8 ms·

Yes, I think so. This is most likely to happen with a high-fat diet and large amounts of low-mid intensity endurance exercise.

arcticbull 3y ago
Studies show that exercise doesn't help you lose any appreciable amount of weight. It's good for you and you should do it, but it doesn't help with weight loss. Only what you eat does. At a high level, it's mostly because (a) exercise just isn't inefficient enough to lose a ton of weight unless you do insane amounts of it. To lose 10lbs through exercise you need to run from SF to LA. (b) humans are notorious compensatory eaters. If you work out, you'll be hungry, and you'll rationalize or sneak extra food, and one muffin un-does like 5 miles of running. [1] agrees, showing that moderate-intensity aerobic exercise done 5x weekly for 30m per day yields no measurable weight loss. [2] shows that adding exercise to diet yields no measurable difference between the diet and the diet+exercise group after 6 months, and after 12 months the difference was two pounds in favor of the exercise group. After a year. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0033062018301440 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00330... [2] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-789X.2008.00547.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-789X...
- PlunderBunny 3y ago
  Yes - nothing is more likely to make me start a spiel than hearing "eat less, move more".
  - arcticbull 3y ago
    It's interesting how persistent the 'just diet and exercise' thing is when any amount of research will show you that it just doesn't do shit. Your metabolism slows down to compensate for dieting, you eat more to compensate for exercise, etc. The studies that do show any benefit stop after 1 year, and don't really do follow-ups. By 'significant' benefit they mean statistically significant, as the weight loss numbers are really marginal. Then, if you look at 2-year follow-ups for weight-loss studies, they're fucking bleak. 9 in 10 fail and regain the bulk of the weight lost. Imagine a doctor regularly prescribing you pain medication that worked for 1 in 10 people - because that's basically the state of front-line weight management healthcare. The one that really put it into perspective for me was the one that revisited the Biggest Loser participants after 6 years and the mean regain was 70% of their lost weight (90 of the 127lbs average), and they were left with a 20% slower metabolism. [1] [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27136388/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27136388/
    - riku_iki 3y ago
      so, what is the solution?..
      - arcticbull 3y ago
        Based on my research, and I'm just a schmuck on the internet, the things that seem to work are: (1) not getting fat in the first place by maintaining a healthy weight through persistent diet and exercise (2) bariatric surgery (3) GLP-1 drugs, although they're very new and (4) fasting, although that would have to be an ongoing thing, and the evidence for this is promising but limited. Re: (1) I'm not being glib, your body has a strong homeostatic drive and once you overcome it to put on the weight, you have to overcome it to lose the weight - and that's far less enjoyable. Unfortunately losing the weight can come with permanent metabolic adaptations that bias you towards regain, and you'll be fighting them for years.
        riku_iki 3y ago
        > Unfortunately losing the weight can come with permanent metabolic adaptations that bias you towards regain, and you'll be fighting them for years. my intuition is that if you add some intense exercises into the mix, they will boost your metabolism.
      - PlunderBunny 3y ago
        This is just my opinion, but I think one thing that I haven't seen mentioned much is that modern diets (by which I mean foods) leave your stomach more empty than it should be for a given amount of calories absorbed. If you eat lots of whole foods, prepared the right way (e.g. steamed instead of fried in oil or fat) you body will 'see' less calories for the same stomach 'fullness'. (I've done a bad job of expressing that - I hope someone will chime in with a better description and more information).
        riku_iki 3y ago
        > I hope someone will chime in with a better description and more information its called satiety index this is my main tool in attempt to manage weight, but I feel it is still not enough with sedentary office work.
- ultrarunner 3y ago
  I tend to hang out with hundreds-to-thousands of endurance athletes [0], and the large plurality of them are not heavy people. Sure, there are some that don't run competitively and take around an hour to do a 5k with their friends. They do tend to be a bit curvier and say things like "I run for donuts" or "I've gotta work off my beer somehow". By and large, though, people who are consistently running throughout the week are not overweight. Some of us also eat a ton to support this. All this is to say that I suspect our cultural understanding of "normal movement" is near zero minutes per week, and "exercising" is only slightly above that. The study itself references 150 minutes per week of moderate exercise out of the 6,720 waking minutes available. Allotting just over 1% of time to exercise does not strike me as the type of strategy that would effect meaningful change. In fact, 30 minutes is a relatively easy 5k time— a distance which most coaches would say a healthy adult can shake off and be well rested from within 24 hours. 25km per week is a very low volume for someone expecting to see a physical change. Unfortunately, the levels of activity that do have a positive impact on peoples' lives are often described as "insane amounts" or other discouraging descriptions. Indeed, it takes time to adjust from old normal, where 292.6 minutes per day of television does not seem out of place, to a new normal where investing in ones body (and mind!) is given a high priority. I haven't finished reading the second referenced study, but I'm seeing the same thing— small impacts at the start of something. The first random referenced study [1] I picked had this to say: > The results suggest that dieting is associated with weight loss followed by regain after treatment ends, whereas exercise alone produced smaller weight losses but better maintenance. The key, from my experience, is adopting a lower-weight lifestyle. We've all seen friends attempt a new diet and it never works, as TFA explains. Unfortunately we've built a culture of obesity, and cultural influences are very difficult things to avoid. [0] https://ultrasignup.com https://ultrasignup.com (These are all over the country, and not all of them are ultramarathons) [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S000282239600096X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00028...
  - leoedin 3y ago
    Even just designing your lifestyle to include movement makes a huge difference. I commuted by bike for years - 11 miles a day, every day, and basically maintained my weight despite eating or drinking whatever I liked. The pandemic put an end to that and my weight has been creeping up year on year since. It didn't really feel like exercise, just a way of travelling. Similarly - walk everywhere. Choose to live somewhere you can walk to the shops and then take advantage of that. I read a study a few years ago that showed that people living in UK cities walk more than twice the distance each year of those living in suburban or rural locations. You definitely wouldn't know there was an obesity epidemic in my country looking at the people in my neighborhood. Half of them don't own a car.
- orthoxerox 3y ago
  Right. People should run for the sake of running (endurance and cardiovascular health) and lift for the sake of lifting (strength and size). Any metabolic bonuses are just that, bonuses.
- watwut 3y ago
  The experience of stopping to exercise and then starting to gain weight is pretty common. So is experience of picking up exercise and starting to loose weight. Can it get you from super obese to thin? No. Is it true that your physical activity is irrelevant to your weight? Absolutely not. > If you work out, you'll be hungry, and you'll rationalize or sneak extra food, and one muffin un-does like 5 miles of running. This is really not how any of that works. Only some kind of exercise will make you more hungry ... and they happen to be the ones where muscle builds. You are more hungry after lifting weight, but you also should eat more after lifting weights, else the muscle wont build.
  - arcticbull 3y ago
    I look forward to reading studies, do you have some to back up this hypothesis? I'm not being glib, if you have some I'd love to read them. I have not found any.
- Aerroon 3y ago
  The goal of losing weight is to lose fat, it's not about bringing down the number on the scale. Exercise is going to build muscle or at least maintain it. The second study you linked cites this study that lasted for 12 weeks[0]: >Subjects and methods: In a longitudinal clinical study, 121 healthy, overweight postmenopausal women (age 53.8 +/- 2.5 years, body mass index: 29.7 +/- 3.1 kg/m2) were randomly assigned to 3 groups: controls, a 4,200 kJ/d diet, or a 4,200 kJ/d diet with combined aerobic and anaerobic exercise. >Results: /.../ The mean loss of body weight (9.5 kg versus 10.3 kg, NS) was similar in the intervention groups, but compared with the diet-only group, the diet-plus-exercise group lost more fat (7.8 kg versus 9.6 kg, p < 0.001) and no lean tissue mass (1.2 kg versus -0.0 kg, p < 0.001). The resting metabolic rate (per kg wt) was increased in the diet-plus-exercise group compared with the control group (11% versus 4%, p < 0.009). If the people that exercised stopped exercising they would lose the muscle they gained/maintained and lose additional weight. PS: I like that this study is written in a way that's relatively easy to follow. [0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8356979/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8356979/
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - arcticbull 3y ago
    The point of linking (2) was to provide a meta-analysis of many studies, and to reduce the specific weighting of individual outliers. There were plenty of outliers in the other direction. Measuring after 12 weeks isn't really useful - what matters is long-term outcomes and sustainability - and honestly I don't know that postmenopausal women are entirely representative. The meta-analysis is clear, the longer you wait to follow up the worse the numbers get. > The achievement after 2 years may appear small, averaging 1.64 kg or 1.24 kg m−2 loss of body weight after a combination of dietary changes and increased physical activity. [2] The meta-analysis only included overweight or obese participants, so BMI 25+ or 30+. That's a total body weight change of less than 5%, after 2 years. Even cherry-picking on 6 year study showed a 5% drop in weight, for obese people who need to lose 20 or 30% to return to a normal weight. The important take-aways here are that studies only look good until you follow up on the participants (12 weeks is not useful) - and that statistical significance isn't practical significance. 3lbs of total weight loss after 2 years is good, of course, but it's an umbrella in a hurricane.
- vladvasiliu 3y ago
  What I've found, in my case, is that exercise has an effect on food intake. Sure, when I move more, I tend to be hungrier and eat more. But what's interesting, is it has an effect on what I want to eat and especially on my "cravings". It basically makes me hate "junk food", and instead want to eat meat and vegetables. If I'm already doing this, I need to pay some attention to not overeat. But when I used to binge on crappy foods, it made an immediate and enormous difference to my waistline.
  - throwaway6734 3y ago
    I have the same experience with exercise and food
- ajuc 3y ago
  > Studies show that exercise doesn't help you lose any appreciable amount of weight. It's good for you and you should do it, but it doesn't help with weight loss. Depends on your definition of appreciable. I started measuring calories in vs out in 2021, lost ~25 kg since then (OK I lost almost 40 kg since then but I bounced back a little). I have a pretty good idea by now how much calories I burn by walking and biking (about 60 kcal per km walked, about 30 kcal per km biked). It might seem low, but in that time I walked over 7km a day on average and biked over 5 km a day (mostly big trips on weekends + some walking on work days). At my weight and intensity that's ~500 kcal deficit per day. Makes it much easier to stay in the negatives.
  - arcticbull 3y ago
    You may have started bouncing back because studies show that your BMR will drop by as much as 17% below the baseline expectation for someone of your weight after like 6 months if you're doing caloric restriction dieting. Your 500kcal/day deficit may be zero or negative once you factor that in. Consider reducing your intake to 500kcal/day below 80% of the expected BMR for someone of your weight and see if you return to your original trajectory. It's called adaptive thermogenesis. See Figure 1 and Table 1 in [1]. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9036397/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9036397/
    - ajuc 3y ago
      My bouncing back is entirely explained by caloric intake ;) I've had "cheat months". I simplified it, I was bouncing up and down several times, I started at 130 kg, went to 100 kg pretty quickly, dipped to 90 kg twice (both times on backpacking trips BTW), and now I'm oscillating between 100 and 105 roughly. My goal is 85-90 and I'll get there eventually.
      - arcticbull 3y ago
        It might be, but it might not entirely be. That's the thing, there's more to this. The reality is weight loss should be a long-term thing, and you should be sustaining it years later without issue if popular narrative is to be believed. I'm not really even commenting on individual cases, just sharing what I've dug up because based on what's going on around us, it's clear the approach we're taking is completely failing us - and we're really just not that alarmed about it. Any time I've tried to dig up studies that support the commonly prescribed approach I've failed. Good luck!!
- iopq 3y ago
  I'm not trying to lose weight I'm trying to lose fat Heavy weight lifting is great at making your muscles get the nutrients instead of them being stored as fat. If I gain 5 lbs of muscle and lose 5 lbs of fat over a year, I will be much healthier and look absolutely ripped. I know because I've done it

arcticbull 3y ago

Studies show that exercise doesn't help you lose any appreciable amount of weight. It's good for you and you should do it, but it doesn't help with weight loss. Only what you eat does. At a high level, it's mostly because (a) exercise just isn't inefficient enough to lose a ton of weight unless you do insane amounts of it. To lose 10lbs through exercise you need to run from SF to LA. (b) humans are notorious compensatory eaters. If you work out, you'll be hungry, and you'll rationalize or sneak extra food, and one muffin un-does like 5 miles of running. [1] agrees, showing that moderate-intensity aerobic exercise done 5x weekly for 30m per day yields no measurable weight loss. [2] shows that adding exercise to diet yields no measurable difference between the diet and the diet+exercise group after 6 months, and after 12 months the difference was two pounds in favor of the exercise group. After a year. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0033062018301440 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00330... [2] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-789X.2008.00547.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-789X...

PlunderBunny 3y ago
Yes - nothing is more likely to make me start a spiel than hearing "eat less, move more".
- arcticbull 3y ago
  It's interesting how persistent the 'just diet and exercise' thing is when any amount of research will show you that it just doesn't do shit. Your metabolism slows down to compensate for dieting, you eat more to compensate for exercise, etc. The studies that do show any benefit stop after 1 year, and don't really do follow-ups. By 'significant' benefit they mean statistically significant, as the weight loss numbers are really marginal. Then, if you look at 2-year follow-ups for weight-loss studies, they're fucking bleak. 9 in 10 fail and regain the bulk of the weight lost. Imagine a doctor regularly prescribing you pain medication that worked for 1 in 10 people - because that's basically the state of front-line weight management healthcare. The one that really put it into perspective for me was the one that revisited the Biggest Loser participants after 6 years and the mean regain was 70% of their lost weight (90 of the 127lbs average), and they were left with a 20% slower metabolism. [1] [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27136388/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27136388/
  - riku_iki 3y ago
    so, what is the solution?..
    - arcticbull 3y ago
      Based on my research, and I'm just a schmuck on the internet, the things that seem to work are: (1) not getting fat in the first place by maintaining a healthy weight through persistent diet and exercise (2) bariatric surgery (3) GLP-1 drugs, although they're very new and (4) fasting, although that would have to be an ongoing thing, and the evidence for this is promising but limited. Re: (1) I'm not being glib, your body has a strong homeostatic drive and once you overcome it to put on the weight, you have to overcome it to lose the weight - and that's far less enjoyable. Unfortunately losing the weight can come with permanent metabolic adaptations that bias you towards regain, and you'll be fighting them for years.
      - riku_iki 3y ago
        > Unfortunately losing the weight can come with permanent metabolic adaptations that bias you towards regain, and you'll be fighting them for years. my intuition is that if you add some intense exercises into the mix, they will boost your metabolism.
    - PlunderBunny 3y ago
      This is just my opinion, but I think one thing that I haven't seen mentioned much is that modern diets (by which I mean foods) leave your stomach more empty than it should be for a given amount of calories absorbed. If you eat lots of whole foods, prepared the right way (e.g. steamed instead of fried in oil or fat) you body will 'see' less calories for the same stomach 'fullness'. (I've done a bad job of expressing that - I hope someone will chime in with a better description and more information).
      - riku_iki 3y ago
        > I hope someone will chime in with a better description and more information its called satiety index this is my main tool in attempt to manage weight, but I feel it is still not enough with sedentary office work.
ultrarunner 3y ago
I tend to hang out with hundreds-to-thousands of endurance athletes [0], and the large plurality of them are not heavy people. Sure, there are some that don't run competitively and take around an hour to do a 5k with their friends. They do tend to be a bit curvier and say things like "I run for donuts" or "I've gotta work off my beer somehow". By and large, though, people who are consistently running throughout the week are not overweight. Some of us also eat a ton to support this. All this is to say that I suspect our cultural understanding of "normal movement" is near zero minutes per week, and "exercising" is only slightly above that. The study itself references 150 minutes per week of moderate exercise out of the 6,720 waking minutes available. Allotting just over 1% of time to exercise does not strike me as the type of strategy that would effect meaningful change. In fact, 30 minutes is a relatively easy 5k time— a distance which most coaches would say a healthy adult can shake off and be well rested from within 24 hours. 25km per week is a very low volume for someone expecting to see a physical change. Unfortunately, the levels of activity that do have a positive impact on peoples' lives are often described as "insane amounts" or other discouraging descriptions. Indeed, it takes time to adjust from old normal, where 292.6 minutes per day of television does not seem out of place, to a new normal where investing in ones body (and mind!) is given a high priority. I haven't finished reading the second referenced study, but I'm seeing the same thing— small impacts at the start of something. The first random referenced study [1] I picked had this to say: > The results suggest that dieting is associated with weight loss followed by regain after treatment ends, whereas exercise alone produced smaller weight losses but better maintenance. The key, from my experience, is adopting a lower-weight lifestyle. We've all seen friends attempt a new diet and it never works, as TFA explains. Unfortunately we've built a culture of obesity, and cultural influences are very difficult things to avoid. [0] https://ultrasignup.com https://ultrasignup.com (These are all over the country, and not all of them are ultramarathons) [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S000282239600096X https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00028...
- leoedin 3y ago
  Even just designing your lifestyle to include movement makes a huge difference. I commuted by bike for years - 11 miles a day, every day, and basically maintained my weight despite eating or drinking whatever I liked. The pandemic put an end to that and my weight has been creeping up year on year since. It didn't really feel like exercise, just a way of travelling. Similarly - walk everywhere. Choose to live somewhere you can walk to the shops and then take advantage of that. I read a study a few years ago that showed that people living in UK cities walk more than twice the distance each year of those living in suburban or rural locations. You definitely wouldn't know there was an obesity epidemic in my country looking at the people in my neighborhood. Half of them don't own a car.
orthoxerox 3y ago
Right. People should run for the sake of running (endurance and cardiovascular health) and lift for the sake of lifting (strength and size). Any metabolic bonuses are just that, bonuses.
watwut 3y ago
The experience of stopping to exercise and then starting to gain weight is pretty common. So is experience of picking up exercise and starting to loose weight. Can it get you from super obese to thin? No. Is it true that your physical activity is irrelevant to your weight? Absolutely not. > If you work out, you'll be hungry, and you'll rationalize or sneak extra food, and one muffin un-does like 5 miles of running. This is really not how any of that works. Only some kind of exercise will make you more hungry ... and they happen to be the ones where muscle builds. You are more hungry after lifting weight, but you also should eat more after lifting weights, else the muscle wont build.
- arcticbull 3y ago
  I look forward to reading studies, do you have some to back up this hypothesis? I'm not being glib, if you have some I'd love to read them. I have not found any.
Aerroon 3y ago
The goal of losing weight is to lose fat, it's not about bringing down the number on the scale. Exercise is going to build muscle or at least maintain it. The second study you linked cites this study that lasted for 12 weeks[0]: >Subjects and methods: In a longitudinal clinical study, 121 healthy, overweight postmenopausal women (age 53.8 +/- 2.5 years, body mass index: 29.7 +/- 3.1 kg/m2) were randomly assigned to 3 groups: controls, a 4,200 kJ/d diet, or a 4,200 kJ/d diet with combined aerobic and anaerobic exercise. >Results: /.../ The mean loss of body weight (9.5 kg versus 10.3 kg, NS) was similar in the intervention groups, but compared with the diet-only group, the diet-plus-exercise group lost more fat (7.8 kg versus 9.6 kg, p < 0.001) and no lean tissue mass (1.2 kg versus -0.0 kg, p < 0.001). The resting metabolic rate (per kg wt) was increased in the diet-plus-exercise group compared with the control group (11% versus 4%, p < 0.009). If the people that exercised stopped exercising they would lose the muscle they gained/maintained and lose additional weight. PS: I like that this study is written in a way that's relatively easy to follow. [0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8356979/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8356979/
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- arcticbull 3y ago
  The point of linking (2) was to provide a meta-analysis of many studies, and to reduce the specific weighting of individual outliers. There were plenty of outliers in the other direction. Measuring after 12 weeks isn't really useful - what matters is long-term outcomes and sustainability - and honestly I don't know that postmenopausal women are entirely representative. The meta-analysis is clear, the longer you wait to follow up the worse the numbers get. > The achievement after 2 years may appear small, averaging 1.64 kg or 1.24 kg m−2 loss of body weight after a combination of dietary changes and increased physical activity. [2] The meta-analysis only included overweight or obese participants, so BMI 25+ or 30+. That's a total body weight change of less than 5%, after 2 years. Even cherry-picking on 6 year study showed a 5% drop in weight, for obese people who need to lose 20 or 30% to return to a normal weight. The important take-aways here are that studies only look good until you follow up on the participants (12 weeks is not useful) - and that statistical significance isn't practical significance. 3lbs of total weight loss after 2 years is good, of course, but it's an umbrella in a hurricane.
vladvasiliu 3y ago
What I've found, in my case, is that exercise has an effect on food intake. Sure, when I move more, I tend to be hungrier and eat more. But what's interesting, is it has an effect on what I want to eat and especially on my "cravings". It basically makes me hate "junk food", and instead want to eat meat and vegetables. If I'm already doing this, I need to pay some attention to not overeat. But when I used to binge on crappy foods, it made an immediate and enormous difference to my waistline.
- throwaway6734 3y ago
  I have the same experience with exercise and food
ajuc 3y ago
> Studies show that exercise doesn't help you lose any appreciable amount of weight. It's good for you and you should do it, but it doesn't help with weight loss. Depends on your definition of appreciable. I started measuring calories in vs out in 2021, lost ~25 kg since then (OK I lost almost 40 kg since then but I bounced back a little). I have a pretty good idea by now how much calories I burn by walking and biking (about 60 kcal per km walked, about 30 kcal per km biked). It might seem low, but in that time I walked over 7km a day on average and biked over 5 km a day (mostly big trips on weekends + some walking on work days). At my weight and intensity that's ~500 kcal deficit per day. Makes it much easier to stay in the negatives.
- arcticbull 3y ago
  You may have started bouncing back because studies show that your BMR will drop by as much as 17% below the baseline expectation for someone of your weight after like 6 months if you're doing caloric restriction dieting. Your 500kcal/day deficit may be zero or negative once you factor that in. Consider reducing your intake to 500kcal/day below 80% of the expected BMR for someone of your weight and see if you return to your original trajectory. It's called adaptive thermogenesis. See Figure 1 and Table 1 in [1]. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9036397/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9036397/
  - ajuc 3y ago
    My bouncing back is entirely explained by caloric intake ;) I've had "cheat months". I simplified it, I was bouncing up and down several times, I started at 130 kg, went to 100 kg pretty quickly, dipped to 90 kg twice (both times on backpacking trips BTW), and now I'm oscillating between 100 and 105 roughly. My goal is 85-90 and I'll get there eventually.
    - arcticbull 3y ago
      It might be, but it might not entirely be. That's the thing, there's more to this. The reality is weight loss should be a long-term thing, and you should be sustaining it years later without issue if popular narrative is to be believed. I'm not really even commenting on individual cases, just sharing what I've dug up because based on what's going on around us, it's clear the approach we're taking is completely failing us - and we're really just not that alarmed about it. Any time I've tried to dig up studies that support the commonly prescribed approach I've failed. Good luck!!
iopq 3y ago
I'm not trying to lose weight I'm trying to lose fat Heavy weight lifting is great at making your muscles get the nutrients instead of them being stored as fat. If I gain 5 lbs of muscle and lose 5 lbs of fat over a year, I will be much healthier and look absolutely ripped. I know because I've done it