Does exercise really not help with weight loss?

I think it depends on your body type. If I exercise regularly I stay a size 8 and pretty toned no matter how much I eat. I have a 5 month old DS so only manage to run two or three times a week but we walk 10km+ a day and the wine and chocolate isn't sticking to me.

Exercise definitely helps. I started doing 4 bootcamps a week a few months ago. I've lost 12lb with zero change to my diet. I know I eat too much. I have no willpower to diet. I love wine and crisps and have them every day. The only solution for me was to radically up the challenging exercise, as I enjoy exercising but hate dieting. I know I'd lose loads more if I also dieted. And it's possible my weight might now stabilise at the new lower but still too-fat weight. but it's better than sitting on the sofa all day.

As well as eating the calories back there's quite a well known effect where people reduce their non formal exercise (NEAT) when they've done a hard cardio session eg you go for a long run but then sit on the sofa the rest of the day and don't do housework or walk to the shops. It's not a conscious thing so people don't realise they are doing it.

NEAT is a big contributor to weight maintenance and I think that's why lockdown has been so bad for people. They've lost all those little bits of exercise. I have a job where I walk around on site a fair bit. Not strenuous manual labour by any means but I just get up and down a fair bit. It shocked me when we went to wfh some days how I could literally be rooted to a chair all day and how shit it makes me feel. DH has a job like that all the time and it's definitely harder for him to keep weight off than me.

Since I've known about the importance of this effect I make a conscious effort eg to always take the stairs rather than the lift, never drive if I could walk or cycle. I say to myself when forcing myself to take the stairs 'this is free exercise. Think how much you pay for the gym so don't pass this up!' If you make sure to add those little things on to your formal exercise it definitely makes a difference.

I don't really agree with the 80% / 20% and think that exercise has had far more importance for me in losing 3 stones. I started with 5:2, then moved onto 16:8 and have now just moved to a later breakfast after I've exercised. I haven't counted calories at all or weighed portions, so have eaten normal family meals, cake, chocolate etc.. Obviously, there is some calorie reduction associated with intermittent fasting, but I haven't had to think about it and have genuinely eaten freely. The biggest difference, I think, is that I've found maintaining my weight to be easy (have kept it off for a year now) and can more or less eat whatever I want. I'm a runner, but also cycle and lift weights/do some general strength type stuff. I know it's anecdotal, but I have to say that the only people I know who have lost weight and kept it off are those that have got quite heavily into exercise.

It definitely helps, but as others have said exercise doesn't burn anywhere near as many calories as most people think, so you need to reduce intake too.
I find that regular exercise makes me look better because I'm more toned, even if I haven't lost significant weight. I think it contributes quite a lot to inch loss for me, but not that much to weight loss. I've lost a lot of weight through diet over the last year or so, but still had a waist measurement that was too big, until I started doing regular core exercises. And of course exercise has a multitude of other benefits too. So its a good thing to do for lots of reasons, but it wont be very effective as a weight loss technique unless uou also modify your diet.

My running is 300 cals per hour.

I find having fitness targets encourages me to eat better, it seems to be easier to avoid junk food if I'm in a good exercise regime.

If I've done a good workout I quite fancy a mackeral salad or some scrambled eggs on wholemeal toast after. If I've been slobbing around on the sofa I'm more likely to have something less worthy!

Nope my bread and butter is coming out nearer 500.
2 x 40g bread is 200
40g butter is about 280.

Ok I know someone will come back saying 40g is loads but it's not as much as you think. Weigh bread, spread normally, reweigh.

off, not odd.

Of course it can help but it's much easier to cut out the calories in food than to try to work them off. Eg you could easily take in 1000 calories in junk food but it would take a lot of exercise to work that odd.

If I'm exercising I can't eat at the same time 😁.

If I do a combat or attack class I can burn about 450-500 calories

I've just been for a nearly two hour run and my Garmin says I used 800 calories. When I weighed three stone more I used considerably more calories for the same duration.

I lost the weight through controlling the calories rather than exercise.

I think the biggest issue is underestimating the calories burned in a session. I compete in triathlons and for all my training session i wear a chest strap with a heart rate monitor, when compared to my smart watch the difference is huge - with the smart watch grossly over estimating effort.

Its widely acknowledged that with your diet its easy to misjudge portion size/calories so its recommenced to weigh and log everything. Do the same for exercise if you want to use if for weight loss, but make sure you do it accurately and use a HRM on a chest strap. The accuracy it offers is far higher and will help you really factor.

Just checked a few online calculators for a variety of low-moderate HR for an hour of exercise and at my weight and age I burn between 450-550 calories estimated. That's a decent burn!

Some wild variations in people's understanding of how many calories are in food ... two pieces of bread and butter is closer to 350 than 500kcal, unless you're absolutely slathering it in butter or cutting doorstops off of your loaf, and a mars bar is worth about 30 minutes of running at a steady state.

The amount of calories burnt from exercise is directly related to the HR and duration of exercise. If you sustain a higher heart rate for a longer period of time, you will burn more calories than a lower HR in a short period. Have you tried using a calorie burn calculator online to see what your output actually is? Wear a chest strap HR monitor if you think any watch etc you have is inaccurate.

Personally I find that I am much hungrier on days where I exercise, and I have to maintain a lot of control (which usually fails around 4pm) to not scoff food.

I lost 20 kilos through diet, not through any major increase in my exercise in terms of cycling/running/gym. What I do now though is walk everywhere. I almost never drive, I walk or take a bus (walking to the bus stop!). I think the accumulation of steps over the year that I lost the weight by changing my eating was very helpful, but is was mostly the drastically fewer calories that helped me lose weight.
It certainly won't do you any harm and is good for your body and mind in so many ways, but unless combined with a lot less food it won't do much for your weight.

@catinthewindow I don't think most people could run at that pace for an hour. I for one would be dead! Most people would go slower, I think.

I do cardio but mostly lift weights. I will burn 500 calories per hour lifting but 100 per ten mins killing myself on cardio... I can do about ten mins and then it's 70-80 for the remainder.

One thing I have learned is that any sports watch will grossly over estimate the calories used for anything!

Yeah totally agree. cycling is better than nothing and at least gets you some outside air but a 1hr cycle to work wouldn't really burn much caloriewise.

Just to add, I don't weigh myself (so the muscle weighing more than fat thing doesn't apply), but my clothes fit better, I look and feel better when I exercise, so must be losing fat.

Exercise makes a huge difference to me in controlling my weight. I don't think it's so much the calories burnt when exercising (I never really think about that), but the general boost it gives to my sluggish metabolism plus the building of muscle, which also burns more calories.

For me, exercise doesn't have a huge impact on the scales, but it does change (improve) what I see in the mirror and how strong/healthy/fit I feel.

Same here. I’ve never looked better than when I had a PT, even though I wasn’t my lightest.