Abbey32
03-03-2004, 05:43 PM
So many people used to say you can't lose weight without exercise. Well, from all the people I have seen and heard from...they lose weight with no exercise and it is the food intake that makes them lose such as cutting back calories and lowering your carbs...plenty of water. People used to say eating this way will put you in starvation mode and you will not lose anything because your body will hold unto anything and everything. I do not think this is true. Look at anorexic people and bolemics...they lose a ton this way. For me...I can exercise a ton but eat bad and not lose but if I don't exercise but do eat right, I lose. So, in my opinion, it's the food that is making us fat, not the lack of exercise. Look at all the people on these weight loss pills...supresses their appetite, right? They lose by not eating! Whoever said starvation mode even existed was wrong in my opinion. And yes, I know you will gain it all back once you start to eat bad again but that's not my point. Take a look at really overweight people who can't get on the treadmill or even walk....put them on a diet and they lose anyway. They don't go into starvation mode. I know exercise is great for the heart but weight loss? I don't know.
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never2L8
03-03-2004, 08:12 PM
Losing weight without exercising increases your chances of regaining the weight, usually because people revert to old eating habits once they reach their desired weight. The end result is that they have not made any long term lifestyle change that will prevent them putting the weight on.
People who exercise while losing weight are more likely to keep weight off, especially if they continue to exercise once they achieve their goal weight. Quite often people find an exercise they enjoy, new friends to exercise with or they find they get a buzz from working out. I have known a few people who exercised to lose weight and became hooked on various forms of exercise like cycling, jogging etc.
Positive benefits of exercising while losing weight include: increased calorie expenditure, increase in lean muscle, improved cardiovascular health, reduction in blood pressure and cholesterol levels, improved mobility in limbs and joints, stress relief etc, etc...
People who exercise while losing weight are more likely to keep weight off, especially if they continue to exercise once they achieve their goal weight. Quite often people find an exercise they enjoy, new friends to exercise with or they find they get a buzz from working out. I have known a few people who exercised to lose weight and became hooked on various forms of exercise like cycling, jogging etc.
Positive benefits of exercising while losing weight include: increased calorie expenditure, increase in lean muscle, improved cardiovascular health, reduction in blood pressure and cholesterol levels, improved mobility in limbs and joints, stress relief etc, etc...
twiceblessed
03-04-2004, 12:38 AM
Aside from the above (which I agree with) who wants to lose weight and still look like...well...YICK! Weight loss doesn't equal "fit" or "firm". I could care less if I GAIN weight, as long as I lose INCHES from my body! I don't want to be 20 lbs. lighter with saggy skin! Just my opinion!
Abbey32
03-04-2004, 03:22 AM
Aside from the above (which I agree with) who wants to lose weight and still look like...well...YICK! Weight loss doesn't equal "fit" or "firm". I could care less if I GAIN weight, as long as I lose INCHES from my body! I don't want to be 20 lbs. lighter with saggy skin! Just my opinion!
You both missed the whole point. :rolleyes:
I only need to lose 10 pounds if that. I won't have saggy skin dear. And I have lost inches from dieting alone.
You both missed the whole point. :rolleyes:
I only need to lose 10 pounds if that. I won't have saggy skin dear. And I have lost inches from dieting alone.
alwaysgod2
03-04-2004, 08:05 AM
I dont agree with your 1st statement. yes u have a very true point and i too have noticed the same thing. I use to be anorexic/bulimeic and i lost 20 pounds in 2 weeks! yea a whole bunch. Wll the reason i stoppedwas because i got caught( and now i realize it was the moststupidsest thing i could ever do in my entire life) After i stopped i would only eat veryyyy little. And i still lost weight. Thats the reason i agree with ur statement. Because my body was deprived of food. So over about 4 months i lost 30 po0unds. Then i started to pick up weight. It wasnt my food or anything becasue i was a health freak. All i did was increasemy food intake some. You see ym body got use to not having any food. When i started to eat liiek a normal person BAM i gain 10 pounds. Now i realize its because mymetabolism got way off track and it took all last year to get it decent.Any extra food i would put into my body, my body saw as extra calories. I started to exercise at the beginning of the year (as a step to being a healthier person not to loose weight) All i did was jog for 15 min a day. Then after a month i wanted to get even more toned so i diid weight training and toning workouts a long with that. I was actually having fun because i dont exercise because i "have" too. After about 2 months I lost 15 pounds with out knowing it! And i looked so much better then the 1st time i lost weight. So im just saying, yea u can loose weight by depriving yourself of food, not having any energy through out the day, and feeling hungry 24/7 but does that really sound fun??? (When ever i was a/b i cant explain the pain i felt during that time. i cant explain how much energy it took to just get through the day! It was horrible.) Or you could loose the same amount of weight by exercising a little a day. You feel 100percent better. You have extra energy, and face it...it just makes u feel healthier. In my opinion.
never2L8
03-04-2004, 06:08 PM
Your original post was a statement as opposed to a question and we were offering our views for or against that statement. If you are happy dieting without exercising and want to keep going that way then fine - but for most people the longer you do this the harder the weightloss is to achieve.
If you have lost weight without exercising and have your diet in order but are having trouble losing the last 10 pounds - reached a plateau - then exercise can be beneficial. If you do between 30 and 60 minutes of aerobid activity (brisk walking, cycling, jogging, gym class) 4 or more days a week without increasing your calorie intake, the weight will come off. If you lift some weights on top of this, your lean muscle mass will increase and while you may not see any difference on the scales, your measurements will decrease.
If you have lost weight without exercising and have your diet in order but are having trouble losing the last 10 pounds - reached a plateau - then exercise can be beneficial. If you do between 30 and 60 minutes of aerobid activity (brisk walking, cycling, jogging, gym class) 4 or more days a week without increasing your calorie intake, the weight will come off. If you lift some weights on top of this, your lean muscle mass will increase and while you may not see any difference on the scales, your measurements will decrease.
scribbles
03-04-2004, 11:56 PM
Weight loss is simply achieving a negative energy balance over a period of time. So you can "exercise a ton and eat bad food and not lose weight" because you ate more than you needed. Or, you can "not exercise at all and eat healthy and lose weight" because you ate less than your total daily expenditure. You lost weight because, whether you were aware of it or not, you had restricted your caloric intake -- not because you didn't exercise.
Likewise, you can exercise and eat bad food and lose weight if you manage to burn all those calories. You can also exercise and eat healthy but not lose weight if you eat more than your body uses, etc...
The point is, you CAN lose weight without incorporating an exercise program, simply by reducing your caloric intake. Yes, you may lose weight faster than someone who combines both healthy eating and regular exercise, but up to 25% of that weight lost can be from muscle mass. This is bad news. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue, which means it needs to use fuel just to sustain itself -- for every pound of muscle you have, it will burn something like an extra 30-50 calories a day. It is what sets and maintains your basal metabolic rate, so the more muscle you have, the higher your metabolism. When you lose weight through dieting alone, you will slow down your metabolism (plateaus can result from this), making future weight gains and yo-yo weight cycling more likely.
However, this is where exercise can help. Resistance exercise functions to preserve/increase muscle mass. By minimizing muscle loss, you will decrease the chances of becoming a flabbier version of your lighter self. Aerobic exercise is beneficial as well, as it can burn more calories than a weight lifting session of the same duration. This is all good news, but there's more! Exercise simply makes achieving a caloric deficit easier -- without exercise, a 500 calorie reduction per day (for example) will all have to come from decreasing your food intake. But if you add in exercise, you can decrease your food intake by only 250 calories and expend the other 250 calories via exercise.
Exercise and diet are usually recommended together for weight loss because they optimize the energy deficit and make weight maintenance more successful (diet studies all show that the diet+exercise group are always more effective in maintaining their weight loss -- it's a lifelong, healthy behaviour change). Furthermore, exercising is advocated because it not only makes you look better, it will also help you feel better by increasing your energy levels, your muscle strength, flexibility, cardiovascular endurance, and decrease your risk of being diagnosed with a number of diseases and illnesses. All these benefits converge to improve your health-related quality of life.
So, for someone looking to lose 10 pounds or 100 pounds, they can either do it by solely restricting their calories, or by both a healthy restriction of calories and regular exercise. Both methods work -- one just has additional perks.
Likewise, you can exercise and eat bad food and lose weight if you manage to burn all those calories. You can also exercise and eat healthy but not lose weight if you eat more than your body uses, etc...
The point is, you CAN lose weight without incorporating an exercise program, simply by reducing your caloric intake. Yes, you may lose weight faster than someone who combines both healthy eating and regular exercise, but up to 25% of that weight lost can be from muscle mass. This is bad news. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue, which means it needs to use fuel just to sustain itself -- for every pound of muscle you have, it will burn something like an extra 30-50 calories a day. It is what sets and maintains your basal metabolic rate, so the more muscle you have, the higher your metabolism. When you lose weight through dieting alone, you will slow down your metabolism (plateaus can result from this), making future weight gains and yo-yo weight cycling more likely.
However, this is where exercise can help. Resistance exercise functions to preserve/increase muscle mass. By minimizing muscle loss, you will decrease the chances of becoming a flabbier version of your lighter self. Aerobic exercise is beneficial as well, as it can burn more calories than a weight lifting session of the same duration. This is all good news, but there's more! Exercise simply makes achieving a caloric deficit easier -- without exercise, a 500 calorie reduction per day (for example) will all have to come from decreasing your food intake. But if you add in exercise, you can decrease your food intake by only 250 calories and expend the other 250 calories via exercise.
Exercise and diet are usually recommended together for weight loss because they optimize the energy deficit and make weight maintenance more successful (diet studies all show that the diet+exercise group are always more effective in maintaining their weight loss -- it's a lifelong, healthy behaviour change). Furthermore, exercising is advocated because it not only makes you look better, it will also help you feel better by increasing your energy levels, your muscle strength, flexibility, cardiovascular endurance, and decrease your risk of being diagnosed with a number of diseases and illnesses. All these benefits converge to improve your health-related quality of life.
So, for someone looking to lose 10 pounds or 100 pounds, they can either do it by solely restricting their calories, or by both a healthy restriction of calories and regular exercise. Both methods work -- one just has additional perks.
Abbey32
03-05-2004, 04:21 AM
Wow, scribbles..thanks for the reply. It was very informative. Once when I was exercising a lot and weights...but eating the same...I was not losing weight at all. It got discouraging after 3 months. How long does it take for one to see any muscle? My pants were actually tighter! I think I was gaining muscle under the fat.
scribbles
03-05-2004, 04:26 PM
People new at lifting usually have a lot of room for improvement, so if you lift 2-3 times a week even without a lot of volume, your muscles will respond with significant changes in strength and mass pretty quickly, showing steady improvement for up to 6 months, where at that time, further increases will require more work. Those who haven't been training for a while will similarly regain strength rapidly.
Resistance training will mainly give you stronger/larger/more defined, etc. muscles under any layer of fat. Doing some sort of aerobic exercise will burn the fat.
Also remember that exercising doesn't always mean you can eat more. Good luck!
Resistance training will mainly give you stronger/larger/more defined, etc. muscles under any layer of fat. Doing some sort of aerobic exercise will burn the fat.
Also remember that exercising doesn't always mean you can eat more. Good luck!
purrsia
03-09-2004, 12:40 AM
One more thing to add...exercising raises our metabolism which, in turn, helps us lose weight faster. After exercising, our metabolism stays high for about six hours.