To explain that exercise does not affect your weight, or impact on obesity rates

[allmyown]

I see this misconception all over MN every day.

Exercise is fantastic for your physical and mental health in many ways, but it is not a weight loss tool.

Posters are forever quoting energy in -minus energy out = energy stored, etc, as if we are petrol engines or something! we are not - this is not how our body works.

It is more like energy available / energy required to maintain weight= energy body decides to use.

Your body burns off excess energy if you are taking in more than your homeostatic systems think you need. Your body slows down and uses far less energy if you have taken in less than your homeostatic system thinks you need.

And so if you lose weight, and go below what your body wants you to be, then your metabolism will just slow down massively to make the weight go back on. And if you exercise a lot, your metabolism will just adjust to accommodate that.

The key to weight loss is making sure your homeostatic systems decide you should be a healthy weight. You can lower the weight your homeostatic systems is attempting to maintain, with healthy eating, cut out sugar, HPF, vegetable oil, margarine, and cut down on wheat.

Eat plenty of fresh food and greens, nothing long dated.

Unless you are running 10K every single day, you are not exercising enough to change your weight, and even if you are, it won't stay changed.

The obesity epidemic is related to sugar, highly processed food, vegetable oil, margarine, etc, and poor diet in general, not too little exercise.

But don't get me wrong, there are other health problems caused by too little exercise, I am not saying exercise is bad, just that an obese child is not necessarily a child getting inadequate exercise, as so many people seem to think.

Read "Why we eat too much" by Andrew Jenkinson, he explains the up to date science in so much more detail.

I'd love this to be true. Unfortunately, despite eating to the specifications you state, I've put on half a stone by being too busy to do my half hour of brisk walking each day. When I start again, I'll gradually lose it and keep it off.

Exercise may not help you to lose weight but it can help you to change your shape.
I currently weigh more than I ever have but I’m toned with good muscle definition.

Also I believe that for myself exercising leads to naturally eating a healthier diet (not eating less but making better choices). I don’t want a cheeseburger after working hard in the gym, I want a big bowl of veggies with some kind of protein.

I want to enjoy my food.

I know this in theory, however whenever I strength train the weight comes off faster - I don't know why but it works for me. Obviously I have to have a good diet too, but a good diet on its own doesn't shift the weight!

I eat way less crap when I exercise because the exercise makes me feel good and more in tune with what my body needs.

I have read this many times but it doesn't seem to equate with my experience . My husband has lost a stone by walking several miles every day. His diet hasn't changed at all. I was also at my lowest weight when I was much more active.

Sorry but when I was young it definitely made me lose weight. Anecdotal I know but 100% it did. In my 40s, not so much. Can only lose weight by diet.

I don't think you can out exercise a bad diet but I do think a good diet loses most of the weight and exercise helps to burn off some extra calories . I walk an hour a day as my exercise and it's definitely improved my rate of weight loss

I recently met a lady who walked with a crutch. She also happened to be very overweight. She had been having problems with her hips and had had it replaced and was waiting to get the next one replaced. She said that she couldn't lose any weight because she couldn't go for walks. Obviously I didn't say anything as it was not my place to, but it did run through my mind that her most likely option to reduce her weight (which I'm sure would help with the hip pain) would be connected to reduced calorie consumption. I hate exercise and the only times my weight goes up or down is when I eat more or less calories over a period of time. Of course I didn't say anything as I don't fully know her situation but I felt like she was trying to convince herself more than me.

Exercise absolutely helps with weight loss, especially if it's alongside a healthy diet.

You can't out-exercise a bad diet, though.

This is largely true OP, although you didnt need to recommend unncessary books, bit sick of these books being recommended on every weight loss thread which simply state the obvious

I get really hungry when I exercise and have put on weight back in the past when exercising,,, but right now I know that I need to do something more active in order to strengthen myself and I think that in turn will support my muscle to fat ratio.

If exercise doesn't impact weight, then why, when I suddenly couldn't do my very physical job, did I gain weight despite not changing my eating habits?

I don't agree. I got sick, couldn't exercise and put on a load of weight.

I was about to say just that.

I do both cardio/HIIT and weight training with dumbbells. The former has increased my stamina and fitness, but I am under no illusion about any calories burnt being significant.

Weight training has improved my muscle mass and toning no end. It most definitely has not led to weight loss, but my clothes feel looser and I quite obviously have less fat padding compared to 5 or 6 years ago when I started regularly working out with Caroline Girvan.

Also don't underestimate the positive effect of regular exercise and healthy eating on general energy levels, mood, sleep, et cetera.

When I move more, to the extent that I can, I feel better. It also changes how my body looks.

It does if you eat less than you burn, exercising means you burnt more calories than you would if you didn't do anything. Obviously if you eat them back then it makes no difference at all.

It's a difficult balance between eating enough to fuel exercise but eating less to lose weight.

It is good for you in a number of ways and should be encouraged.

The weight my body naturally gravitates to is around 10kg lower when I'm exercising a lot vs when I'm sedentary.
I also find it regulates my appetite.

OP as well intentioned as this is, it's not true - endless studies out there show the relationship between exercise & fat loss.

There are other associated factors like the effect of exercise on leptin levels with a concomitant positive effect on lowering hunger, or improved sleep which in turn leads to better leptin levels and less simple carb cravings.

Muscle work increases metabolic rate and makes it more likely (with more muscle) that you will burn calories for energy to maintain muscle mass rather than store it as fat, and so on.

I put on weight if I don't exercise and keep it off if I do.

That's because exercise burns calories. If you lose a lot of weight too quickly then your body may well go into starvation mode, if you don't it won't.

I lost four stone by taking up running and eating less. Nothing else in my life changed at all - I didn't even change what I ate, I just ate less of it.

Have now kept at my target weight for five years, and have kept up the running because it not only helps me to control my weight, but it keeps me fit so I can run up stairs, lift boxes at work, walk long distances all without flagging or having to sit down. My joints are all in tip top condition and I am very flexible (all this at 63, so well post menopause). Exercise isn't only for maintaining a good weight, it's a good thing for the body all round.

Perhaps you can't out exercise a bad diet but you also can't out-diet muscle loss or the harms of a sedentary lifestyle.

@labamba007 muscle uses a lot of energy so strength training increases your resting metabolic rate, plus being stronger generally means you're more likely to move around when not exercising.

I think exercise helps me to eat healthier. I feel so invigorated after and really positive I couldn’t shove lots of crap in my mouth to replace those 300 calories that I’ve just burnt off. I’ve just finished at the gym so am off to buy. Protien and salad for tea

The key to weight loss is making sure your homeostatic systems decide you should be a healthy weight.

Is this possible to do? I ask as in a Zoe podcast I listened Dr. Robert Kushner suggested extremely difficult to change body’s weight set point? See below:

“we are engineered to maintain our body in times of famine and starvation. So if you go back a hundred thousand years ago when normally you would have times of famine, the body developed adaptive ways to survive when there wasn't enough food around.

So we're very, very good at hibernating, if you will, and surviving without a lot of food. So our bodies adapt. It shuts down. You don't burn as many calories to get through those times when there isn't enough. So fast forward hundreds of thousands of years, and we don't have famine anymore, but our body is biologically engineered that way.

So will, if you go on a diet and you try to lose weight, you could do that. Pretty successfully early on by reducing your calories, as you said earlier, a calorie deficit, so you start losing weight cuz you go into an energy imbalance. However, from a biological point of view, our body thinks that it is famine time or starvation time.

So it goes into this down adaptation to get you through this period. the body is biologically engineered and wired to conspire against you. It does not want to have you lose weight, so it will defend what you weighed before you went on a diet. Interestingly, even though you had excess body fat or excess body weight, the body thinks that's where you ought to be.

So as you lose weight from time zero down, the body fights you, biologically that is, and the. You feel it is, you start getting hungrier as you try to keep your body weight down so food feels and looks more enticing. You're not as content eating the same amount of food you did before, so it drives you to eat more, and it is even more difficult than that.

Your energy expenditure or your resting metabolic rate, the number of calories you burn starts to go down. So you don't need as many calories as you did when you started. And we also now have identified that your muscles become more efficient. So as you're on a treadmill and you know, you're 3.5 for 30 minutes.

You don't burn as many calories cuz your muscles get more efficient in what you're doing. These are all the factors of the mechanisms the body puts into place to try to maintain where you were before and prevent you or make it harder for you to lose more weight. And at some point, individuals start to eat more and changed their diet to what it was and over time, Weight starts to go back up again.

So long-winded answer that. It's very, very difficult to take the weight off and keep the weight off because of the weight. We are biologically wired.”

Exercise is fantastic for your physical and mental health in many ways, but it is not a weight loss tool.

Given that a many people struggle with their weight because of poor mental health, then since it can help with mental health, I think it absolutely can be a tool for weight loss.

Obviously exercise can only help with weight loss if diet is taken into account too, so I agree that you can't out-exercise a bad diet. But the notion that being more active does absolutely nothing for weight loss (including, for example, motivation and MH benefits) and shouldn't be regarded as one of several tools in one's weight loss toolbox sounds a bit odd.

I find I eat better when I know I'm going to be exercising as exercise is harder when I've eaten crao, and that is just one of many ways in which exercising helps me with my diet and weight loss.

Plus, I'm short so I have to exercise quite a bit to lose weight as my maintenance calories are very low to begin with.

Because you need way more calories to maintain existing muscle than you do to maintain fat, so the more muscle you have the more calories will be burned as energy and NOT stored as fat (I'm a PT).

This is what I am trying to explain, exercising doesn't affect the number of calories that you burn. Almost all calories are burnt up by your bmr. If you exercise more, you bmr just adjusts to burn less, that is all. You don't burn up more calories because you are exercising more.