Why doesn’t exercise really affect body weight?

[StrayHairsEverywhere]

As per the title really Why is it that food is so much more important than exercise when it comes to losing weight?

So I'd say you need to do more than 3 hours a day. Guess it depends how bad your diet is. Don't think mine is terrible!

I don't stuff my face on chocolate, crisps, etc and I don't drink. But I also rarely eat veg and don't have salad as much as I should. I tend to live on carbs.

I eat a lot (2500/day) without seeming to gain. Exercise (about 90 minuts/day) is only explanation I have.

Seems like a lot of people completely under-estimate how many calories they consume, though, it's sort-of-hidden calories they don't see to blame.

I exercise and don't eat back the calories that I burn that's where some people go wrong. Exercise makes me feel amazing and more eager to eat well which then makes me want to exercise because it makes me feel good.

Also different types of food and exercise work on different people you have to find what suits. But you should never write off exercise because even if you are happy with your weight/size etc it is so good for us physically and mentally!

I wish losing weight were as easy as putting it on in the first place! 🙄😄

On average, to burn off a 350-calorie doughnut, a person who weighs 150 pounds would have to swim for about 35 minutes, walk for 54 minutes, or attend an hour-long yoga class.

Leaving aside the fact that those calorie burns are wildly overinflated, those are all perfectly routine exercise sessions of the sort that the average person should be doing several times a week. It's infuriating that exercise is still seen in some circles as something to be endured - "I ate a Mars Bar and now I need to swim for HALF AN HOUR to burn it off". Barring people with physical or other real limitations, exercise really shouldn't be that big a deal.

I think the issue is that usually people who want/need to lose weight don't have the requisite fitness to burn off enough calories in the time they have available for exercise to make a significant enough difference

It Is possible to lose weight purely by doing exercise but you will see much quicker results if you reduce the amount you eat as well

It's an interesting one really, because actually when I was sedentary I found it incredibly hard to eat little enough to lose weight. I was constantly starving when I was on a diet.

I now walk (very briskly!) for at least an hour a day, often swim (again, fast enough that I'm puffed out) 2.5km+ in a session, and do yoga etc.

This means I can eat a "normal" diet - so I still have to stay away from crisps because I have zero self control, but I can have a slice of cake and eat meals that involve pasta and cheese and the such - and still lose weight. I have been losing weight very slowly - about 3/4 of a pound a week, but I'm not grumpy and it's sustainable. I've also got a lot slimmer than the weight I've lost. I've lost just under a stone but I'm back to the size I was when I was more than a stone and a half lighter.

Whereas if I were sedentary, I would have to have basically cut butter, cake and cheese out my life entirely in order to stay low enough on calories to lose weight.

to burn off a 350-calorie doughnut, a person who weighs 150 pounds would have to swim for about 35 minutes, walk for 54 minutes, or attend an hour-long yoga class.

"Leaving aside the fact that those calorie burns are wildly overinflated"

55yo woman, calories burnt calculator
Hmmm... 35 minute swim, avg HR = 140 bpm (which is a fairly hard swim, admittedly) = 377 kcal burned

54 minutes brisk walk, HR assumed to avg 115 bpm, 210 kcal

1 hr yoga assuming HR only 90 bpm: that objection seems fair enough. 71!

If I change to 20yo male weighing 150 lbs, the calorie expenditure goes up wildly, even the yoga gets to 510 kcal/hr. So the estimate wasn't wildly wrong, just depends on person applied to and how hard they work.

Unless your 55yo woman is Sharon Davies I very much doubt many normal people of that age could swim with sufficient vigor to burn 377 cals in 35 mins (I know I couldn't and I'm above average fitness)

Because it is hard to outrun a fork

This is the truest thing I've read today

You don’t need to exercise massively to loose weight, cut your TDEE calories by 300 a day, run for two miles a day ,approx 200 calories burned gives you the magic 500 calorie deficit, that should equate to a pound a week weight loss all things being equal, yes you could just eat 500 calories less and not bother with the runs but you will look much more toned and feel so much fitter and you will be doing your physical and mental health the world of good, exercise is pretty wonderful when you think about it.

I have found the heartbreak diet the most effective for me - no food, lots of gin. Thin. I don't really recommend it but I'm happy and fat now.

Exercise is just good for the spirit and toning up ime. My metabolism is relatively unaffected.

I'm a reasonably good swimmer and I burn 337 calories in an hour. I don't eat any thing before I go swimming, and I eat the same size breakfast as I would on a non swimming day. I also burn 333 calories over an hour walking fast (thats 15 minute miles), if I walk for 2 hours a day (I usually do, sometimes more), thats 1000 calories a day spent on 'exercise' added on to my BMR of approx 1280 . That adds up to 2280, and I haven't even included my general activities like housework.
It's quite easy to create a calorie deficit on 2280+ calories just by being sensible, no need to feel constantly hungry or deprived of the odd treat. It's easy to to fit in 3 decent meals and a bar of chocolate and a glass of wine (for example) into that amount of calories.
Since I started swimming more regularly and walking more I've lost weight at a nice steady pace without really thinking about my diet at all.

Swimtag reckons I burn (avg) 297 kcal in 35 minutes of swimming. I am >50yo but under 150 lbs. I'm usually the slowest in the fast lane. The Channel swimmers (women about my age but a lot faster) could burn 377 in 25 minutes, I reckon (!)

39,713 kcal burned in 78 hours is my Swimtag record, if anyone wants to check my math.

According to Fitbit , when I ran 21km it burned 1300 calories, which isn't even as much as a McDonald's meal. In fact, I'd have to walk to my local MacDonald's and back 4 times, fast, to burn the calories in a meal, maybe more.

I also think people think obviously MacDonald's is unhealthy, but don't realise how many calories are in other things (large steaks for example, or salads with dressings, or nuts etc- all healthy foods but very high calorie)
It's very easy to be in denial about the calorie burn of cardio because it feels like hard work if you're unfit.

I run 40km a week, do strength and circuits, and do an average 17k steps a day (ie far from sedentary) and I still have to calorie count and be mindful of what I eat.

It's far easier to control your input than your output, but doing both is key to losing weight and keeping it off.

Because you can eat 1000 calories in 10 minutes if you wanted to. It takes way longer than that to burn 1000 calories!

Perfect reply, white-hall-eve

Perfect reply
It's not really, because it doesn't account for BMR. You don't actually have to do exercise to 'burn off ' 1000 calories.

Because most people hardly exercise/live sedentary lifestyles.

I went swimming yesterday, breast stroke for 40 minutes at a slow pace. Burned 220 calories. I then went for a latte in Costa afterwards and recorded it on the mfp app. It was 220 cals as well.

It's just too easy for energy to go in, and not so easy for it to come out!

I know the ‘number of calories used’ that show on the machines in the gym aren’t true (I think I read you need to reduce these by 20%?) but I use approx. 1000 calories per gym session by doing:

Stairmaster - 15 mins
Hill walk - 10mins
Stepper - 15 mins

I then do 20 mins weights and 10 mins abs and do this routine 4-5 times a week.

Diet definitely plays a big part in losing or maintaining weight but nobody can say that doing exercise has little or no impact on weight loss. As PP’s have said, you just have to get out of the mentality that you leave the gym and go straight for a coffee/cake/sandwich just because you’ve done some exercise.