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> It's possible to lose weight sustainably even without exercise, so perhaps it's fair to say that if you're going to exercise, you best sustain it. Exercise i

> It's possible to lose weight sustainably even without exercise, so perhaps it's fair to say that if you're going to exercise, you best sustain it. Exercise is for muscle gain and general health, not for weight loss. You have to exercise a truly absurd about to burn enough calories to lose any meaningful amount of weight. You'd have to run from SF to LA to lose 10lbs, and that's assuming you eat nothing else to compensate which humans are notorious for doing. Your body has a very strong homeostatic drive, and will absolutely push you to eat more and to be more sedentary outside of work-out time to compensate for any additional exercise you do. There's no studies or evidence whatsoever that shows it has a meaningful impact on weight loss. Weight loss comes from what you put in (or rather don't). This write-up from 2016 references 60 studies and meta-analysis which all show the same. [1] tl;dr: you should exercise for health and for muscle gain, not for weight loss. [edit] Note that metabolic adaptation results from caloric restriction dieting too, which is why 95% of diets fail. Basically only GLP-1s and gastric bypass have been clinically shown to result in meaningful, sustained, long-term weight loss. Obesity is a dysfunction of the gabaergic central nervous system. That's why everyone's so excited about GLP-1s. [1] https://www.vox.com/2016/4/28/11518804/weight-loss-exercise-myth-burn-calories https://www.vox.com/2016/4/28/11518804/weight-loss-exercise-...

slothtrop 3y ago
You're confusing things. The real gains qua WL from exercise are what is lost from resting metabolic rate, not calories burned "during" exercise. Also: satiety, and other health benefits that have an impact. > There's no studies or evidence whatsoever that shows it has a meaningful impact on weight loss. Absolutely not true. > Weight loss comes from what you put in (or rather don't). It's energy balance. But just as increasing satiety helps (through food choices), exercise is a strong predictor of long-term WL success. > This write-up from 2016 references 60 studies and meta-analysis which all show the same. You're quoting a vox article, and it's making the aforementioned erroneous conflation about calories burned during exercise.
- arcticbull 3y ago
  > Absolutely not true. Please cite a study that shows that exercise results in long-term sustained, clinically meaningful (>5%) weight loss. I have looked extensively and found none. And that's not for a lack of extant studies. > It's energy balance. But just as increasing satiety helps (through food choices), exercise is a strong predictor of long-term WL success. As far as I can see, there aren't any successful long-term (>2y) weight loss studies that don't involve GLP-1s or bariatric surgery, so maybe that's where the issue lies. > You're quoting a vox article, and it's making the aforementioned erroneous conflation about calories burned during exercise. I don't think it is, I looked over the studies they link to, but I'm open to being wrong. I don't really have a horse in this race.
  - slothtrop 3y ago
    > Please cite a study that shows that exercise results in long-term sustained, clinically meaningful (>5%) weight loss Those are not the words I used. Please engage in good faith. More accurately: exercise in addition to energy balance (and with a modest caloric deficit) is a strong predictor of WL success. Check google scholar for meta reviews, I don't have this bookmarked and I'm not doing homework for you. If you don't want to believe me then don't. I recommend Layne Norton's book Fat Loss Forever and his yt channel, he cites studies there.
    - arcticbull 3y ago
      I’ve done plenty of research and have not found a study that backs your position. If you’d like to have a discussion in good faith I’d like you to present some data. I did my research and presented my data. I don’t need to do your work for you. But if you dig something up I will happily read it.
com2kid 3y ago
> You have to exercise a truly absurd about to burn enough calories to lose any meaningful amount of weight. I mean, kinda, sorta? I can go to the gym and burn 1000 kcals, as measured by a chest strap. I used to do this 3x a week. That is nearly 1lb of fat burned through just exercise. In the context of someone who needs to lose 50 pounds, 1 pound seems small, but in reality 1-2lb of weight loss a week through diet is considered "healthy", adding another 1lb of weight loss via exercise is absurdly impactful. Now, do most people, especially beginners, have the willpower to burn 1000 calories at the gym? Hell no. A 1000 calorie workout sucks. > There's no studies or evidence whatsoever that shows it has a meaningful impact on weight loss. The obvious counter example is any endurance sporting event, where by the end of the event athletes weight a lot less than when they started. 30 minute workout 3x a week? Of course no weight will be lost. Now, instead go train boxing or MMA for 3 hours a day 5 days a week. If you track calories and don't increase your intake, I promise you'll lose some weight.
- nradov 3y ago
  I generally agree, but the weight loss seen during endurance sports events is mostly just dehydration. I can do an Olympic distance triathlon and burn fewer calories than are stored in 1 pound of fat tissue (and I'm taking in carb supplements throughout the race).
  - com2kid 3y ago
    Marathon runners apparently lose about 1lb, 50% of which is water. People doing those bike races lose tons of weight, both muscle and fat. That is the flip side of going balls to the way hard, it is easy to start eating into muscle, which is fine now and then for an event, but as part of a regular training regime it isn't the best idea. All of these factors are why the advice "you cannot outrun a fork" is true for the general population, but it scientific fact that no amount of exercise leads to weight loss. A truer statement might be "at the level of efforts an untrained individual is able to maintain, and for the length of training sessions that are available to an average person with a job and a family, exercise does not contribute meaningfully to near term fat loss." But people who've been lifting weights for 5 or 6 years hard core may very well have increased their BMR by 500 or so calories, at which point they can eat a, reasonably sized, cookie each day.

slothtrop 3y ago

You're confusing things. The real gains qua WL from exercise are what is lost from resting metabolic rate, not calories burned "during" exercise. Also: satiety, and other health benefits that have an impact. > There's no studies or evidence whatsoever that shows it has a meaningful impact on weight loss. Absolutely not true. > Weight loss comes from what you put in (or rather don't). It's energy balance. But just as increasing satiety helps (through food choices), exercise is a strong predictor of long-term WL success. > This write-up from 2016 references 60 studies and meta-analysis which all show the same. You're quoting a vox article, and it's making the aforementioned erroneous conflation about calories burned during exercise.

arcticbull 3y ago
> Absolutely not true. Please cite a study that shows that exercise results in long-term sustained, clinically meaningful (>5%) weight loss. I have looked extensively and found none. And that's not for a lack of extant studies. > It's energy balance. But just as increasing satiety helps (through food choices), exercise is a strong predictor of long-term WL success. As far as I can see, there aren't any successful long-term (>2y) weight loss studies that don't involve GLP-1s or bariatric surgery, so maybe that's where the issue lies. > You're quoting a vox article, and it's making the aforementioned erroneous conflation about calories burned during exercise. I don't think it is, I looked over the studies they link to, but I'm open to being wrong. I don't really have a horse in this race.
- slothtrop 3y ago
  > Please cite a study that shows that exercise results in long-term sustained, clinically meaningful (>5%) weight loss Those are not the words I used. Please engage in good faith. More accurately: exercise in addition to energy balance (and with a modest caloric deficit) is a strong predictor of WL success. Check google scholar for meta reviews, I don't have this bookmarked and I'm not doing homework for you. If you don't want to believe me then don't. I recommend Layne Norton's book Fat Loss Forever and his yt channel, he cites studies there.
  - arcticbull 3y ago
    I’ve done plenty of research and have not found a study that backs your position. If you’d like to have a discussion in good faith I’d like you to present some data. I did my research and presented my data. I don’t need to do your work for you. But if you dig something up I will happily read it.

com2kid 3y ago

> You have to exercise a truly absurd about to burn enough calories to lose any meaningful amount of weight. I mean, kinda, sorta? I can go to the gym and burn 1000 kcals, as measured by a chest strap. I used to do this 3x a week. That is nearly 1lb of fat burned through just exercise. In the context of someone who needs to lose 50 pounds, 1 pound seems small, but in reality 1-2lb of weight loss a week through diet is considered "healthy", adding another 1lb of weight loss via exercise is absurdly impactful. Now, do most people, especially beginners, have the willpower to burn 1000 calories at the gym? Hell no. A 1000 calorie workout sucks. > There's no studies or evidence whatsoever that shows it has a meaningful impact on weight loss. The obvious counter example is any endurance sporting event, where by the end of the event athletes weight a lot less than when they started. 30 minute workout 3x a week? Of course no weight will be lost. Now, instead go train boxing or MMA for 3 hours a day 5 days a week. If you track calories and don't increase your intake, I promise you'll lose some weight.

nradov 3y ago
I generally agree, but the weight loss seen during endurance sports events is mostly just dehydration. I can do an Olympic distance triathlon and burn fewer calories than are stored in 1 pound of fat tissue (and I'm taking in carb supplements throughout the race).
- com2kid 3y ago
  Marathon runners apparently lose about 1lb, 50% of which is water. People doing those bike races lose tons of weight, both muscle and fat. That is the flip side of going balls to the way hard, it is easy to start eating into muscle, which is fine now and then for an event, but as part of a regular training regime it isn't the best idea. All of these factors are why the advice "you cannot outrun a fork" is true for the general population, but it scientific fact that no amount of exercise leads to weight loss. A truer statement might be "at the level of efforts an untrained individual is able to maintain, and for the length of training sessions that are available to an average person with a job and a family, exercise does not contribute meaningfully to near term fat loss." But people who've been lifting weights for 5 or 6 years hard core may very well have increased their BMR by 500 or so calories, at which point they can eat a, reasonably sized, cookie each day.