How much difference will exercise make to weight loss?

[SeatbeltExtender]

I know we can't out run a bad diet.
I know exercise is good for us

But will gentle exercise ( I'm very fat and unfit) make a difference on the scales?

Not really. BUT it can make you feel good about yourself and motivate you to change your dietary habits.
You can lose weight without exercising at all if you reduce calories, but you could exercise your self crazy and not lose any weight if you are eating too much. It really is mostly what you eat I’m afraid.

It makes a difference to your stamina and overall health but not your weight. Your shape may change as your fitness gradually improves.

I feel it will make a difference, not on it’s own no but it will increase your overall calorie burn so you will lose the weight marginally faster than diet alone.

I think exercise is excellent for everyone for many other reasons but it certainly encourages you to stick to your eating plan.

yes - it makes a difference. If I put in the effort to do some exercise (even just walking) I tend to make better choices regarding food that day/week.

If you still eat the same , which I presume is over the calorie intake your body requires, but you walk enough to burn more than those extra calories and include a deficit to what your body needs , then yes.
But if you over eat and walk then you are just minimising how much weight you gain.
However, starting a health journey with walking will help keep your heart healthy and improve your mental health. If your mental health improves then you may then feel more encouraged to start looking at what you eat too .

Good luck 😊

Exercise is good for you in ways other than weight loss. Mental health, managing blood sugar, cholesterol, improving heart and lung capacity, balance, coordination, toning muscle and preventing falls and injury as you get older.

For exercise to really make a difference with weight loss it needs to be quite intense/ high volume, but, starting with whatever gentle exercise you can do now gets you a little bit closer to being able to do more effective exercise for weight loss / maintainance in the future.

Exercise can help with mood and motivation to stick with a healthier diet. Weights, pilates or swimming can help with with toning and sculpting and reducing the feeling of being a bit squishy after losing weight.

Don't wait to lose weight before starting to incorporate some form of exercise, the best time to start for the most benefit is always now!

It makes a huge difference to your health, appearance and wellbeing.

Any exercise is better then no exercise

After lockdowns I was very fat ( bordering obese ) and very unfit and not getting any younger. So I walked, not just the gentle stroll with my pug, Id walk him, and then go again, a bit further and a bit faster. Not every day, I wasn't going out all weathers and here in NI we have a lot of weather, but slowly it crept up. I walk the road I live at the end of. I know where the quarter mile, the half mile, full mile markers are - the road is 1.5 miles long. At first just getting to the quarter mile and back was enough, but then I managed the full mile, then I could easily do the full mile so slowly it increased

After about a year I got my butt into SW and started to change my eating habits - 2023. I also started Park run - I walk it, there's lots of walkers at park run. I walked 26 miles for charity for my 60th last year and I came in the top 30% of finishers

Still not slim, still carry a bit too much about the belly, but Im so much fitter then I was and I have my BMI down to a healthy range

Mood has definitely lifted, Im a lot happier then I have been in years. I have more energy. I have made sustainable changes to my diet as well , I don't snack so much, when I do I reach for protein instead of cake/crisps - Id rather an egg or a chicken drumstick or a couple of pieces of cheese and some fruit

The weight loss has been down to diet, but Id never have made the changes without starting the exercise

Gentle exercise won’t do anything in terms of weight loss but it will help with self esteem, joint health, mobility, mental health etc.

Gentle exercise will also improve your fitness, which will allow you to access increasingly intensive exercise, which really can help with weight maintenance.

Building muscle will lead to more definition as you lose weight.
The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn from just resting or sleeping.
You are likely to make better choices because you have exercised (although many people go the other way and have more treats because they 'deserve it')
You will have more energy
You will feel better in general
Your heart, lungs and other organs will be healthier = reducing chances of many diseases which in time could lead to more weight gain/limit movement
Day to day life gets easier as you get fitter

I inderstand all the extra benefits

All things being equal...this is just a hypothetical example

if I eat the same one week and don't do any extra exercise and I lose (for example ) 2lbs

The following week I eat the same but do some extra exercise will I lose. 2.5lbs ( again just an example)

Potentially yes, but you'd need to be doing quite a bit of exercise to speed weight loss up.

It takes a lot of exercise to burn 3500 calories for a pound of weight loss. If you are more active all day that is likely to have a more significant effect than gentle exercise once or twice a week.

Exercising can lead to more food consumption as well, as people tend to overestimate how much they burn and underestimate how much they consume.

To lose half a pound extra in a week you'd need an additional calorie deficit of about 1750 calories for the week. That's 250 calories a day. So you're looking at doing some additional exercise every day, how much depends on your weight and the vigorousness of the exercise. There are Calories Burned calculators that will estimate it for you. If you're 100kg and you walk at a moderate pace for 30 minutes that might burn around 150 calories, for example.

(That’s not yo discourage you from exercising, which is good for you in innumerable ways! Just to be realistic about the affect gentle exercise will have on dieting - which is pretty much my life at the moment)

Yes. It will.
It will be minimal, but it is a starting point.
If you currently do no, or very little exercise, and you start gently exercising that is a good thing.
Then, feeling a little better, you increase that exercise. Perhaps build some brisk walks into your daily routine. Perhaps dance in the kitchen for 5 mins every time you go to make a cuppa. Perhaps start with one class a week you really enjoy. Then you add a bit more, and a bit more.

As pps have said, you need to do a good amount of fairly vigorous exercise several times a week to count it as weight loss, but the only way you are going to get to that level, is by starting from where you are.

Good luck, and well done for taking the first step.

I started off with exercise. I didn't lose any weight, but exercising consistently made me feel better. I also then wanted to improve and be able to do more. I joined a gym in Nov 23 and started eating better and calorie counting in Mar 24. Still going, doing OK. Try not to overthink it, but it's calories not exercise that will make the big difference.

It takes a lot of exercise to burn any significant calories but I would always recommend it

If anything it’s a motivator to keep going as you see fast results in your fitness and mobility and you are less likely to want to undo it with other choices, it really gets your endorphins going and during weight loss you need all the help you can get to feel good and stay motivated. It is also an excellent hobby to take up to get up and moving and come away from bad habits (tv, sofa, snacking)

You do not need to even do complex exercise just more walking

To give an idea of how much gentle exercise burns , when I did the charity walk , 26 and a bit miles , I walked solidly across cliffs and beaches and rocks and pavements - rough terrain , for 8.5 hrs and burned an whopping 2000 calories. It’s over 3000 calories needed burning to lose 1lb So minute I finished and went and ate the fish and chips offered , and snaffled a bar of chocolate , I’d cancelled them. Never look at exercise for weight loss. , look at it for the health benefits and the motivation it brings

I find gently moving through the day, pottering about doing housework etc really helps to control my hunger. I don’t think we are designed to be sat at desks all day and it mucks us about.
Any exercise you can start to do can only be a good thing. No you won’t suddenly drop a tonne of weight but it is a step in the right direction.
It is also surprising how quickly you can build up from say walking for 20 minutes to walking for an hour or two. If you get off your bum and walk everyday building up slowly you will be impressed by how much you can do in a couple of months.

If I’m active (without doing any proper exercise, just lots of walking) I burn off 500 calories extra a day. If I eat no more, then I’d loose a kg in 16 days. So it’s not nothing but also, it’s good for you and you’ll feel better.

To give you an idea how hard it is to burn off
fat, I just did 650kcal of work on my turbo trainer. It took me an hour and if all that 650kcal had come from fat it would have burned a measly 72g of bodyweight. In reality it probably burned less than half of that and the rest was glycogen (ie carbs from my last meal).

More research than I could list here about how healthy aerobic fitness necessary for long life, dementia reduction and lots of other fairly important things. Please don’t think of it as being about just losing weight. Exercise is important in and of itself. Strength also important - more important than you knew maybe. Listen to Zoe podcasts.

I started exercising regularly about a year ago.

I haven’t really made an effort to change my diet, and the numbers on the scales haven’t changed much - but - the big thing I’ve noticed as regards my appearance, is that my clothes started getting looser, my wobbly bits have got less wobbly, and I’m down a dress size. Without actually losing any weight on the scales.

Plus there’s all the other benefits mentioned above about feeling better, being healthier, etc which are all very important.

So I would say that while you need to focus on your diet for weight loss, regular exercise will make you look slimmer and more toned than someone of the same weight who doesn’t exercise.

I lose more weight when I'm exercising, I know that apparently exercise irrelevant to actual
Weight loss but this is what happens to me.