean that most people have probably tried some form of extreme calorie deficit diet, which typically doesn't work in the long run. It's exceptionally hard to conform to these for any period of time. Even if it's successful once or twice, I suspect people will have a negative perception of the experience, perhaps feeding a bit into denial in the future. I'm advocating a much slower approach, based on a little bit of knowledge about what you're eating, plus some convenience tricks like swapping out your heavy staple meals for something a bit healthier (that's still easy to make). My guess is that most people want to see rapid, drastic changes, and are demotivated when that doesn't happen (or takes too much effort), hence the failure.
- coldtea 11y ago
  Most of them, yes. Or they tried and failed.
linkydinkandyou 11y ago
You can't outrun your fork! And exercise just makes you hungry. Fat people should eat less until they're a healthy weight (BMI of < 24.9). Then think about exercise.
JPKab 11y ago
Just want to emphasize something here: Exercise, when thrown in with the typical "calories-in calories-out" context, is absurdly terrible for fat loss. It makes people hungrier, and then they eat more. However, when viewed in the context of many people who are struggling with losing fat, it can be an excellent complement to dietary changes. Why? Because obesity and fat storage in general are extremely metabolically driven, and metabolism is itself driven by numerous endocrine system factors. The effects of exercise on the body can cause someone who is already eating a healthy (minimal sugar/refined carbs) diet to have even better results due to the increase in insulin sensitivity for a 16 hour period after exercise.

gozo 11y ago

Yes, but it also a losing proposition for most people. Do we really think that people who are overweight, especially in a body focused society as the US, haven't tried to "just eat better"?

danielbarla 11y ago
Interesting point, though I do think people tend to do it the hard way. By that, I mean that most people have probably tried some form of extreme calorie deficit diet, which typically doesn't work in the long run. It's exceptionally hard to conform to these for any period of time. Even if it's successful once or twice, I suspect people will have a negative perception of the experience, perhaps feeding a bit into denial in the future. I'm advocating a much slower approach, based on a little bit of knowledge about what you're eating, plus some convenience tricks like swapping out your heavy staple meals for something a bit healthier (that's still easy to make). My guess is that most people want to see rapid, drastic changes, and are demotivated when that doesn't happen (or takes too much effort), hence the failure.
coldtea 11y ago
Most of them, yes. Or they tried and failed.

linkydinkandyou 11y ago

You can't outrun your fork! And exercise just makes you hungry. Fat people should eat less until they're a healthy weight (BMI of < 24.9). Then think about exercise.

JPKab 11y ago

Just want to emphasize something here: Exercise, when thrown in with the typical "calories-in calories-out" context, is absurdly terrible for fat loss. It makes people hungrier, and then they eat more. However, when viewed in the context of many people who are struggling with losing fat, it can be an excellent complement to dietary changes. Why? Because obesity and fat storage in general are extremely metabolically driven, and metabolism is itself driven by numerous endocrine system factors. The effects of exercise on the body can cause someone who is already eating a healthy (minimal sugar/refined carbs) diet to have even better results due to the increase in insulin sensitivity for a 16 hour period after exercise.