Vox: Why exercise isn't the key to losing weight

[fortnightlily]

I thought this was an interesting summary of the science.
www.vox.com/2016/4/28/11518804/weight-loss-exercise-myth-burn-calories

Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight, explained with 60+ studies
by Julia Belluz and Javier Zarracina on April 28, 2016

Welcome to Show Me the Evidence, where we go beyond the frenzy of daily headlines to take a deeper look at the state of science around the most pressing health questions of the day.
"I'm going to make you work hard," a blonde and perfectly muscled fitness instructor screamed at me in a recent spinning class, "so you can have that second drink at happy hour!"

At the end of the 45-minute workout, my body was dripping with sweat. I felt like I had worked really, really hard. And according to my bike, I had burned more than 700 calories. Surely I had earned an extra margarita.

The spinning instructor was echoing a message we've been getting for years: As long as you get on that bike or treadmill, you can keep indulging — and still lose weight. It's been reinforced by fitness gurus, celebrities, food and beverage companies like PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, and even public-health officials, doctors, and the first lady of the United States. Countless gym memberships, fitness tracking devices, sports drinks, and workout videos have been sold on this promise.

There's just one problem: This message is not only wrong, it's leading us astray in our fight against obesity.

To find out why, I read through more than 60 studies on exercise and weight loss. I also spoke to nine leading exercise, nutrition, and obesity researchers. Here's what I learned.


1) An evolutionary clue to how our bodies burn calories
When anthropologist Herman Pontzer set off from Hunter College in New York to Tanzania to study one of the few remaining hunter-gatherer tribes on the planet, he expected to find a group of calorie burning machines.

Unlike Westerners, who increasingly spend their waking hours glued to chairs, the Hadza are on the move most of the time. Men typically go off and hunt — chasing and killing animals, climbing trees in search of wild honey. Women forage for plants, dig up tubers, and comb bushes for berries. "They're on the high end of physical activity for any population that's been looked at ever," Pontzer said.

Table of contents
1) An evolutionary clue to how our bodies burn calories
2) Exercise is excellent for health
3) Exercise alone is almost useless for weight loss
4) Exercise accounts for a small portion of daily calorie burn
5) It's hard to create a significant calorie deficit through exercise
6) Exercise can undermine weight loss in other, subtle ways
7) Exercise may cause physiological changes that help us conserve energy
8) Energy expenditure might have an upper limit
9) The government and the food industry are doling out unscientific advice
10) So what actually works for weight loss?
By studying the Hadza's lifestyle, Pontzer thought he would find evidence to back the conventional wisdom about why obesity has become such a big problem worldwide. Many have argued that one of the reasons we've collectively put on so much weight over the past 50 years is that we're much less active than our ancestors.

Surely, Ponzer thought, the Hadza would be burning lots more calories on average than today's typical Westerner; surely they'd show how sluggish our bodies have become.

On several trips in 2009 and 2010, he and his colleagues headed into the middle of the savanna, packing up a Land Rover with camping supplies, computers, solar panels, liquid nitrogen to freeze urine samples, and respirometry units to measure respiration.

In the dry, open terrain, they found study subjects among several Hadza families. For 11 days, they tracked the movements and energy burn of 13 men and 17 women ages 18 to 75, using a technique called doubly-labeled water — the best known way to measure the carbon dioxide we expel as we burn energy.

When they crunched the numbers, the results were astonishing.

"We were really surprised when the energy expenditure among the Hadza was no higher than it is for people in the US and Europe," says Pontzer, who published the findings in 2012 in the journal PLoS One. While the hunter-gatherers were physically active and lean, they actually burned the same amount of calories every day as the average American or European, even after the researchers controlled for body size.

Pontzer's study was preliminary and imperfect. It involved only 30 participants from one small community.

But it raised a tantalizing question: How could the hunting, foraging Hadza possibly burn the same amount of energy as indolent Westerners?

hunter gatherer
Javier Zarracina/Vox
As Pontzer pondered his findings, he began to piece together an explanation.

First, scientists have shown that energy expenditure — or calories burned every day — includes not only movement, but all the energy needed to run the thousands of functions that keep us alive. (Researchers have long known this, but few had considered its significance in the context of the global obesity epidemic.)

Calorie burn also seems to be a trait humans have evolved over time that has little to do with lifestyle. Maybe, Pontzer thought, the Hadza were using the same amount of energy as Westerners because their bodies were conserving energy on other tasks.

Or maybe the Hadza were resting more when they weren't hunter-gathering to make up for all their physical labor, which would also lower their overall energy expenditure.

These are still only theories. But they have profound implications for how we think about how deeply hardwired energy expenditure is and the extent to which we can hack it with more exercise.

If the "calories out" variable can't be controlled very well, what might account then for the difference in the Hadza's weights?

"The Hadza are burning the same energy, but they're not as obese [as Westerners]," Pontzer said. "They don't overeat so they don't become obese."

This fundamental concept is part of a growing body of evidence that helps explain a phenomenon researchers have been documenting for years: that it's extremely difficult for people to lose weight once they've gained it by simply exercising more.

2) Exercise is excellent for health
Before we dive into why exercise isn't that helpful for slimming, let's make one thing clear: No matter how working out impacts your waistline, it does your body and mind good.

A Cochrane Review of the best-available research found that, while exercise led to only modest weight loss, study participants who exercised more (even without changing their diets) saw a range of health benefits, including reducing their blood pressure and triglycerides in their blood. Exercise reduces the risk of Type 2 diabetes, stroke, and heart attack.

A number of other studies have also shown that people who exercise are at a lower risk of developing cognitive impairment from Alzheimer's and dementia. They also score higher on cognitive ability tests — among many, many other benefits.

If you've lost weight, exercise can also help weight maintenance when it's used along with watching calorie intake.

3) Exercise alone is almost useless for weight loss
exercise weight loss bike
So the benefits of exercise are real. And stories about people who have lost a tremendous amount of weight by hitting the treadmill abound. But the bulk of the evidence tells a less impressive story.

Consider this review of exercise intervention studies, published in 2001: It found that after 20 weeks, weight loss was less than expected, and that "the amount of exercise energy expenditure had no correlation with weight loss in these longer studies."

To explore the effects of more exercise on weight, researchers have followed everybody from people training for marathons to sedentary young twins, and post-menopausal overweight and obese women who ramp up their physical activity through running, cycling, or personal training sessions. Most people in these studies typically only lost a few pounds at best, even under highly controlled scenarios where their diets were kept constant.

Other meta-analyses, which looked at a bunch of exercise studies, have come to similarly lackluster conclusions about exercise for losing weight. This Cochrane Review of all the best-available evidence on exercise for weight loss found that physical activity alone led to only modest reductions. Ditto for another review published in 1999.

University of Alabama obesity researcher David Allison sums up the research this way: Adding physical activity has a very modest effect on weight loss — "a lesser effect than you'd mathematically predict," he said.

We've long thought of weight loss in simple "calories in, calories out" terms. In a much-cited 1958 study, researcher Max Wishnofsky outlined a rule that many organizations — from the Mayo Clinic to Livestrong — still use to predict weight loss: A pound of human fat represents about 3,500 calories; therefore cutting 500 calories per day, through diet or physical activity, results in about a pound of weight loss per week. Similarly, adding 500 calories a day results in a weight gain of about the same.

Today, researchers view this rule as overly simple. They now think of human energy balance as "a dynamic and adaptable system," as one study describes. When you alter one component — cutting the number of calories you eat in a day to lose weight, doing more exercise than usual — this sets off a cascade of changes in the body that affect how many calories you use up, and in turn, your body weight.

For weight loss, calorie restriction seems to work better than exercise, and calorie restriction plus exercise can work a little better than calorie restriction alone, according to Allison.

4) Exercise accounts for a small portion of daily calorie burn
One very underappreciated fact about exercise is that, even when you work out, those extra calories burned only account for a tiny part of your total energy expenditure.

"In reality," said Alexxai Kravitz, a neuroscientist and obesity researcher at the National Institutes of Health, "it’s only around 10 to 30 percent [of total energy expenditure] depending on the person (and excluding professional athletes that workout as a job)."

total energy expenditure
Components of total energy expenditure for an average young adult woman and man.
There are three main components to energy expenditure, Kravitz explained: 1) basal metabolic rate, or the energy used for basic functioning when the body is at rest; 2) the energy used to break down food; and 3) the energy used in physical activity.

We have no control over our basal metabolic rate, but it's our biggest energy hog. "It's generally accepted that for most people, the basal metabolic rate accounts for 60 to 80 percent of total energy expenditure," Kravitz said. Digesting food accounts for about 10 percent.

That leaves only 10 to 30 percent for physical activity, of which exercise is only a subset. (You can read more about this concept here and here.)

"It's not nothing, but it's not nearly equal to food intake — which accounts for 100 percent of the energy intake of the body," Kravitz said. "This is why it's not so surprising that exercise leads to [statistically] significant, but small, changes in weight."

5) It's hard to create a significant calorie deficit through exercise
Using the National Institutes of Health Body Weight Planner — which gives a more realistic estimation for weight loss than the old 3,500 calorie rule — mathematician and obesity researcher Kevin Hall created this model to show why adding a regular exercise program is unlikely to lead to significant weight loss.

body weight planner
Javier Zarracina/Vox
National Institutes of Health Body Weight Planner.
If a hypothetical 200-pound man added 60 minutes of medium intensity running four days per week while keeping his calorie intake the same, and he did this for 30 days, he'd lose five pounds. "If this person decided to increase food intake or relax more to recover from the added exercise, then even less weight would be lost," Hall added. (More on these "compensatory mechanisms" later.)

So if one is overweight or obese, and presumably trying to lose dozens of pounds, it would take an incredible amount of time, will, and effort to make a real impact through exercise.

6) Exercise can undermine weight loss in other, subtle ways
How much we move is connected to how much we eat. As Hall put it, "I don't think anybody believes calories in and calories out are independent of each other." And exercise, of course, has a way of making us hungry — so hungry that we might consume more calories than we just burned off.

One 2009 study shows that people seemed to increase their food intake after exercise — either because they thought they burned off a lot of calories or because they were hungrier. Another review of studies from 2012 found people generally overestimated how much energy exercise burned and ate more when they worked out.

"You work hard on that machine for an hour, and that work can be erased with five minutes of eating afterward"
"You work hard on that machine for an hour, and that work can be erased with five minutes of eating afterward," Hall added. A single slice of pizza, for example, could undo the benefit of an hour's workout. So could a cafe mocha or an ice cream cone.

There's also evidence to suggest that some people simply slow down after a workout, using less energy on their non-gym activities. They might decide to lay down for a rest, fidget less because they're tired, or take the elevator instead of the stairs.

These changes are usually called "compensatory behaviors" — and they simply refer to adjustments we may unconsciously make after working out to offset the calories burned.

7) Exercise may cause physiological changes that help us conserve energy
The most intriguing theories about why exercise isn't great for weight loss describe changes in how our organs regulate energy after exercise.

Researchers have discovered a phenomenon called "metabolic compensation," whereby, as people either expend more energy through physical activity or lose weight, their basal metabolic rate slows down.

"The more you stress your body, we think there are changes physiologically — compensatory mechanisms that change given the level of exercise you're pushing yourself at," said Loyola University exercise physiologist Lara Dugas. In other words, our bodies may actively fight our efforts to lose weight.

This effect has been well documented, though it may not be the same for everyone.

For one fascinating study, published in the journal Obesity Research in 1994, researchers subjected seven pairs of sedentary young identical twins to a 93-day period of intense exercise. For two hours a day, nearly every day, they'd hit a stationary bike.

The twins were also housed as in-patients in a research lab under 24-hour supervision and fed by watchful nutritionists who measured their every calorie to make sure their energy intake remained constant.

Despite going from being mostly sedentary to spending a couple of hours exercising almost every day, the participants only lost about 11 pounds on average, ranging from as little as 2 pounds to just over 17 pounds, almost all due to fat loss. The participants also burned 22 percent fewer calories through exercise than the researchers calculated prior to the study starting.

By way of explanation, the researchers wrote that either subjects' basal metabolic rates slowed down or they were expending less energy outside of their two-hour daily exercise block.

Dugas called this phenomenon "part of a survival mechanism": The body could be conserving energy after exercise to try to hang on to stored fat for future energy needs. Again, researchers don't yet know why this happens, and how long the effects persist in people.

"We know with confidence that some metabolic adaptions occur under some circumstances," said David Allison, "and we know with confidence some behavioral compensations occur under some circumstances. We don't know how much compensation occurs, under which circumstances, and for whom."

8) Energy expenditure might have an upper limit
Another theory as to why it's hard to lose weight through exercise is that energy expenditure plateaus at a certain point. In another Pontzer paper, published in 2016 in the journal Current Biology, he and his colleagues found evidence of an upper limit.

They cast a wide geographic net, recruiting 332 adults from Ghana, South Africa, Seychelles, Jamaica, and the United States. Tracking the study participants for eight days, they gathered data on physical activity and energy burned using accelerometers. They classified people into three types: the sedentary folks, the moderately active (who exercised two or three times per week), and the super active (who exercised about every day). Importantly, these were people who were already doing a certain amount of activity, not people who were randomized to working out at various levels.

Here, physical activity accounted for only 7 to 9 percent of the variation in calories burned among the groups. Moderately active people burned more energy than people who were sedentary (about 200 calories more each day), but above that, the energy used up seemed to hit a wall.

"After adjusting for body size and composition," the researchers concluded in the study, "total energy expenditure was positively correlated with physical activity, but the relationship was markedly stronger over the lower range of physical activity."

In other words, after a certain amount of exercise, you don't keep burning calories at the same rate: Total energy expenditure may eventually plateau.

additive model
In the traditional "additive" or "linear" model of total energy expenditure, how many calories one burns is a simple linear function of physical activity.

"That plateau is really different than the standard way of thinking about energy expenditure," Pontzer said. "What the World Health Organization and the people who build the Fitbit would tell you is that the more active you are, the more calories you burn per day. Period, full stop."

Others have documented this "energy ceiling" or "upper limit" in everyone from Tour de France participants to Olympic cross-country skiers and non-athletes.


In the "constrained" model of total energy expenditure, the body adapts to increased physical activity by reducing energy spent on other physiological activities.
Based on the research, Pontzer has proposed a new model that upends the the old "calories in, calories out" approach to exercise, where the body burns more calories with more physical activity in a linear relationship (also known as the "additive" model of energy expenditure).

He calls this the "constrained model" of energy expenditure, which shows that the effect of more physical activity on the human body is not linear. In light of our evolutionary history — when food sources were less reliable — he argues that the body sets a limit on how much energy it is willing to expend, regardless of how active we are.

"The overarching idea," Pontzer explained, "is that the body is trying to defend a particular energy expenditure level no matter how active you get."

He and others need to gather more evidence to validate this hypothesis. But it's a fascinating possibility, among all the others, that may help explain why joining a gym as a sole strategy to lose weight is often an exercise in futility.

9) The government and the food industry are doling out unscientific advice
Since 1980, the obesity prevalence has doubled worldwide with about 13 percent of the global population now registering as obese, according to the World Health Organization. In the United States, nearly 70 percent of the population is either overweight or obese.

A lack of exercise and too many calories have been depicted as equal causes of the crisis. But as researchers put it in an article in BMJ, "You cannot outrun a bad diet."

Since at least the 1950s, Americans have been told that we can. This Public Health Reports paper outlines the dozens of government departments and organizations — from the American Heart Association to the US Department of Agriculture — whose campaigns suggested more physical activity (alone or in addition to diet) to reverse weight gain.

Unfortunately, we are losing the obesity battle because we are eating more than ever. But the exercise myth is still regularly deployed by the food and beverage industry — which are increasingly under fire for selling us too many unhealthy products.

"Physical activity is vital to the health and well-being of consumers," Coca-Cola says. The company has been aligning itself with exercise since the 1920s, and was recently exposed by the New York Times for funding obesity researchers who emphasize a lack of physical activity as the cause of the the epidemic.

Physical activity and diet should never be given equal weight in the obesity debate
It's just one of many food companies that's encouraging us to get more exercise (and keep buying their products while while we're at it): PepsiCo, Cargill, and Mondelez have all emphasized physical activity as a cause of obesity.

The exercise myth for weight loss also still appears in high-profile initiatives like the first lady's Let's Move! campaign — largely because of the food industry's lobbying efforts, according to Marion Nestle, New York University nutrition professor. The White House's exercise focus to end childhood obesity, Nestle said, was "a strategic decision to make the message positive and doable and, at the same time, keep the food industry off its back."

But this focus on calories-out, or the calories we can potentially burn in exercise, is "an inadequate and a potentially dangerous approach, because it is liable to encourage people to ignore or underestimate the greater impact of energy-in," an obesity doctor and professor wrote in the journal Public Health Nutrition.

In other words, we can lose sight of the fact that it's mostly too much food that's making us fat. "There are all kinds of reasons to exercise that are good for your health," says Diana Thomas, a Montclair State University obesity researcher. "However, if you're trying to lose weight, the biggest problem I see is food. We need to cut back the food we're eating."

The evidence is now clear: Exercise is excellent for health, but it's not important for weight loss. The two things should never be given equal weight in the obesity debate.

10) So what actually works for weight loss?
At the individual level, some very good research on what works for weight loss comes from the National Weight Control Registry, a study that has parsed the traits, habits, and behaviors of adults who have lost at least 30 pounds and kept it off for a minimum of one year. They currently have more than 10,000 members enrolled in the study, and these folks respond to annual questionnaires about how they've managed to keep their weight down.

The researchers behind the study found that people who have had success losing weight share a few things in common: They weigh themselves at least once a week. They restrict their calorie intake, stay away from high-fat foods, and watch their portion sizes. They also exercise regularly.

But note: These folks use physical activity in addition to calorie counting and other behavioral changes. Every reliable expert I've ever spoken to on weight loss says the most important thing a person can do is to limit calories in a way they like and can sustain, and focus on eating more healthfully.

In general, diet with exercise can work better than calorie cutting alone, but with only marginal additional weight-loss benefits. Consider this chart from a randomized trial that was done on a group of overweight folks: There was little difference in the absolute weight loss between the group that restricted their calories and exercised, and the group that restricted their calories alone:

diets compared
There was little difference in absolute weight loss between the group who dieted and exercised and the group who only dieted.
If you embark on a weight-loss journey that involves both adding exercise and cutting calories, Montclair's Diana Thomas warned not to count those calories burned in physical activity toward extra eating.

"Pretend you didn't exercise at all," she said. "You will most likely compensate anyway so think of exercising just for health improvement but not for weight loss."

Editor: Eliza Barclay
Visuals: Javier Zarracina
Researcher: Mohsin Ali

[niq]

Matt Yglesias, who is a writer for Vox, lost a bunch of weight a few years ago. He wrote a piece about his experiences that's very similar.

thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/01/03/199520/new-years-weight-loss-advice/

The good news is that the typical American diet has a ton of "empty calories" in it, so if you just start with "drink only water and black coffee, and replace all snacks with vegetables", it's easy to make progress.

[Deleted]

This is why I'm fat. Seriously. I work out like a crazy person most days of the week. I do high intensity interval training videos most days with Core Power Yoga mixed in the others. And yet, I'm still fat because I can't stop eating (and drinking wine). And that whole thing about exercise makes you eat more, yeah, that is my personal biggest struggle.

Eta: I'm strong and I have a lot of muscle and exercise is very good for me mentally. But that muscle is also covered in fat

[thebreakfastclub]

I remember when I first started tracking exercise and food. I thought it was a cruel joke to see that 45 minutes of cardio and weights burns like 175 calories.

I do find when I'm working out I am much less likely to eat mindless junk that undoes it though.

[mrshandy]

As someone who runs marathons and exercises a lot, I agree completely.

Diet is really more important and I try to tell people that.

My personal experience is I really need both. Because I don't have the discipline to deny myself treats. I eat well most of the time, but I'm not counting calories and I eat treats most days. I feel like running/lifting gives me the wiggle room for those treats and still be at a weight I'm happy with.

[Deleted]

Apr 28, 2016 10:12:31 GMT -5 thebreakfastclub said:

I remember when I first started tracking exercise and food. I thought it was a cruel joke to see that 45 minutes of cardio and weights burns like 175 calories.

I do find when I'm working out I am much less likely to eat mindless junk that undoes it though.

I do agree with this too. When I'm working out I do eat less junk food because I can't workout if I've eaten junk.

[CheeringCharm]

It's all such a mind fuck. I guess it makes sense that it's such a complicated issue that there really isn't a "one size fits all" solution for everyone like the old calories in/calories out theory because the human body can vary so much from person to person. It all just sucks so much though because you feel like you're wandering around in the dark. I've noticed that it's harder to maintain at my desired weight the older I get so I've tried exercising more and eating less and it's not really working which is frustrating. Exercising does make me a lot hungrier and more prone to eat. It also gives me this feeling like I "deserve" to indulge which is probably backfiring on me.

[Deleted]

I work out a lot, I used to work out more but there's less time/access now. That said, even when I was working out an absurd amount - I lost weight when I focused on my diet. That's what's always worked for me.

[darnkatz]

I've started working out and I've gained TWELVE fucking pounds. TWELVE! And the kicker here is that I've started watching my portions and avoiding junk. I obviously threw that to the wind last night when I drank a couple extra dirty vodka martinis and ate half a pint of Ben&Jerry's.

I weigh 3 pounds less than I did yesterday. I quit. EAT ALL THE ICE CREAM! 
 

[Deleted]

As a naturally thin/average person (it's because I have ulcerative colitis so don't be jealous or anything) I can attest to the value of exercise. I don't exercise. I am so out of shape. I started running this week and was winded at the end of my street. I would be more likely to have a heart attack than that girl that runs marathons but just happens to be fat.
And I know society likes the skinny woman but as I get older (I will be 40 this year) I am more jealous and impressed by the fit woman. My friends post their running distances, their spinning success (@marshmallows) and it inspires me.
I guess I am also impressed with a high school friend losing 80lbs but he also posts his exercise success more than the actual weight loss. The weight just pushed him to exercise and adjust to a healthier diet.

The people who have posted so far about exercising 3 times a week or even once but still being fat. I'm jealous of your discipline.

[andwhat]

Apr 28, 2016 9:55:35 GMT -5 niq said:

Matt Yglesias, who is a writer for Vox, lost a bunch of weight a few years ago. He wrote a piece about his experiences that's very similar.

thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/01/03/199520/new-years-weight-loss-advice/

The good news is that the typical American diet has a ton of "empty calories" in it, so if you just start with "drink only water and black coffee, and replace all snacks with vegetables", it's easy to make progress.

But I don't fall into that category.   I did a 3 month weight loss team challenge at work. I bust my ass and lost 13 lbs. One guy on my team lost 16 lbs just by switching to light beer. That is it. I know guys lose weight differently blah blah blah. But I already only drink water, don't drink coffee at all, and rarely have snacks. And I work out at least 4x a week.

[InBetweenDays]

I feel like it's been talked about for awhile that losing weight is predominantly due to diet (I've always heard 80% diet, 20% exercise). But for me they almost go hand in hand. When I exercise I feel stronger, when I feel stronger I feel better about myself, and when I feel better about myself I eat better. But, no matter what I can't give up the wine. I run so I can drink wine.

[niq]

Apr 28, 2016 11:44:34 GMT -5 @vicmo said:

Apr 28, 2016 11:03:46 GMT -5 andwhat said:

But I don't fall into that category.   I did a 3 month weight loss team challenge at work. I bust my ass and lost 13 lbs. One guy on my team lost 16 lbs just by switching to light beer. That is it. I know guys lose weight differently blah blah blah. But I already only drink water, don't drink coffee at all, and rarely have snacks. And I work out at least 4x a week.

Yeah, I feel like the "oh just quit drinking beer" advice is missing the point for people (cough, mostly women) who are already pretty careful in what they eat and drink.

Oh I agree that there are plenty of people (yes, mostly women) who are already diet-conscious enough that the "go after the low-hanging fruit" advice doesn't work.

And my feelings on weight loss are that people should do what makes them happy and not be stressed about how they look/feel. But that is easier said than done because beauty myth/double standards/how many women are losing weight "for themselves" vs "because society tells them they need to" etc etc. Also if being not stressed about how one looks/feels means stressing about one's diet/exercise, is that really an improvement?

To sum up, life is hard. HELPFUL, I AM.

[Deleted]

Apr 28, 2016 11:03:46 GMT -5 andwhat said:

Apr 28, 2016 9:55:35 GMT -5 niq said:

Matt Yglesias, who is a writer for Vox, lost a bunch of weight a few years ago. He wrote a piece about his experiences that's very similar.

thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/01/03/199520/new-years-weight-loss-advice/

The good news is that the typical American diet has a ton of "empty calories" in it, so if you just start with "drink only water and black coffee, and replace all snacks with vegetables", it's easy to make progress.

But I don't fall into that category.   I did a 3 month weight loss team challenge at work. I bust my ass and lost 13 lbs. One guy on my team lost 16 lbs just by switching to light beer. That is it. I know guys lose weight differently blah blah blah. But I already only drink water, don't drink coffee at all, and rarely have snacks. And I work out at least 4x a week.

Yup, me too. I hate when people stop drinking soda or something and lose weight. I already don't drink soda, or coffee, or anything other than water and an occasional seltzer. And yeah, I drink wine, but I must not drink as much as I think because even when I cut it out completely I don't lose weight. I don't eat bad foods, I just eat too much of the good things I'm eating apparently.

[mcfelix]

Apr 28, 2016 11:36:19 GMT -5 InBetweenDays said:

I feel like it's been talked about for awhile that losing weight is predominantly due to diet (I've always heard 80% diet, 20% exercise). But for me they almost go hand in hand. When I exercise I feel stronger, when I feel stronger I feel better about myself, and when I feel better about myself I eat better. But, no matter what I can't give up the wine. I run so I can drink wine.

I feel the same way. I am less likely to eat crap when I am consistently working out because I don't want to undo the good stuff that exercise is doing for my body. It's a positive cycle that feeds itself - once I get into it. On the converse, when I fall out of a gym routine, I also eat like crap.

I have to do both. Just mentally - I feel better about myself when I am working out. I want to keep that feeling alive by eating well and seeing myself get firmer and smaller. 

I did find the part about the energy output of the tribespeople being about the same as an American so interesting. I feel like people are always saying that oh people are more sedentary now, sitting at a computer all day long, blah blah blah. And while that might be true, that's not the core of the issue.

IMHO, the core of the issue is the government subsidizing unhealthy food!!! 

[purplecow0206]

Apr 28, 2016 13:25:01 GMT -5 mcfelix said:

Apr 28, 2016 11:36:19 GMT -5 InBetweenDays said:

I feel like it's been talked about for awhile that losing weight is predominantly due to diet (I've always heard 80% diet, 20% exercise). But for me they almost go hand in hand. When I exercise I feel stronger, when I feel stronger I feel better about myself, and when I feel better about myself I eat better. But, no matter what I can't give up the wine. I run so I can drink wine.

I feel the same way. I am less likely to eat crap when I am consistently working out because I don't want to undo the good stuff that exercise is doing for my body. It's a positive cycle that feeds itself - once I get into it. On the converse, when I fall out of a gym routine, I also eat like crap.

I have to do both. Just mentally - I feel better about myself when I am working out. I want to keep that feeling alive by eating well and seeing myself get firmer and smaller. 

I did find the part about the energy output of the tribespeople being about the same as an American so interesting. I feel like people are always saying that oh people are more sedentary now, sitting at a computer all day long, blah blah blah. And while that might be true, that's not the core of the issue.

IMHO, the core of the issue is the government subsidizing unhealthy food!!! 

I'm also this way. I really do better on the food when I'm working out. When I'm not working out, it's like I have a mental block to eat healthy.

[stealthmom]

This needs to be shouted from the rooftops.


Whenever anyone says weight loss is as simple as calories in and calories out I want to poke them in the eye. No dummy. It's not that simple.

[bcarp30]

I generally don't like articles like this because I think the main point can be missed. The way I look at my goal weight just restricting calories vs working out and eating well is vastly different. Even a bit higher weight wise if I'm working out I look better than just restricting. It's such a balance but overall you should workout to feel good and eat to fuel your body.

That said, it is frustrating that I don't eat sweets, drink, and greatly restrict empty calories and can't lose weight. And I do high impact, low impact, HIIT, etc and it doesn't seem to help either.

[itsme]

Apr 28, 2016 10:08:27 GMT -5 @awinter said:

This is why I'm fat. Seriously. I work out like a crazy person most days of the week. I do high intensity interval training videos most days with Core Power Yoga mixed in the others. And yet, I'm still fat because I can't stop eating (and drinking wine). And that whole thing about exercise makes you eat more, yeah, that is my personal biggest struggle.

Eta: I'm strong and I have a lot of muscle and exercise is very good for me mentally. But that muscle is also covered in fat

This was me recently.  Once I dialed in on the food I started losing the weight.  It's hard as hell at first but eventually it gets easier and making better decisions about what you eat isn't a chore and no longer a difficult one.

[rugbywife]

This is also why I am overweight. I have no moderation when it comes to food. Where someone else will take one titbit, I take 10. I am not joking. Some days I wonder how I don't weigh even more than I do.

[leonard131]

While I realize diet is really the key to losing weight the benefits of exercise and how it makes me feel outweigh everything else.  To me it is my calming agent and makes me feel strong and comfortable in my clothes.  I realize if I just ate like crap I wouldn't get the benefit gaining muscle and therefore feeling better about the way I looked but if I only relied on diet I wouldn't feel this way either. 

[bananapancakes]

Apr 28, 2016 15:03:09 GMT -5 rugbywife said:

This is also why I am overweight. I have no moderation when it comes to food. Where someone else will take one titbit, I take 10. I am not joking. Some days I wonder how I don't weigh even more than I do.

This is me and this is why I need WW in my life. I could easily pound back 10 timbits but knowing the point value and having to track them makes me stop. Each one is 3 points and I only get 32 points a day. I'd be almost all out after that one "snack".

I've heard, "You lose weight in the kitchen and get fit in the gym." before and I think it's totally true.

[fortnightlily]

Apr 28, 2016 15:41:55 GMT -5 @starry said:

Before I invest my time is the article just about weight or does it also address health / longevity?

Just weight. It doesn't discount the importance of exercise for overall health.

[anna7602]

Apr 28, 2016 9:55:35 GMT -5 niq said:

The good news is that the typical American diet has a ton of "empty calories" in it, so if you just start with "drink only water and black coffee, and replace all snacks with vegetables", it's easy to make progress.

Excuse my random tangent, but the "drink your coffee black" mantra I hear from MLM-types and gung-ho-health enthusiasts on a level with paleo-embracing types (sometimes one and the same) makes me want to claw my eyes out. I will let every member of my family and larger culture whose diet sucks keep their over-sweetened, super milky coffee if they would just lay off the bread and add a few more brightly-colored veggies to their plate every once in a while. 

I realize I am not making sense to anyone but myself, but I had to get that out. 

[niq]

Apr 28, 2016 21:43:36 GMT -5 anna7602 said:

Apr 28, 2016 9:55:35 GMT -5 niq said:

The good news is that the typical American diet has a ton of "empty calories" in it, so if you just start with "drink only water and black coffee, and replace all snacks with vegetables", it's easy to make progress.

Excuse my random tangent, but the "drink your coffee black" mantra I hear from MLM-types and gung-ho-health enthusiasts on a level with paleo-embracing types (sometimes one and the same) makes me want to claw my eyes out. I will let every member of my family and larger culture whose diet sucks keep their over-sweetened, super milky coffee if they would just lay off the bread and add a few more brightly-colored veggies to their plate every once in a while. 

I realize I am not making sense to anyone but myself, but I had to get that out. 

Hah.

I always hear the advice as targeting soda. Which, okay, weird to replace soda with coffee. Of course these days there are all sorts of zero calorie sparkling water options too, so maybe that line is obsolete

[Queen Mamadala]

Yep. I've been saying this for years now. When I initially lost a massive amount of weight I didn't do any sort of exercise until I met my 100 lb loss goal, and then I started doing T-Tapp as a means to strengthen muscles and tone up. T-Tapp worked amazingly well for me. I looked great, lost a lot of inches, toned up nicely. It made me feel and look great, and the weight I did lose, not really trying, was a bonus.

[Deleted]

Apr 28, 2016 12:18:56 GMT -5 @awinter said:

Apr 28, 2016 11:03:46 GMT -5 andwhat said:

But I don't fall into that category.   I did a 3 month weight loss team challenge at work. I bust my ass and lost 13 lbs. One guy on my team lost 16 lbs just by switching to light beer. That is it. I know guys lose weight differently blah blah blah. But I already only drink water, don't drink coffee at all, and rarely have snacks. And I work out at least 4x a week.

Yup, me too. I hate when people stop drinking soda or something and lose weight. I already don't drink soda, or coffee, or anything other than water and an occasional seltzer. And yeah, I drink wine, but I must not drink as much as I think because even when I cut it out completely I don't lose weight. I don't eat bad foods, I just eat too much of the good things I'm eating apparently.

Carrots can make you fat yo