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I have now been seeing from numerous sources that in order to lose weight, diet dominates exercise. One of the reasons is that exercise is associated with compe

• prostoalex 9y ago
  Moreover, exercise is frequently associated with muscle gain, and muscle tissue being heavier than fat tissue introduces a great deal of uncertainty into tracking one’s weight.
  • et-al 9y ago
    Yeah, weight is an overly simplistic measure in determining one's health. E.g. if my resting heart rate is lower, my blood work is "better", and my body fat percentage has gone down, I'll take the weight gain, duh.
• catdog 9y ago
  You also have to do an awful lot of exercise to burn a substantial amount of calories.
  • carlmr 9y ago
    If there's any exercise that has helped me shed weight, it's hiking. By being moderately active throughout the whole day you easily burn an extra 1500-2000kcals. Jogging has never really helped in shedding weight for me, just general fitness.
    • adrianN 9y ago
      How many hours per day do you hike? You probably have to hike for an hour to offset just one chocolate bar.
      • carlmr 9y ago
        I'm talking about proper hikes I do on the weekend. Like 6-10h. That's 6-10 chocolate bars, and I don't eat that much on these hikes.
        • jnordwick 9y ago
          Considering hiking is mostly walking, and calorie burn rates are dominated by distance, I'm guessing between 30 and 50 km? You generally burn about a quarter of what you would above basal metabolic rate per unit time walk versus running. So this would be equivalent to about a 1:30 to 2:30 run. Its very good,but certainly isn't at the level where you get to ignore food.
  • drdrey 9y ago
    I ran 16 miles this morning, burned over 2000 calories. But I won't lose any weight, I am going to eat those calories right back.
    • tinymollusk 9y ago
      That is indeed a substantial amount of exercise! Awesome work. In a thought experiment (where it's possible to know the exact amounts) -- do you think consuming exactly 2k kcal is perfectly even with burning exactly 2k kcal? IE, is there overhead to transform the energy? Does it account for physical/energy waste?
      • drdrey 9y ago
        I don't know, anecdotally it seems that if I spent X calories exercising, my hunger will adjust until I consume roughly X extra calories. The energy expenditure does account for waste, I think only about 20-25% of the energy spent is turned into mechanical output
    • niels8472 9y ago
      I have experienced the same issue when I burn larger amounts of calories. I've found burning about 500-800 calories (I run for about an hour) at the end of the day some time after dinner is my sweet spot.
    • jnordwick 9y ago
      2000? The standard estimate of net calories burned (cals above basal rate) is 0.98kgkm (i think it is 0.98, i usually round up to 1). You might enjoy this: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/running http://theoatmeal.com/comics/running
      • jnordwick 9y ago
        That should read 0.98 × kg × km
        • drdrey 9y ago
  • flipp3r 9y ago
    Every day the human body burns a substantial amount of calories just being alive. You have to simply not eat insulin-raising bullshit for a couple days, and start eating less or even fasting so your body starts burning the bodyfat it's been storing all that time. Worked for me (-8kg in approx 2 weeks) no exercise involved..
• Fricken 9y ago
  The Dutch have the lowest obesity rates in the developed world, at 8%, and 35% of their trips are taken by bicycle. Is that just a coincidence? I mean,technically, sure, you got to eat less than you burn to lose weight, but observably, people who regularly get moderate exercise as an ongoing practice tend to have their weight under control. I had one winter where I didn't cycle and I gained 15 pounds before I even noticed. It took a little under a month to lose, which I did by eating less, but I also got back on the bike. That's the only time I've gained weight, and losing it wasn't some special act of will or anything, I decided to do it and I did it. The rest of my family is sedentary, and fat. They're always talking about how they've got to lose weight but they're intimidated by it and they never stick with their diet plans for long. They don't have the intimate relationship with their metabolism that someone who excercise daily has.
  • drdrey 9y ago
    The Dutch presumably also eat a Dutch diet so it's going to be tricky to disentangle. For what it's worth, the French rank right behind the Netherlands in obesity rate but I wouldn't say most people are very physically active. My own experience and studies I have seen show that exercise leads to some early weight loss but then plateaus quickly. To lose further, diet has to be involved.
  • svenfaw 9y ago
    > The Dutch have the lowest obesity rates in the developed world, at 8% Source? According to [1], obesity rate in NL is 19.8%, with some other European countries being lower. [1] https://renewbariatrics.com/obesity-rank-by-countries/ https://renewbariatrics.com/obesity-rank-by-countries/
  • Axsuul 9y ago
    This is another case of correlation != causation. The lifestyles that people choose to lead can heavily affect their dietary choices. A sedentary couch lord is more likely to binge on pizza than a daily bike commuter, perhaps. This is why nutritional studies in the past need to be taken with a grain of salt. We all know from studies that too much red meat can have deleterious consequences on your health. But what we don't know is what type of lifestyles these participants led. Did they also eat junk food while rapaciously devouring heaps of sugar and soda on the side? We're not working in a strict lab environment here so there are lots of variables that we can't possibly account for.
• lloeki 9y ago
  > I have now been seeing from numerous sources that in order to lose weight, diet dominates exercise Indeed, and it goes the other way around too: not even counting weight in, any competent trainer will tell you that the first step to proper efficient exercise is a proper healthy diet. Losing weight then comes as a side effect, exercise being a catalyst to the diet that comes with it. > One of the reasons is that exercise is associated with compensatory behaviors (such as increased hunger) Personal experience: exercise comes with increased, yet highly self-regulated hunger, whereas it would slowly go unregulated when not exercising. Also, the things my body craves for are fundamentally different when I exercise than when I don't. This, to me, comes from two types of very different feelings of what we call "hunger" (and its opposite "replete"): one that comes from stomach emptiness/fullness, and one that comes from the energy/material one needs to or has absorbed. The former is a downright lie, and exercise has a tendency to shut it down while lack thereof makes you forget the latter in favour of the former, which is then boundlessly growing because the stomach is highly elastic and is easily trained to expand more and more. Also there seems to be a fundamental difference between both as I find the former also seems to aim to compensate some lack of dopamine/adrenaline/whatevs (this stuff is way over my head) that I get when exercising. The hunger I get when exercising is more genuine and truthful, while the one I get otherwise is more deceitful and addictive.
• amelius 9y ago
  I've been told that if you exercise 3x an hour every week, then it will be very hard to gain weight, regardless of diet. But that came from a sports guy.
  • n4r9 9y ago
    In an active week I might do 45-minutes of cycling per day plus three sets of 45-minute weights sessions, but I'll put on fat if I don't watch what I eat. Doing that amount of exercise can make me ravenously hungry.
    • amelius 9y ago
      How often do you have an "active week"? Perhaps you need more regularity? According to my friend's theory, being hungry and eating a lot shouldn't be a problem if you sport often (and I suppose regularly).
      • n4r9 9y ago
        3 out of 4 weeks are as above. 1 out of 4 weeks I might have a day or two where I take the bus instead of cycle, or feel a bit too run down / ill to go to the gym. From September to December I was about this active (plus some pick-up ultimate or basketball here and there) and put on six or seven kilos. Some muscle, some fat. I've been eating quite a lot too; a weekday's eating is something like: - Bran flakes cereal - Cheese & ham sandwich - Home cooked curry & brown rice (or equiv dinner) - Two protein shakes (one with creatine) - Two granola bars - Dark chocolate bar - Two oranges, an apple and a banana
        • amelius 9y ago
          Ok, I'm by no means an expert, so if I were you I'd research it a little more through other sources. It shouldn't matter how much you eat, with the given minimum amount of exercise. The things you list seem ok to me. Two things come to mind: you are still not exercising enough; or you are producing too much insulin for some reason. Don't be alarmed; perhaps talk about it with your doctor, get some blood tests done (?)
• jriot 9y ago
  I don't know why people give a damn about loosing weight. You want to be healthy, which means having muscle that weighs more than fat. Never seen a thin guy and thought I would like to look like him. I weigh 215lbs, 71" and I am 32 years old. I eat bread (which my wife makes from scratch), and other whole natural foods, vegetables, fruits, bacon, ribs, steak, fried chicken (made from scratch) etc... All my meat comes from a local farm, I actually bought a whole pig, half-cow and 50 chickens over the summer. I powerlift, training between 6 - 8 hours a week. Resting heart rate is 58, blood pressure is 110/75. Being that I hadn't done any cardio training for about 2-3 years I wanted to ensure I wasn't in terrible shape - did a 500 yard swim in 11 minutes. I am not breaking records, but won't pass out trying to do simple things. Eat natural foods they have been eating for hundreds of years and exercise hard. Now you can save money and time by not worrying about what the next overweight, smoking doctor will publish.
  • drdrey 9y ago
    If you're an endurance athlete, weight is a pretty critical aspect of your performance. For the general population, most people really want to reduce body fat when they say "weight". Whether you want to "look like" someone is a different story