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Maybe, but so what? Exercise has so many positive second order effects, and then those may help with weight loss indirectly. - Improved mood, focus, calm, etc,

Maybe, but so what? Exercise has so many positive second order effects, and then those may help with weight loss indirectly. - Improved mood, focus, calm, etc, make it easier and more pleasant to adhere to a better diet - Can improve sleep quality. Low sleep quality is linked to overeating and obesity and other problems. In fact, poor diet, poor sleep, and poor exercise are all interlinked. So start anywhere and expect the others to get easier to deal with over time too. - So what if weight doesn't change, but it's due to fat decreasing and muscle increasing? That's a good thing -- weight is an imperfect measure of obesity. Muscle, just by existing, burns more calories. And unlike abdominal fat, is not linked to organ problems. - And on and on and on. Just do anything to get healthier. Every healthy action will synergestically reinforce every other healthy action. Don't be a narrow beancounter looking at just one component, because your body is not just a handful of components narrowly linked together via thin black box abstraction layers; it's a big spaghetti code system that cannot be seperated cleanly out into pieces. Not exercising is really, really unhealthy, contrary to modern customary belief, so you might as well, rather than fixating on fixing only some other component while keeping this important component broken. - Moderate exercise seems to actually moderate appetite a little. And heavier exercise seems to make hunger less cravingy and more indiscriminate, making it easier to adhere to a diet (eg, a couch potato might really crave a specific candy or chips, but someone who just ran some miles will ecstatically and happily devour some beans and cabbage and oatmeal and whatever) - Improves digestion quality and gut motility! - Besides, isn't the goal of weight loss to get healthier in general, anyway? Focus on the overall goal and start anywhere, anywhere that is easiest. If getting better sleep is easier, do that. If cutting toxins like alcohol and nicotine is easier, start there. If improving diet is easier, start there. If improving positive human relationships and sense of purpose is easier, start there. If exercise is easier, start there. Start anywhere, and keep improving anywhere the wins are most easily found, and gradually everything else will become easier. One more tip: It's easier to change what you eat than how much. Also, calories in calories out is bunk. It's true to some degree in that they are related, but ignores the fact that (1) how much your body is spending is highly variable, even somewhat independent of movement -- imagine how much energy your body has to spend to fight an infection for example (2) why would anyone imagine every calorie consumed will actually be absorbed? the gut is highly complex and depending on many factors calories could be absorbed or go right out the other end unused, and the gut flora interacts complexly with all this. Focus on eating healthy things first above healthy amounts. It's easier, and will have a positive impact all its own, creating another stepping stone towards other goals.

watwut 2y ago
> Besides, isn't the goal of weight loss to get healthier in general, anyway? I would argue that for majority of the people who talk about it does not. The goal is aesthetic and moral.
- galdosdi 2y ago
  If so, those people are foolish. Aesthetics and moral fashions (of this kind) come and go, but your body's health is for life. BTW: The majority of people where? Where do you see this? The internet (which parts)? A middle class neighborhood in a small Midwestern town? An upper class neighborhood in a cosmopolitan European city? Culture varies tremendously so "where" matters if you make assertions like "the majority of people" think this or that. Regardless of what you think people think, I'm telling you what they _should_ think which is more timeless and objective, since it's about medical facts that were true 2000 years ago as they are now.
KittenInABox 2y ago
> Besides, isn't the goal of weight loss to get healthier in general, anyway? In my opinion, "get healthy" is more a moral judgement than it is an objective assessment. I've definitely seen fat women be shamed even while they're exercising as "not being healthy" or "glorifying being unhealthy" [yes, just for exercising in public, an objectively healthy behavior, except they're doing it while fat].
- galdosdi 2y ago
  Wow. That is sad, and reflective of the world you live in and people you associate with I guess. But healthiness can be measured pretty objectively through health outcomes, and high BMI and low exercise are both independently highly correlated with bad ones across the whole spectrum of health aspects. It's not just common sense, it's mountains of evidence over decades across every aspect of medicine. The fact that some (in your community, many) people twist this around and make it about something else entirely is sad, but in no way affects the objective truths: - it is objectively healthier to be active than inactive, regardless of obesity - it is objectively healthier to have average weight than obese, regardless of activity level I've lived in a few different places and found the culture around exercise and diet to be very different in different places, so I'm not surprised experiences can vary so much. I am curious where you see this bizarre culture of shaming people for exercising.

watwut 2y ago

> Besides, isn't the goal of weight loss to get healthier in general, anyway? I would argue that for majority of the people who talk about it does not. The goal is aesthetic and moral.

galdosdi 2y ago
If so, those people are foolish. Aesthetics and moral fashions (of this kind) come and go, but your body's health is for life. BTW: The majority of people where? Where do you see this? The internet (which parts)? A middle class neighborhood in a small Midwestern town? An upper class neighborhood in a cosmopolitan European city? Culture varies tremendously so "where" matters if you make assertions like "the majority of people" think this or that. Regardless of what you think people think, I'm telling you what they _should_ think which is more timeless and objective, since it's about medical facts that were true 2000 years ago as they are now.

KittenInABox 2y ago

> Besides, isn't the goal of weight loss to get healthier in general, anyway? In my opinion, "get healthy" is more a moral judgement than it is an objective assessment. I've definitely seen fat women be shamed even while they're exercising as "not being healthy" or "glorifying being unhealthy" [yes, just for exercising in public, an objectively healthy behavior, except they're doing it while fat].

galdosdi 2y ago
Wow. That is sad, and reflective of the world you live in and people you associate with I guess. But healthiness can be measured pretty objectively through health outcomes, and high BMI and low exercise are both independently highly correlated with bad ones across the whole spectrum of health aspects. It's not just common sense, it's mountains of evidence over decades across every aspect of medicine. The fact that some (in your community, many) people twist this around and make it about something else entirely is sad, but in no way affects the objective truths: - it is objectively healthier to be active than inactive, regardless of obesity - it is objectively healthier to have average weight than obese, regardless of activity level I've lived in a few different places and found the culture around exercise and diet to be very different in different places, so I'm not surprised experiences can vary so much. I am curious where you see this bizarre culture of shaming people for exercising.