"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"
I would love to lose 11 lbs
Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight
291–293 of 293 posts
Re: Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except I didn't eat the same as before. I ate more, way, way more.
I bet you didn't, and this is the problem with anecdotal evidence. People are terrible at tracking their actual caloric intake and expenditures. 24 miles a week is a decent bit, but it isn't that much. If you add 24 miles a week but eat a lot more, you will gain weight.
No, it's not that much. But they were very high intensity miles. My typical routine was to do a half mile walking warmup, then over the course of 5-8 minutes of running, gradually adjust my pace so my breathing was very close to my sustainable max. Then I'd continue adjusting my speed to keep my breathing there for the rest of the run. (All those running guides that say you should be able to carry on a conversation while you're running? Yeah, that wasn't me at all. I was huffing and puffing like mad the entire time.) I accumulated that mileage over 3 runs/week, no more than one hour total each time, so that distance was done in a 3 hour period.
And about the food? Umm, it wasn't even close. Before the running, my idea of a snack was a little piece of cheese or a yogurt. After I started running, a snack was a Carl's Jr. Famous Star cheeseburger. Sometimes I'd order two. I became notable among my football player brothers-in-law for my capacity, regularly demonstrated, for out-eating them. My wife still talks about a particularly memorable restaurant visit where I basically ate 3 large, complete entrees. My calorie intake was ridiiiiiculous. Eating like that was both enjoyable and entertaining, and it didn't seem to interfere with my fitness, so I did it all the time.
And still I lost weight. Crazy. The body is a strange machine.
Re: Why you shouldn't exercise to lose weight
#293At the beginning of this year I was easily 100 lbs overweight. Decided it was all coming off this year. Started counting every calorie with myfitnesspal, later started looking at macros as well. Weight started coming off but it really accelerated when I got serious about exercising. Swimming a mile 3x per week. Weight training 3x per week, and I've been on the treadmill a lot in the evenings, probably another 15 mile…
Having read a lot on this subject, it would appear that while cardio is great for overall health, it doesn't do much for weight loss. It's basically burning a few cals - but it doesn't really affect "homeostasis". What does affect that is weight training.