Some of the studies he's researched point out that exercise increases appetite, so sometimes exercise actually causes MORE intake than is planned. And if white-knuckling through hunger can be avoided, I'm all for it.

http://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article...andwtloss.html

"Sopko et al. (1985) in a twelve-week study, with obese men, reported that when the negative energy balance created by diet only and exercise only are equal, the two treatments produce similar results"

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/weight-loss/AN01619

" Studies show that people who maintain their weight loss over the long term get regular physical activity. In contrast, people who lose weight by crash dieting or by drastically reducing their calories to 400 to 800 a day are likely to regain weight quickly, often within six months after they stop dieting."

http://www.gymper.com/featured/exerc...l-weight-loss/
"The recent study conducted in USA and reported in the American Journal of Physiology shows that fat burning is influenced by exercising directly, without any influence from balances of nutrients or energy. This fact became quite a sensation as it turned out that exercise of any kind, taking by any kind of man or woman, may increase muscle proteins that work as fat transporters. Their activity helps to oxidize fat in the same way L-carnitine does. So regular exercises are definitely one of the best helpers in weight loss."

You can find a study for anything, really.

You're right, so I like my own anecdotal evidence the best. What works for me, works for me, and might not work for anyone else. Exercise causes my weight loss to slow way down, I'm aware of it, I know the science behind it, and because I know all that, I can deal with it.

I love exercise, I do it regularly and find it helps me feel better, do day to day activities, keep up with my kids and find it very helpful and beneficial. But...from a strict weight loss approach, If I do heavy hard core strenuous exercise for 45 min to an hour, I burn only about 300 cals, and even less if I don't work out as hard. If I worked out that hard for 90 min, I'd be an exhausted lump on the log unable to move for the rest of the day

So the point is, exercise is fantastic!!! But people overestimate how much they burn, and it's a whole lot easier and simpler to count exercise as a bonus and create your deficit with intake of food. Because it would take forever and ever and ever to burn that 3500 calories required in exercise to lose a pound

Excellent post JohnP. being mindful, keeping it simple, and just doing what works for you, & the weight loss will come

It would take me a week at an hour a day. (Some people less, some people more.)

Now, let's say you simply cut your calories by 500 a day instead.

That would take a week, too.

Or

Do both. Now you've lost two pounds in one week instead. Plus, studies show you'll keep the weight off better if you exercised AND calorie counted.

I think if people don't want to work out, that's just fine. Do whatever you want. I'm simply saying that if you're willing to work out then don't write it off as useless to weight loss. It's not. Plus, again, if you don't exercise you're losing out on all of the other billion of health benefits that you get with it beyond weight loss. And, isn't your weight loss an attempt at being healthy in the first place?

Amberelise - in my opinion you're reading too much into my speech. I am not anti exercise, at all.

The point of the speech is that when I was doing my intial research my thoughts that I would have to do a lot of exercise to lose weight were validated. I had throught that exercise would speed up my metabolism and I could lose weight without much change to my diet. I was wrong. The articles promoting this idea are wrong and the book NROL is wrong.

Could I do an entire speech on exercise? Yes. The benefits are amazing and even a small amount of exercise makes a giant difference. For most people just brisk walking 20-30 minutes 3-4 times a week would make a remarkable difference to their cardiovascular health.

Having said that - I disagree you can out exercise a bad diet. Maybe you don't like pizza, or nacho's, or Chipotle burriotes but most people do. Using your example - how many people have the time exercise four hours a day? Of those that do how many are conditioned enough to do so? Of those, how many would choose to spend their time that way? Of those, how often could they keep it up before they burned out? Obviously - we're down to almost zero percent of the adult population. I admit this is a red herring - but hey - you brought it up.

The point is, lots of exercise can be detrimential to weight loss even if you don't want to take it to the illogical extreme that you and I have. Most people after a hard workout (yes definitions of hard will vary) will be more lethargic for the rest of the day. Therefore, they will burn fewer calories as NEAT is reduced dramaticaly and negating the additonal calories burned through exercise. Also as I afforementioned too much exercise can burn you out or worse lead to an injury. Finally, too much exercise can affect your diet.

Many people get hungry after a lot of exercise. For some people it is HIIT type of exercise that makes them hungry. Not me. After a good HIIT workout the last thing I want to see is food. In my case too much steady state cardio brings on the hunger monster. Obviously increased hunger makes dietary compliance more difficult. Finally, those who are less determined dieters may just use that extra exercise they did to justify a tasty high calorie treat. I wish I could say I've never done this but ... I have.

In my opinion, how much exercise you do really should depend on the goals that you have. If your goals are weight loss and health there is aboslutely no need exercise as much as the average trainer/website/author thinks you should. The main purpose for exercise as far as health goes is that there seems to be a correlation between dietary compliance and exercise. Whether though the mechanism that I have (I worked out hard don't want to blow it by eating bad) or some other reason - the bottom line is it exists.

In conclusion - just like I said in my speech - "...exercise doesn't have to become your life's passion to be effective."

I think what bothered me is someone elsewhere on the forums someone posted a link to your speech and used it as an example as to why you don't need to exercise. That's why I caution.

The point of weight loss is typically to be healthier. To take care of yourself. You're only doing half the job if you're losing weight on diet alone. Skinny fat is just as detrimental to your health as fat fat.

That's the point of my diatribe and extreme examples. You *can* lose weight on exercise alone. Is it the perfect idea? NOT AT ALL. Just as you *can* lose weight on diet alone...

So, I made my post as a caution to those that follow the link over here and think if they simply want to drop pounds diet alone is the way to go. That's so unhealthy!

Further, the studies do show that you're going to keep the weight off if you're exercising - so I really hope people don't come to this thread and use it as reasoning to justify why they don't want to exercise.

I, myself, do both, so I am not saying the calorie counting is wrong. I'm on the exercise forums and I'm on the calorie counting forums. Obviously I believe in both! I was just a little freaked out when I saw people elsewhere claiming that exercise isn't helpful to weight loss and then linking to your speech.

Here's what IMHO we should take away from all this, because in all honesty I don't agree with everything that's been said her nor some of the diet "myths" that have been previously debunked.

Weight loss AND health/exercise advice is just that advice. It doesn't apply to everyone equally and what works for one person won't necessarily work for another. The key thing is to determine what works for YOU, which agreed can be difficult with all the availible information on the Internet and even here on 3FC.

When it comes to the plan you choose the only thing that should matter is does it work for me, meaning you're losing weight and not killing yourself to do so and is it sustainable. If you can't sustain your diet long term or have a plan of attack once maintenance roles around it's all pretty futile. Additionally if you choose to go the twinky route, know you'll probably die of a heart attack by 50 no matter how much exercise you do. Extreme boisterous example, of course.

Anyway, I think that is pretty much what John is trying to get across, but sometimes I personally have a hard time seeing the message when my own research and beliefs are being brought into question.

Actually, when studies are done following people who do the twinkie diet or something similar, ALL numbers get to a healthy range - not just weight.

The twinkie diet is not going to give you a heart attack. Not that I'm endorsing it or anything. If you didn't do it with dr supervision, vitamin supplements, and bloodwork along the way it could cause some nutrient deficiencies. Twinkies aren't exactly chock full of vitamins and minerals we need to be healthy.

There are so many other factors that determine our heart health, blood pressure, etc that have nothing to do with food or even exercise. Stress, smoking, genetics, medications....I could go on and on.

You can eat clean your entire life and do cardio religiously and still have a heart attack at 40.

Of course, I guess my point is just that some diet "myths" may be myths for one person and not for another. I swear to you, and this probably is some of John's point about it all being so confusing, that I can read an article that says "x" and two clicks later read another article that's says "x" is a myth. We all know this to be true. So finding what works for you as individual, myth or no myth, is all that matters.

I guess I just kind of feel like because I do well eating a lot of "cleaner" cals, exercising a lot, and eating often, I'm doing something wrong because John says those are all myths. I still indulge, quite a bit frankly, but this is what works for me and of course I'm going to suggest it to others because I had success with it, it doesn't make it a myth or the way it has to be done, it's what works for me.

The same way fasting works for John, that would no way work for me, but it works for him and others. But that's doesn't mean his method is right for everyone, and I think he knows that, but he still takes the opportunity to suggest it to others because it might work for them.

I guess I just get a little peeved when people claim certain things are myths, especially when they've worked for me.

The Twinkie diet guy also ate the following daily: vegtables, protein shakes, a multivitamin every day but 75% of his caloires came from junk food.

I'm curious which myth do you feel is factual?

Possible and probable are pretty far apart in this case in my opinon. Consider the dedicated study subjects that exercised an hour a day, six days a week and lost very little. How many folks are going to be that dedicated with such pitiful results? Is it *possible*? YES! Is it *probable*? NO! Diet trumps exercise by a lot for purposes of losing weight.

I see what you're saying here. What you're not understanding is that you can eat 12 times a day if you want or you can eat 2 times a day. The point is it makes no difference to your metabolism.

If someone were to say - try grazing. I eat constantly throughout the day and it has really worked for me I would have no problem with that. If someone were to say - you have to eat constantly throughout the day to keep your metabolism working at it's optimum level I would have a problem with that.

Hope that helps you understand where I'm coming from.

I took this speech to be a pure list of what you must do to lose weight from a scientific standpoint. Nothing more and nothing less. Not preaching about how you shouldn't exercise or even what kinds of foods to eat. (In fact, at the end it is noted that activity is a good thing.)

The METHODS of losing weight while lowering calories are going to be different for everyone. The METHODS of exercising for health reasons (and yes, everyone should exercise for health reasons, we all know this. It's good for us, it's good for a billion reasons) are going to be different for everyone.

Example Method: Eat only 3 meals a day, no snacks.
Example Myth: Everyone should eat only 3 meals a day, no snacks.

If someone posted a link to this saying you don't "HAVE" to exercise to lose weight, well from a technical & scientific standpoint they're correct. I've known a lot of people who've lost weight without lifting a finger for added activity.

However.

If someone posted a link to this saying you "SHOULDN'T" exercise, then they were misunderstanding. Exercise is great for the body, and the speech even addresses that it is a good thing.

There's a lot of power in WORDS.

Breaking it down, making it simple, that's what most people seem to desire &/or need. And hey, facts is facts.

* Exercise is NOT NECESSARY in order to lose weight.
* You CAN lose weight by diet alone. (how much is up to the individual)
* You CAN lose weight by exercise alone. (how much is up to the individual)
* Diet AND Exercise is the norm.
* 3500 calories = 1 pound
* Gaining weight occurs when you eat more calories than you burn.
* You burn calories simply by "being". You burn calories while sitting, sleeping, breathing, watching TV, cooking, laughing, etc.
* You burn MORE calories when you DO exercise than when you DON'T exercise
* Exercise can cause you to be more hungry than if you didn't exercise.
* The average person simply cannot out-exercise the calories they eat.

When you make easy-to-read statements out of FACTS, it's easier to understand.

I don't think anyone is saying "in order to lose weight, you shouldn't exercise" but rather "exercise is not necessary in order to lose weight" - those are two very different sentences.

The bottom line? For those people who simply HATE exercise? Yes, they CAN lose weight by diet alone.

For those who WANT to exercise, there are many, many, many different exercises out there, from cardio to weight bearing.

And for those who just aren't sure - consider this: most experts will tell you to comprise your weight loss efforts by using a diet plan AND a fitness plan. But read around this forum... you'll see people succeeding by doing whatever works for them. Some of them exercise, some don't.

And the myths will keep circulating. And the facts will still remain true. DO.WHAT.WORKS.FOR.YOU!

I think maybe the issue is that I'm finding the distinction about myth vs fact a little fuzzy. I guess I'm defining myth to mean that something is not true and you are defining it to mean that it's not necessarily true.

The biggest thing you claim to be myth that I find to be fact is that all calories are created equal. Now this statement doesn't apply to everyone, but for myself and most people I know, I can lose weight eating 1200 cals of crap or 1700 cals of healthy stuff. So all cals are not equal in nutrition value, digestive value, how the body processes or stores them.

I think I just may have jumped the gun a little and was rubbed the wrong way because I think I was/am defining myth as things that aren't true and you're defining myth as not necessarily true.