Word.
I agree that psychologically, burning yourself out at the gym or doing a run is heartbreaking when you realise you’ve ‘only’ burned 200 calories or something. However, if you’re in a position where your weight is stable, you ingest the same amount every day, and you also burn those 200 calories every day, then you will indeed (slowly) lose weight. Or simplistically it is as if you didn’t eat that candy bar.
Furthermore as your fitness rises your BMR will increase, and you will be able to perform more vigorous exercise for longer periods, thus burning more calories than before. The real trick, and the difficult part, is not to increase your calorific intake because you’re exercising.
Sustained vigorous exercise is also a good natural antidepressant, and many people who comfort eat due to unhappiness when sedentary find that they no longer feel the need to do this, which also helps reduce calorific intake.
(By the way, I take issue with the common assertion that walking a mile and running a mile burn the same energy. I know the difference isn’t huge, but when running you are propelling your entire body mass upwards by a couple of inches for every step, whereas when walking you don’t raise your center of gravity by all that much.)
I realize that my quote did not explain that PA equals “physical activity”, and that such might not be as obvious as I thought. Sorry 'bout that.
The actual article is pretty good and summarizes what actual studies have been done. This was an interesting bit:
They also provide the data that supports the points made here by others, that there are substantial benefits associated with physical activity even with only very modest (under 3%!) weight loss and the potential for a virtuous cycle of more fitness allowing for more intense activity and therefore more calories burned and more fitness.
The most important exercise is the press - pushing yourself away from the kitchen table.
But I find I lose weight quicker and keep it off easier if I balance a good diet with exercise 4-5 times per week.
I was going to post a similar question. If I go for a half-hour walk every day, I seem to avoid gaining weight, or even lose weight if I eat right, but I steadily gain weight if I don’t go on that daily walk. But the walk burns a mere 150 calories since it’s a relaxed pace, not race walking. I probably eat that much when I return home from the walk. So exercise must yield weight-loss benefits other than burning calories, but I don’t know exactly what.
My anecdote/data point: I’m currently doing Weight Watchers and have lost over 25 pounds so far (go me!). I walk, but I don’t do any more vigorous exercise than that (I’m too heavy to do high impact exercise without killing my knees). So really, all my weight loss has been down to the change in diet, not exercise.
That’s not to say I don’t plan to exercise in the future - once I’m down to a weight where I can do high impact exercise, I will start doing it.
My Weight Watchers subscription gives me access to a bunch of articles they have put together from published sources and the consolidated evidence seems to be that one of the best predictors of maintaining weight loss is regular exercise.
Exercise is particularly useful if you are a normal weight and want to lose 5-10 lbs. There’s only so low you can realistically take your calories and still get basic nutrition, but you can always exercise more. Someone who maintains their weight on 1500 calories is going to find exercise a great help in losing weight (though even that they will do slowly). On the other hand, if you are very overweight and maintain on 3000 calories, and you want to maintain a 1000 calorie a day deficit, exercise can only provide a small portion of that. When you are very obese, I think exercise is most useful so that you build the habits for later.
Where exercise is really useful is in weight maintenance. People keep saying “Oh,that’s like what, 200 calories?” as if that were nothing, but an extra 1400 calories a week to play with is a HUGE difference in lifestyle. It’s being able to go out to dinner once a week, or have half a bottle of wine on Friday night, or a mid-morning latte every day. It’s being able to take part in office birthday parties. It’s cheese on your sandwich, a handful of chips at a party, an ice cream cone at the zoo. Obviously, you can’t do all of these things every day because of exercise, but regular exercise means you can do a few of them every week, and that makes all the difference in the world in terms of sustainability, both from a pleasure point of view but also from a functioning in society point of view.
People are like “Oh, that’s like what, a candy bar?”, but a life with candy bars in it is a better one.
A half hour walk every day is great, and you should keep doing it, but I doubt it has much of a physiological impact on your weight loss. I suspect it is more psychological, I find that if I exercise I am better at eating right.
The effects on BMR from adding muscle mass are a bit over rated. When measured, it usually amounts to about 4 o 5 calories per pound of muscle per day. So even, if you put on ten pounds of muscle, you’re only swinging the pendulum by 50 calories. Nice, but not gonna make the difference between obese and fit.
But, muscle mass does make you look better naked, so there’s that!
Actually, running or walking a given distance burns about the same amount of Calories (I don’t know about swimming). Running for the same time will certainly burn more, but walking a certain distance, you’ll spend more time doing it, which about evens it out.
And exercise can certainly make a difference. I burned off the bulk of my freshman year weight gain that summer, by biking 9 miles a day to and from my summer job.
The master speaks.
One other obvious benefit of exercise is improved management of mood. In my view this is probably the main benefit in the long run, rather than the direct physiological benefits.
One finding of successful 5 year+ significant weight loss veterans was about 90% of them do an hour of brisk walking or even more exercise a day. Exactly why this seems to be needed isnt entirely known, but it does seem to be an important component of long term weight loss and maintenance. It could be a statistical artifact of some sort, but in my view this is a powerful argument for exercise as a part of weight loss where possible.
http://www.ajcn.org/content/82/1/222S.long
(skip down to the ‘National weight control registry’ or read the entire article)
Otara
Diet is more important for weight loss, IMO. A problem I have with working out at the gym is I feel really hungry after the workout and eat up eating a lot more calories than I burned off so I never lose any weight. Very frustrating.
The only way I’ve been able to lose weight in the past was eating really early suppers, staying hungry at night and enjoying a big breakfast the next morning. Lots of water too.
The most I could burn at the gym is 700 calories an hour, and that’s doing an eliptical full speed nonstop for an hour!
I’m not sure why you’re complaining about burning 700 calories in an hour - that’s not bad. It’s almost 1/3 of an average day’s calorie intake for a man and more than that for a woman. You could grab a Snickers on the way out of the gym and still be 400 calories ahead.
I was going to say, 700 calories is a serious amount of burn. That’s a whole extra meal for a lot of people.
Then you should learn which low calorie foods are filling for you. It’s very possible to exercise, and eat a filling and satisfying meal that doesn’t out weigh (pardon the pun) your workout.
And drink lots of water. Always drink water.
“The Master” has often been giving pretty inadequate answers for several years now. This one for example significantly misrepresents the American College of Sports Medicine recommendations. The guideline extant at that time was this one. Despite “Cecil”'s statement that it specifies aerobic not resistance, it specifically advised both. It also was very specific in stating their then current thinking:
Running is somewhat less efficient than walking in terms of calories per distance. Yes, the biomechanics of gait. The same distance run will burn more calories and would, by that then extant guideline’s statement, be of slightly greater benefit. But not by much. And of course the benefit is achieved by running is achieved in much less time. (“He” should have stopped with that.)
I haven’t read the whole thread, so sorry if this is repetitious, but:
What I learned in my weight loss classes (associated with the program which allowed me to lose 140 pounds or so) is this:
You can’t lose large amounts of weight (over 10%) with exercise alone; you can only lose large amounts of weight through greatly reduced caloric intake, combined with gradually increasing exercise to prevent your metabolism from slowing down (due to the lower calories).
However, regular but varied calorie-burning exercise is essential for keeping the weight off, once you have lost it.
This has to do with losing large amounts of weight, not that nagging 15 pounds you put on during the holidays. If you have been fat and then lost a lot of weight, your body wants to be fat again. Eating modestly and exercising faithfully are proven in various studies to be the most consistent path to keeping off large amounts of weight.
Based on my experience over the past 7 years, it works for me.
GEEPERS: eat a high-protein bar or drink a high-protein shake (look for a high ratio of protein to calories, 1 gram protein to 10 calories is good if you can find it) within 30 minutes of finishing your exercise. It will help you control your appetite, and the protein will help build up whatever muscles you have been exercising, so over time exercise gets easier and more pleasurable.
Roddy
I guess I am also being repetitious, but FWIW…
When it comes to losing weight – and permanently keeping it off – diet is *much *more important than exercise for the average person.
As others have stated, exercise is still important. Especially cardiovascular exercise. But the average person is not going to spend enough time exercising for it to have a significant impact on weight. It really comes down to ease… it is much easier to *not *eat a donut than run two miles, and both are equivalent.
To lose weight and keep it off, a person must permanently change their style of eating.