[goldengirlamy]

Haven't exercised in two weeks, just ate healthy, light desserts...scale is down 5 pounds?

Anyone else experience this?

[Paisleymama]

I think it depends on what you were consuming before.
I've never lost a significant amount of weight by diet alone, but I've never had a hugely unhealthy diet, carbs are just a huge weakness of mine

[Changergirl]

I've lost 5 pounds in 2 weeks a couple of times in the past. For my first 4 months I averaged around 2 pounds a week, with some weeks over and some under so it happened a bit! I lost nearly 4 pounds my first week, unfortunately that didn't continue. And I didn't start exercising until I was 6 months in! In fact I try to blame starting to exercise on why my weight loss has slowed down so much!

For me personally, losing weight is almost entirely dependant on what I'm eating. However getting healthy and fit is happening because of exercise.

[dehtripper]

Oh man yea. For me diet and exercise serve two very distinct purposes, namely weight loss and fitness respectively. I pretty much can't lose weight when eating poorly regardless of how much exercise I do. Exercise obviously matters in the overall metabolic budget but my diet really is the driver of what I see on the scales personally at least. Congrats on the lose btw

[pnkrckpixikat]

If you were previously exercising and not seeing loss it is most likely water retention in the muscles were hiding fat loss. When you stopped exercising your muscles finished healing and released the water they had been holding.

dehtripper is right, however, diet and exercise do serve two purposes. diet is for weight loss, exercise is for fitness. but there is a saying I have found seems to be true "lose weight to look good in your clothes, exercise to look good naked"

[gymrat05]

It's funny, I've been really obsessive with eating well, counting calories, cutting out grains, and exercising for months and the scale has either been stalled or going up. These last two weeks I've been very busy with school and decided to just take a little vacation from counting things. I exercised when I had time but I didn't kill myself to make it to the gym and I certainly didn't make the best food choices.

Yet somehow I'm down 4.5 pounds from my highest weight. I have no idea if this will keep working and I definitely plan to get back to eating better quality foods but it was extremely surprising to see this.

I guess sometimes not worrying about it does work!

[goldengirlamy]

Thanks for everyone's responses! I was working out like 1-2 hours a day almost daily then I stopped because I got busy with school and work and came down with a sore throat which turned into the head cold I have now, so maybe it's the water retention thing. I'm going to keep exercising just not maybe as much or until I really feel like I've done enough for the day rather than just a time limit.

[Riestrella]

"Get fit in the gym, lose weight in the kitchen." While I do think exercise has more of a contribution than the quote implies, I do believe the you are what you eat expression. Taking a break from lots of exercise can have positive effects on your weight, when I finished 10k training I lost 4 lbs in a week with no exercise. The effect faded over time, but you can maintain through healthy eating for sure!

[thewalrus0]

Well exercise can help with weight loss in that, if you don't eat back the calories burned, you will lose more than if you were just counting calories. If you burn an extra 200 calories a few times a week without eating them back then that's roughly another pound that you wouldn't have lost.

I have found, in my experience, that exercising for me and for my happiness and my fitness tends to work out better than doing it for weight loss because there's no real assurance that exercise is going to help you lose weight and to me it should really be about flexibility, circulation, muscle building, stretching and getting to know your body rather than for weight loss.

Anyways, I believe 100% that you can lose quite a lot of weight and never exercise, but exercise eventually plays a part in it because when you have more muscles your body burns energy more efficiently, at least that's what I've come to understand. As humans we are really meant to get some cardio and strength training naturally every day, but now we hardly ever do and so it's important, I think, to consider it part of health but not totally equate it to weight loss.

[helwa588]

I know for me weight loss is all about what I eat. I could exercise 5 hours a day but if I'm not eating right the scale doesn't budge. While I could not exercise ever but still lose weight as long as I'm eating right.