Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight • Hacker News Board

Re: Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight

#151

Post by yuzi » Fri, Apr 29, 2016, 8:09 PM UTC

jypepin wrote: post #138

yuzi wrote: post #43

I went from 190 lbs. to 138 lbs. over 6 or 7 months. The only exercise I did was jogging for 45 min a day. What I noticed was that jogging made me feel better, which somehow got me to consistently eat better. After a days jogging I didn't want to put crap food in me and ruin what I had accomplished and by doing it everyday I felt good enough, often enough to stick with it. So, based on my experience, I simply can not…

I do agree with the feeling that doing exercise makes you feel better, and that this feelings motivates you to eat better food. I don't see how you say you simply can not agree with the article tho. The article stipulates that exercise itself has less effect than diet. Maybe exercise helps to keep a good diet, but exercise + keeping same crapy diet won't be as effective as what you did yourself.

I didn't set out to change my diet or even diet+excercise. I set out to excercise alone. I changed my diet long before that, but it didn't lead me to excecise and it I wasn't able to do it long enough for it to be ingrained. So my advice would be to excercise even if without a diet change because you are more likely find your diet change as a byproduct and actually be able to sustain it.

Re: Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight

#152

Post by adrr » Fri, Apr 29, 2016, 8:10 PM UTC

jypepin wrote: post #138

yuzi wrote: post #43

I went from 190 lbs. to 138 lbs. over 6 or 7 months. The only exercise I did was jogging for 45 min a day. What I noticed was that jogging made me feel better, which somehow got me to consistently eat better. After a days jogging I didn't want to put crap food in me and ruin what I had accomplished and by doing it everyday I felt good enough, often enough to stick with it. So, based on my experience, I simply can not…

I do agree with the feeling that doing exercise makes you feel better, and that this feelings motivates you to eat better food. I don't see how you say you simply can not agree with the article tho. The article stipulates that exercise itself has less effect than diet. Maybe exercise helps to keep a good diet, but exercise + keeping same crapy diet won't be as effective as what you did yourself.

Less effect is what i have a problem with. Dieting requires less effort. Cutting portion sizes is much easier than changing your schedule to accommodate a workout.

Re: Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight

#153

Post by yuzi » Fri, Apr 29, 2016, 8:13 PM UTC

cushychicken wrote: post #147

yuzi wrote: post #43

I went from 190 lbs. to 138 lbs. over 6 or 7 months. The only exercise I did was jogging for 45 min a day. What I noticed was that jogging made me feel better, which somehow got me to consistently eat better. After a days jogging I didn't want to put crap food in me and ruin what I had accomplished and by doing it everyday I felt good enough, often enough to stick with it. So, based on my experience, I simply can not…

I think you're nitpicking the article's message. You're saying that exercise caused you to eat better, but the article (and the data) are suggesting that it was eating better, not exercising, that led to the weight loss. We can agree to disagree regarding what decision gets the credit for shedding those pounds, but in any case, congratulations on your weight loss. That's a real accomplishment.

I put forth a response below to a similar point here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11598409

Thanks :)

Re: Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight

#154

Post by agumonkey » Fri, Apr 29, 2016, 8:16 PM UTC

thedz wrote: post #149

agumonkey wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all interrelated. Exercise may (it did to me) shift your brain into seeking other kinds of food and drinks. I'm much more willing to drink simple water after a long soccer match. Exception being swimming, which makes me wanna eat all cakes in sight. It also leads to a different lifestyle if I may say so. Being sedentary means low amount of sensation, leading to the eating for pleasure reflex, all this without a…

Oh, definitely. I've lost upwards of 30 pounds over the past year and a half. Much of it is related to changes in my diet, but exercising regularly has definitely helped my diet. Personally, I'm much less likely to eat in excess after exercising because I don't want to "waste" my efforts.

I felt this way too, but often I ended up eating bad food because after a while I didn't value exercises as much (went back into a OK zone).

Also, told this already, massive health failure forced me out of sugar coated, processed food and beverage. Our life styles is way too easy onto eating to satisfy our tongues and not our body. When stuck in this corner, eating raw veggies, you'll start to notice a lot of enjoyable tastes, and drop in fat aftertaste and overall a realization that how much sugar 'drugs' your brain. It's very hard to not want to take a big bite of cake or chocolate, hamburger etc etc, and inside the comfy zone of our culture, if your health allows it, you'll never have a way to sense that.

Re: Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight

#155

Post by oalders » Fri, Apr 29, 2016, 8:16 PM UTC

paulsutter wrote: post #136

thedz wrote: post #114

I've found online reaction to this article quite interesting. Normally data and study minded folks bring out the "anecdotally, this doesn't seem true" responses, and people seem think the article is attacking exercise as a concept. It's not. It's saying that if a person's goal is to lose weight, then adjusting to a good diet is far more important than (a reasonable amount of) exercise. The article does not claim that…

"Why you shouldn't /rely/ on exercise to lose weight" would be a less controversial title. Instead they chose a provocative, click-baity title and tone to the article. The most accurate title would be "Don't exercise in order to earn the right to eat junk food later". Which is the meager point they're actually making. The article deserves all the criticism - it has been designed specifically to provoke it. Journalist…

Indeed. Something like "You can't outrun your fork" would have been succinct and to the point.

Re: Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight

#156

Post by x0x0 » Fri, Apr 29, 2016, 8:19 PM UTC

hvoiiita wrote: post #119

thedz wrote: post #114

I've found online reaction to this article quite interesting. Normally data and study minded folks bring out the "anecdotally, this doesn't seem true" responses, and people seem think the article is attacking exercise as a concept. It's not. It's saying that if a person's goal is to lose weight, then adjusting to a good diet is far more important than (a reasonable amount of) exercise. The article does not claim that…

I think to accurately display the relative effectiveness of diet and exercise for weight loss is something like this: diet & exercise >> diet >>>>>>>> exercise I like this quote: "You work hard on that machine for an hour, and that work can be erased with five minutes of eating afterward"

even easier (as weightlifters, powerlifters, bodybuilders all know):

weight comes from your mouth, not from the gym

abs are made in the kitchen

80% diet, 20% training

Re: Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight

#157

Post by agumonkey » Fri, Apr 29, 2016, 8:20 PM UTC

specialp wrote: post #51

yuzi wrote: post #43

I went from 190 lbs. to 138 lbs. over 6 or 7 months. The only exercise I did was jogging for 45 min a day. What I noticed was that jogging made me feel better, which somehow got me to consistently eat better. After a days jogging I didn't want to put crap food in me and ruin what I had accomplished and by doing it everyday I felt good enough, often enough to stick with it. So, based on my experience, I simply can not…

This is very true. Exercise has more of an effect than the calories burned. It improves your health and you feel much better than when you had a sedentary life. As always the answer is that decreasing calorie consumption with moderate exercise is key to maintaining weight loss. Just as exercising cannot offset massive overconsumption of food, massive underconsumption of food will make one that is dieting feel terribl…

Exercising trains your cardio vascular system, even if you don't burn calories, it means your cells are fed and cleaned more effectively.

Re: Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight

#158

Post by oalders » Fri, Apr 29, 2016, 8:21 PM UTC

thedz wrote: post #149

agumonkey wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all interrelated. Exercise may (it did to me) shift your brain into seeking other kinds of food and drinks. I'm much more willing to drink simple water after a long soccer match. Exception being swimming, which makes me wanna eat all cakes in sight. It also leads to a different lifestyle if I may say so. Being sedentary means low amount of sensation, leading to the eating for pleasure reflex, all this without a…

Oh, definitely. I've lost upwards of 30 pounds over the past year and a half. Much of it is related to changes in my diet, but exercising regularly has definitely helped my diet. Personally, I'm much less likely to eat in excess after exercising because I don't want to "waste" my efforts.

It helps you keep your choices in perspective for sure. Also, for me, if I'm getting a lot of exercise, I actually just don't feel like I need the junk food, so I mostly just do without it.

Re: Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight

#159

Post by visakanv » Fri, Apr 29, 2016, 8:23 PM UTC

oalders wrote: post #155

paulsutter wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Why you shouldn't /rely/ on exercise to lose weight" would be a less controversial title. Instead they chose a provocative, click-baity title and tone to the article. The most accurate title would be "Don't exercise in order to earn the right to eat junk food later". Which is the meager point they're actually making. The article deserves all the criticism - it has been designed specifically to provoke it. Journalist…

Indeed. Something like "You can't outrun your fork" would have been succinct and to the point.

The running joke in reddit fitness communities is that the best workout for losing weight is Fork Putdowns

Re: Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight

#160

Post by paulsutter » Fri, Apr 29, 2016, 8:25 PM UTC

thedz wrote: post #144

paulsutter wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Why you shouldn't /rely/ on exercise to lose weight" would be a less controversial title. Instead they chose a provocative, click-baity title and tone to the article. The most accurate title would be "Don't exercise in order to earn the right to eat junk food later". Which is the meager point they're actually making. The article deserves all the criticism - it has been designed specifically to provoke it. Journalist…

> The most accurate title would be "Don't exercise in order to earn the right to eat junk food later". Which is the meager point they're actually making. Except that's not the only point the article makes. You might disagree with the title, but the article does attempt to back it up. Many paragraphs are dedicated to explaining why for many people, exercising might actually be harmful to their weight loss goals, due t…

> exercising might actually be harmful to their weight loss goals, due to how we tend to overestimate how many calories were burned

The actual number of calories burned exercising is unaffected by our mental estimates. Thinking you earned the right to eat junk food is the problem, not exercise.