6 ms·

This is true to an extent and I'm very fond of the saying, but beyond a certain point you can indeed outrun a bad diet. I used to spend ~4 hours a day training

This is true to an extent and I'm very fond of the saying, but beyond a certain point you can indeed outrun a bad diet. I used to spend ~4 hours a day training martial arts (kickboxing, BJJ, etc) during which time I could eat almost anything I wanted without gaining weight. I'm sure if I had downed a cheesecake a day it would've been bad for me, but I was able to get away with a level of excess back then that I am unable to today. So you can indeed outrun a bad diet, it just takes more running than most people want to do!

jchw 1y ago
Yeah. Sure, your body can adjust how much calories are burned when you're idle, but it can only do so much. If you're burning thousands of calories on daily activity, it's gotta come from somewhere.
coffeefirst 1y ago
Yeah, this is a scale problem. You can hop on a plane and go from a driving-city to a walking city, look around and see the difference. I can't accept that this doesn't matter. But if you take the common American diet where the bread of your sandwich is shelf-stable because it's packed with sugar and oil, and that's before we even talk about portion size, "more running than most people want to do" quickly becomes "recreate the scene from Forest Gump."
- robertlagrant 1y ago
  > I can't accept that this doesn't matter. It's not that it doesn't matter, it's the asymmetry. You can eat a small chocolate bar that costs $1 (or whatever) in about 15 seconds, and it will take you 2 hours of walking to wear off the calories.
  - const_cast 1y ago
    It's more complicated than this, because muscle raises your basal metabolic rate. If you look at bodybuilders, they're buring 400 calories a day, regardless of exercise. Having an extra 100 pounds of muscle means your body just burns A LOT of calories doing absolutely nothing. This is part of the reason why men burn more calories than woman just right out of the gate.
    - 0cf8612b2e1e 1y ago
      A pound of fat burns ~3 calories, while muscle is ~8 per day. Sure, it is different, but unless you are the Rock, most people do not have enough muscle mass to make a difference.
      - const_cast 1y ago
        This is just not true, if you look at women and men of similar height men still burn significantly more calories. Hormones, I'm sure, play a role too but testosterone is sticky. More weightlifitng raises your testosterone - so you should be seeing that benefit.
    - rgoulter 1y ago
      > men burn more calories than woman just right out of the gate Sure, but parent's point is that the energy input from sugary snacks like chocolate roughly equates to a significant amount of exercise. (Over an hour of walking). -- Maybe the caloric equivalent amount of walking is a little longer or shorter for different bodies. How might you take action from this understanding, though. Gaining an extra 100 pounds of muscle is hardly an easy/tangible feat. "Reducing intake of sugary snacks" is going to be easier than "walk for over an hour".
      - const_cast 1y ago
        You don't need 100 pounds of muscle to reap the benefits. My point is, yes eating a sugary snack takes 1 hour of walking. But it doesn't take 1 hour of weightlifting. It can take 0 hours of weightlifting, if you've already been weightlifting. Even with walking and running, you do build muscle. When the treadmill says 100 calories, you didn't actually burn 100 calories - you burned 100 plus the increased rate from the muscle you gained. So, if you're an athletic person, you're burning more calories regardless of if you work out. Just by existing, sleeping, whatever, you have a big head start. For some athletes, this head start is in the 1000s of calories range.
        robertlagrant 1y ago
- snozolli 1y ago
  You can hop on a plane and go from a driving-city to a walking city, look around and see the difference. I can't accept that this doesn't matter. It's a whole lot easier to hit up a drive through or grab a tub of ice cream at the grocery store when you're driving a car. You're not wrong, though. Walking around doesn't burn a lot of calories (~100/mile), but most people become overweight by only slightly overeating on a daily basis, over a long period of time. One can of soda has 140 Calories. 140 excess daily Calories is an extra pound of fat per month.
- Spivak 1y ago
  Well yeah, the sugar is also there to produce the soft squishy texture people expect from sandwich bread as well as the aiding the Maillard reaction when it's grilled. Miss me with a grilled cheese made with any other kind of loaf. But we are talking about bread here, even in the absence of sugar and oil it's still got plenty of calories for you. Grain St Methode's white bread, a no added sugar brand is 180 cals for two slices and Wonder Bread, famously packed with sugar, is 140 cals for two slices. It's the bread which is making you fat, the sugar isn't moving the needle in any direction as far as the obesity crisis is concerned.
- tonyedgecombe 1y ago
  Exercise definitely helps you improve your eating patterns. In particular it helps you deal with stress which is a source of bad food habits.
bluedino 1y ago
You were also younger. I used to house whole pizzas for lunch. Now I only eat 2 slices and weigh the same.
- ch4s3 1y ago
  The difference in metabolic activity as you age is relatively small until you are quite old, like a single digit percentage difference. You can go look at any TDEE calculator and see this.
palmfacehn 1y ago
I can confirm the same from my messenger days. On days when deliveries were sparse, we found ourselves moving from cafe to bakery, eating more pastries than a doctor would recommend. Regardless of the day's activity levels we would generally drink large amounts of beer after work and sometimes during. Maintaining weight and satisfying our appetites was always a more pressing concern. I'm not a dietician, but when I read things like this NPR report, I wonder how much of it is motivated reasoning. "It is not your fault", is always a good come-on for a sales pitch. This report seems like something people would like to hear, especially if they haven't come to enjoy strenuous exercise. That said, I've always had a bias against highly processed foods.
- naikrovek 1y ago
  what is "processed" versus "highly processed" versus "ultra processed"? the way these things are described feels very much like people are using a dowsing rod to find where to dig a well, or something. mumbo-jumbo. I'm sure even "super ultra giga processed" foods are fine for you so long as you don't eat a lot of them. I'm not even sure that "processed" is bad at all. I don't want to eat raw cashews, I'll die (as will anyone else) I want those processed by cooking. Is pre-cooked food "processed" or "highly processed" or "ultra processed" or something else? all of the above; it depends on who you ask. I don't know of any level of "processed" which is bad, I just know that if you consume 10k calories per day and only burn 3k, you're going to gain weight, level of "processed" probably doesn't matter. And I think that's all this study is saying: unless you're extremely active, you can't burn 10k calories a day, your body really limits how many calories you can burn in a day unless you are physically working enough to actually turn that amount of energy into physical work. anyway, yeah. i immediately distrust anyone that starts mentioning "processed" or "highly processed" or "ultra processed" because I don't think those are defined. I think they're speaking entirely on vibes which are not quantitative.
  - palmfacehn 1y ago
    >Wise Cheez Doodles Honey Bbq Cheese Flavored Corn Snacks, Honey; Bbq; Cheese >CORN MEAL, VEGETABLE OIL (CONTAINS ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING: CORN, COTTONSEED, SUNFLOWER, OR CANOLA OIL), SUGAR, SALT, HONEY, CORN STARCH, FRUCTOSE, WHEY, DEXTROSE MONOHYDRATE, MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE (FLAVOR ENHANCER), TOMATO POWDER, CHEDDAR CHEESE, (CULTURED MILK, SALT ENZYMES), ONION POWDER, BUTTER (CREAM, SALT), BLUE CHEESE FLAVOR, BUTTERMILK SOLIDS, MALTODEXRIN, YELLOW 5 LAKE, YELLOW 6 LAKE, GARLIC POWDER, PAPRIKA EXTRACT, NATURAL FLAVORS (CONTAINS CELERY), SOYBEAN OIL, LACTIC ACID, CITRIC ACID, SODIUM PHOSPHATE, ENZYME MODIFIED BUTTER OIL, YELLOW 5, YELLOW 6, AUTOLYZED YEAST EXTRACT, THIAMIN HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B1), DISODIUM GUANYLATE, DISODIUM INOSINATE
_Wintermute 1y ago
Yep, at one point in my life I was consistently cycling for 30 hours a week and eating enough became a chore. So it's definitely possible, but it requires enough exercise that's essentially a full time job.
- hermitcrab 1y ago
  I once trained pretty hard for several months for a martial arts competition. I upped my calorie intake to keep up with the training and put on about ~15lb of muscle. What people don't tell you about this sort of intensive training is just much extra time you spend each week shopping, cooking, eating and taking a shit - on top of all the training!
- ericmcer 1y ago
  I had a similar situation in my early 20s. My conclusion was that past a certain point you need to use liquid sugar (soda especially) to get your body to put on weight past a certain point. Even with absurd amounts of fat, carbs and proteins I could not process enough food to put on the weight I wanted too. Sugar is the backbone of massive weight gain.
plantwallshoe 1y ago
The most effective exercise for weight loss is fork put-downs.
- roguecoder 1y ago
  [citation needed] That is not what any of the studies I have read find, particularly not past the short term: past calorie restriction diets is one of the factors associated with developing obesity.
  - g3f32r 1y ago
    Isn't that a bit of a truism? A _past_ calorie restriction is associated with a _current_ calorie surplus. Obviously if the calorie restriction were being continued, one wouldn't be developing obesity.
  - cthalupa 1y ago
    "Fork put downs" does not mean a crash diet or anything like that. It means permanently adjusting your caloric intake to levels that allow you to reach and maintain a healthy body weight and body fat makeup. If you're eating 6000 calories a day there is no way you're out-exercising that diet while working a full time job.
- simonbarker87 1y ago
  And plate push aways
  - machomaster 1y ago
    And spoon reversals
- kelnos 1y ago
  I see fork put-downs touted by random influencers and life coach type people on the internet, but this feels like one of those things that sounds profound but isn't based on any research other than someone's individual anecdotal experience. I'm skeptical that this actually does anything.
jader201 1y ago
Anecdotal counterpoint: I have been quite sedentary for several years, since going fully remote. I had seasons where I would gain wait and lose weight, and my level of activity remained unchanged. A few years ago, I started paying more attention to my weight, and got to where I was consistently in my ideal weight range. Again, level of activity remained unchanged. About a year ago, I started indoor cycling (Zwift) quite regularly — about 2.5 hours per week, averaging right in the middle of my target heart rate zone. Diet remained the same. Weight remained mostly unchanged (still in my ideal weight range — I’ve maybe lost 5 or so pounds, but I lost way more weight when only changing my diet). So — for me — diet has definitely had more impact on my weight than my level of activity.
- tonyedgecombe 1y ago
  People tend to adjust their activity to maintain their energy expenditure without consciously thinking about it. So a 30 minute session in the day might be followed by more time on the sofa later on.
  - jader201 1y ago
    I don’t think I could spend much more time on the sofa before I started cycling. :)
yoz-y 1y ago
So you can indeed outrun a bad diet, it just takes more running than most people w̶a̶n̶t̶ have time to to do!

jchw 1y ago

Yeah. Sure, your body can adjust how much calories are burned when you're idle, but it can only do so much. If you're burning thousands of calories on daily activity, it's gotta come from somewhere.

coffeefirst 1y ago

Yeah, this is a scale problem. You can hop on a plane and go from a driving-city to a walking city, look around and see the difference. I can't accept that this doesn't matter. But if you take the common American diet where the bread of your sandwich is shelf-stable because it's packed with sugar and oil, and that's before we even talk about portion size, "more running than most people want to do" quickly becomes "recreate the scene from Forest Gump."

robertlagrant 1y ago
> I can't accept that this doesn't matter. It's not that it doesn't matter, it's the asymmetry. You can eat a small chocolate bar that costs $1 (or whatever) in about 15 seconds, and it will take you 2 hours of walking to wear off the calories.
- const_cast 1y ago
  It's more complicated than this, because muscle raises your basal metabolic rate. If you look at bodybuilders, they're buring 400 calories a day, regardless of exercise. Having an extra 100 pounds of muscle means your body just burns A LOT of calories doing absolutely nothing. This is part of the reason why men burn more calories than woman just right out of the gate.
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 1y ago
    A pound of fat burns ~3 calories, while muscle is ~8 per day. Sure, it is different, but unless you are the Rock, most people do not have enough muscle mass to make a difference.
    - const_cast 1y ago
      This is just not true, if you look at women and men of similar height men still burn significantly more calories. Hormones, I'm sure, play a role too but testosterone is sticky. More weightlifitng raises your testosterone - so you should be seeing that benefit.
  - rgoulter 1y ago
    > men burn more calories than woman just right out of the gate Sure, but parent's point is that the energy input from sugary snacks like chocolate roughly equates to a significant amount of exercise. (Over an hour of walking). -- Maybe the caloric equivalent amount of walking is a little longer or shorter for different bodies. How might you take action from this understanding, though. Gaining an extra 100 pounds of muscle is hardly an easy/tangible feat. "Reducing intake of sugary snacks" is going to be easier than "walk for over an hour".
    - const_cast 1y ago
      You don't need 100 pounds of muscle to reap the benefits. My point is, yes eating a sugary snack takes 1 hour of walking. But it doesn't take 1 hour of weightlifting. It can take 0 hours of weightlifting, if you've already been weightlifting. Even with walking and running, you do build muscle. When the treadmill says 100 calories, you didn't actually burn 100 calories - you burned 100 plus the increased rate from the muscle you gained. So, if you're an athletic person, you're burning more calories regardless of if you work out. Just by existing, sleeping, whatever, you have a big head start. For some athletes, this head start is in the 1000s of calories range.
      - robertlagrant 1y ago
snozolli 1y ago
You can hop on a plane and go from a driving-city to a walking city, look around and see the difference. I can't accept that this doesn't matter. It's a whole lot easier to hit up a drive through or grab a tub of ice cream at the grocery store when you're driving a car. You're not wrong, though. Walking around doesn't burn a lot of calories (~100/mile), but most people become overweight by only slightly overeating on a daily basis, over a long period of time. One can of soda has 140 Calories. 140 excess daily Calories is an extra pound of fat per month.
Spivak 1y ago
Well yeah, the sugar is also there to produce the soft squishy texture people expect from sandwich bread as well as the aiding the Maillard reaction when it's grilled. Miss me with a grilled cheese made with any other kind of loaf. But we are talking about bread here, even in the absence of sugar and oil it's still got plenty of calories for you. Grain St Methode's white bread, a no added sugar brand is 180 cals for two slices and Wonder Bread, famously packed with sugar, is 140 cals for two slices. It's the bread which is making you fat, the sugar isn't moving the needle in any direction as far as the obesity crisis is concerned.
tonyedgecombe 1y ago
Exercise definitely helps you improve your eating patterns. In particular it helps you deal with stress which is a source of bad food habits.

bluedino 1y ago

You were also younger. I used to house whole pizzas for lunch. Now I only eat 2 slices and weigh the same.

ch4s3 1y ago
The difference in metabolic activity as you age is relatively small until you are quite old, like a single digit percentage difference. You can go look at any TDEE calculator and see this.

palmfacehn 1y ago

I can confirm the same from my messenger days. On days when deliveries were sparse, we found ourselves moving from cafe to bakery, eating more pastries than a doctor would recommend. Regardless of the day's activity levels we would generally drink large amounts of beer after work and sometimes during. Maintaining weight and satisfying our appetites was always a more pressing concern. I'm not a dietician, but when I read things like this NPR report, I wonder how much of it is motivated reasoning. "It is not your fault", is always a good come-on for a sales pitch. This report seems like something people would like to hear, especially if they haven't come to enjoy strenuous exercise. That said, I've always had a bias against highly processed foods.

naikrovek 1y ago
what is "processed" versus "highly processed" versus "ultra processed"? the way these things are described feels very much like people are using a dowsing rod to find where to dig a well, or something. mumbo-jumbo. I'm sure even "super ultra giga processed" foods are fine for you so long as you don't eat a lot of them. I'm not even sure that "processed" is bad at all. I don't want to eat raw cashews, I'll die (as will anyone else) I want those processed by cooking. Is pre-cooked food "processed" or "highly processed" or "ultra processed" or something else? all of the above; it depends on who you ask. I don't know of any level of "processed" which is bad, I just know that if you consume 10k calories per day and only burn 3k, you're going to gain weight, level of "processed" probably doesn't matter. And I think that's all this study is saying: unless you're extremely active, you can't burn 10k calories a day, your body really limits how many calories you can burn in a day unless you are physically working enough to actually turn that amount of energy into physical work. anyway, yeah. i immediately distrust anyone that starts mentioning "processed" or "highly processed" or "ultra processed" because I don't think those are defined. I think they're speaking entirely on vibes which are not quantitative.
- palmfacehn 1y ago
  >Wise Cheez Doodles Honey Bbq Cheese Flavored Corn Snacks, Honey; Bbq; Cheese >CORN MEAL, VEGETABLE OIL (CONTAINS ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING: CORN, COTTONSEED, SUNFLOWER, OR CANOLA OIL), SUGAR, SALT, HONEY, CORN STARCH, FRUCTOSE, WHEY, DEXTROSE MONOHYDRATE, MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE (FLAVOR ENHANCER), TOMATO POWDER, CHEDDAR CHEESE, (CULTURED MILK, SALT ENZYMES), ONION POWDER, BUTTER (CREAM, SALT), BLUE CHEESE FLAVOR, BUTTERMILK SOLIDS, MALTODEXRIN, YELLOW 5 LAKE, YELLOW 6 LAKE, GARLIC POWDER, PAPRIKA EXTRACT, NATURAL FLAVORS (CONTAINS CELERY), SOYBEAN OIL, LACTIC ACID, CITRIC ACID, SODIUM PHOSPHATE, ENZYME MODIFIED BUTTER OIL, YELLOW 5, YELLOW 6, AUTOLYZED YEAST EXTRACT, THIAMIN HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B1), DISODIUM GUANYLATE, DISODIUM INOSINATE

_Wintermute 1y ago

Yep, at one point in my life I was consistently cycling for 30 hours a week and eating enough became a chore. So it's definitely possible, but it requires enough exercise that's essentially a full time job.

hermitcrab 1y ago
I once trained pretty hard for several months for a martial arts competition. I upped my calorie intake to keep up with the training and put on about ~15lb of muscle. What people don't tell you about this sort of intensive training is just much extra time you spend each week shopping, cooking, eating and taking a shit - on top of all the training!
ericmcer 1y ago
I had a similar situation in my early 20s. My conclusion was that past a certain point you need to use liquid sugar (soda especially) to get your body to put on weight past a certain point. Even with absurd amounts of fat, carbs and proteins I could not process enough food to put on the weight I wanted too. Sugar is the backbone of massive weight gain.

plantwallshoe 1y ago

The most effective exercise for weight loss is fork put-downs.

roguecoder 1y ago
[citation needed] That is not what any of the studies I have read find, particularly not past the short term: past calorie restriction diets is one of the factors associated with developing obesity.
- g3f32r 1y ago
  Isn't that a bit of a truism? A _past_ calorie restriction is associated with a _current_ calorie surplus. Obviously if the calorie restriction were being continued, one wouldn't be developing obesity.
- cthalupa 1y ago
  "Fork put downs" does not mean a crash diet or anything like that. It means permanently adjusting your caloric intake to levels that allow you to reach and maintain a healthy body weight and body fat makeup. If you're eating 6000 calories a day there is no way you're out-exercising that diet while working a full time job.
simonbarker87 1y ago
And plate push aways
- machomaster 1y ago
  And spoon reversals
kelnos 1y ago
I see fork put-downs touted by random influencers and life coach type people on the internet, but this feels like one of those things that sounds profound but isn't based on any research other than someone's individual anecdotal experience. I'm skeptical that this actually does anything.

jader201 1y ago

Anecdotal counterpoint: I have been quite sedentary for several years, since going fully remote. I had seasons where I would gain wait and lose weight, and my level of activity remained unchanged. A few years ago, I started paying more attention to my weight, and got to where I was consistently in my ideal weight range. Again, level of activity remained unchanged. About a year ago, I started indoor cycling (Zwift) quite regularly — about 2.5 hours per week, averaging right in the middle of my target heart rate zone. Diet remained the same. Weight remained mostly unchanged (still in my ideal weight range — I’ve maybe lost 5 or so pounds, but I lost way more weight when only changing my diet). So — for me — diet has definitely had more impact on my weight than my level of activity.

tonyedgecombe 1y ago
People tend to adjust their activity to maintain their energy expenditure without consciously thinking about it. So a 30 minute session in the day might be followed by more time on the sofa later on.
- jader201 1y ago
  I don’t think I could spend much more time on the sofa before I started cycling. :)

yoz-y 1y ago

So you can indeed outrun a bad diet, it just takes more running than most people w̶a̶n̶t̶ have time to to do!