Help not losing weight

It seems pointless to exercise then

Not at all, exercise will make you fitter, healthier, help prevent disease and you'll build muscle, which raises your BMR so you burn more calories at rest. And it makes you feel good! Nothing helps my mental health as much as running.

It's just that if you're over eating and eating crap food, it'll be so much harder/impossible to lose any significant weight.

How much weight have you got to lose, OP?

It's not pointless to exercise at all. As well as improving your overall fitness, exercise builds muscle and muscle is good for weight loss. More muscle means you burn more calories/fat.

Exercise is far from pointless.

Firstly it's irrelevant how many calories you burn. What's relevant is how many calories you eat.

Eat the same as you burn, maintain weight, eat less than you burn, loose weight, eat more than you gain weight. You are doing the first.

So it doesn't matter if it's 200 or 700. You're eating those calories back.
If you don't do this, you will loose weight.

Secondly exercise tones you up. Changes your body definition. So instead of a body with no muscle definition and kinda flabby you look much much better both in and out of your clothes.

However if you think exercise can help you loose weight, whilst you just eat more to offset the exercise, no that doesn't work. You need a calorie deficit. You need to do it in conjunction with diet.

But if you want the toned arms, the flat stomach, the pert back side, the toned thighs, as well as the weight loss, then this is where exercise comes in.

And that's before any of the health benefits, inc mental and physical.

Don't give it up, but if you want to loose weight with it, then yes you need to manage your food intake st the same time.

It seems pointless to exercise then

Pointless only if you see exercise as a way to lose weight. It is far more than that though.

I maintain my weight by intermittent fasting. I maintain my fitness by exercising hard four or five times a week. More often if I can find the time.

I've gone back to fasting two days a week and logging foods on MFP. When I tried fitness alone without either of those two, I best maintained and often gain weight.

I don't exercise for cal burn but I just looked up what Strava said I used on a 7.55 mile run. 700. That was quite hard running. Heart rate high, out of breath. There's no way a 4 mile walk, some housework and 30 mins exercise is using that.

Are you only eating when you're hungry?

I'd have a look at this book.... it's brilliant!

How Not To Diet: The Groundbreaking Science of Healthy, Permanent Weight Loss https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1509893067/ref=cmswwrcppapiii_K8phEb9KC0BXR

Exercise improves my mood and fitness so not pointless at all

I burn 900/1000 calories with 45 mins high intensity cardio (xtrainer/bike), 45 mins lifting weights and then swimming 30 lengths. I have to do that 5/6 times a week with a mostly ‘clean’ diet to lose weight. The exercise is a trade off to not having to count calories or starve myself! Luckily I love it now.

I burned 790 calories today but it was during 2 hours of classes - body combat and body balance.

Itsnotmyparty that's not right, and she's not burning 700 a day. As a pp said she's likely burning 120 over and above her basic burn, which is likely between 1200 and 1500 depending on her height weight etc.

Op, you'd have to seriously go some to burn 700 calories. The reason you're not loosing weight is because you're not burning that, and because the amount of food you eat is enough to maintain your current weight (assuming you're not gaining)

Factually you're eating the calories required to maintain your weight. There is no deficit.

At a push based on what you've described I'd say you're likely burning approx 200. Maybe 300 but it unlikely.

You need to eat less than you burn, and right now you're not. As such, you need to reduce your food intake or increase your exercise. I'd suggest the former.

The 700 calories is how many calories she is burning in total in the day, not just through exercise. Apple watches show your total "Move" calories. So 700 sounds about right, when you incorporate the exercise.
If I do no exercise or barely move during the day (this isn't very often) I'd still burn around 200

1 mile is at most 20 minute walk to me, going at school child pace.

You can't out-exercise a bad diet

I hate that old cliche. You totally can out-exercise a bad diet - you just have to exercise more than most people would think possible!

But that's of no use to the OP, so sorry for going off on a tangent

My advice would be to exercise for fitness and health, but focus on what you eat to lose weight.

Ignore the calories burnt from exercising as these can be misleading, and start tracking your calories in everything you eat and drink. Eat three healthy meals a day, cook from scratch and include a variety of fruit and veg, honestly it'll drop off. I lost 5 stone this way, and it's my lifestyle now.

Use exercise to gain fitness, not to give yourself extra calories. That's a bad road to go down (trust me!).

You can't out-exercise a bad diet.

That's four miles. The trouble is that walking barely uses more calories than not walking.

OP, it's probably not what you want to hear but, if you want to lose a few inches, then the most effective (and fastest) way is to eat less.

I think OP said she is walking 8 miles/day (that would basically take me 3 hours) plus 1.5 hours of other 'exercise'. 700 kcal doesn't look implausible. Very admirable for your cardiovascular system, anyway.

I too supect your watch is vastly over-estimating how many calories you are burning. I'd need to run hard and hilly for at least an hour and a half to burn that many. I''m not sure what youtube exercises you are doing but ones that include weights (including bodyweight exercises) and HIIT will build muscle faster and help you lose more weight than purely aerobic based ones.

Also, be aware that you might start to notice a difference in how loose your clothes feel way before you see a difference on the scales.

700 calories sounds a little optimistic. In a one hour very intensive gym session (with a trainer), I burn about 350-400 calories more than I do in the same time when not exercising.

I don't know the watch in question, but the stats ImRealHonest quotes sounds more like it. 120 exercise cals will be much closer to the truth than 700, for a bit of a walk and 30 mins exercise at home.

I know that's quite dispiriting, but that's why most people find it easier to lose weight through diet than through exercise. As you have to do a lot of exercise for that alone to make a difference.