"Exercise is for fitness" and "Diet is for weight loss".

What the heck? I mean, DUH - you can't eat 16 bags of chips and expect to lose weight by just exercising, unless you are planning to ALWAYS BE EXERCISING! But do people not know that if you have a healthy, balanced diet you will burn calories by - wait for it - exercising?

I can buy the 80-20 rule, but I've been seeing a lot of people just eschewing fitness and exercise completely.

I don't mean to offend anyone, but people who don't exercise (for non-medical reasons) sound a little lazy to me. And I don't mean "go to the gym and sweat for 3 hrs" but rather any sort of activity that constitutes movement at a higher pace than just regular living.

Am I nuts for thinking this? Seriously, the benefits of exercise are insurmountable, why not try to incorporate it into your life if your'e physically able to?

Disclaimer: I'm not trying to offend anyone and I'm CERTAINLY NOT trying to offend anyone with a medical or otherwise valid reason for not exercising

I'm offended.



OK, so I'm not, but I wouldn't go calling people who choose not to exercise "lazy", however. The bottom line is: to each their own.

Edited to add: I understand the point you are trying to make about exercise and over-all health impacts, but still, the answer is that some people really don't want to do sweaty stuff (or whatever) and I'm not about to judge their choices.

Well I agree with you for sure. Most of my weight loss efforts have been accompanied by some form of exercise (usually just walking 30-45 minutes 3-5 times a week, in addition to being more active overall).

However I have lost weight without any exercise also. I think it's not so much that people hate on it, but that honestly it is not a necessary piece of the weight loss puzzle. And for some people, exercising while eating less than their body requires to maintain itself is too exhausting. Maybe they should eat more, you could argue, but then again maybe finding that tricky spot where you have enough energy for daily activity but are still operating on a calorie deficit is too much of a hassle. Another reason is even walking can be very painful for those who are overweight so they need to focus strictly on reducing calories to get to a weight where they can move more comfortably. Those are legit reasons (not excuses) for some.

I am with you Kaybee!!!!

Some people can/are losing without exercise and if that is the way they choose to do it that is great for them!! I understand where you are coming from though because there are tremendous benefits of exercise/fitness and I wouldn't go without it now that I have made it a habit.

However, before I came to that realization I did not exercise and my thoughts were "oh, I could never be one of those people who have MORE energy from exercising" ....I laugh at my former self now!

I think that some people are waiting to begin exercising, because it can be very intimidating to start, and people figure they will just lose as much as they can without exercise, then add it in when they need to.

like mrs snark said: to each his own!

Yes, I think many folks misunderstand exercise in relation to trying to lose weight and that is the reason why they hate on it.

Fact #1: Most forms of exercise won't burn the calories needed to produce a significant enough deficit to see results week by week unless you are doing something seriously intense everyday.
Fact #2: You can exercise all you want, and yes, you will lose weight over time, but the moment you stop, you will gain it ALL back if you haven't adjusted your calorie intake to accommodate your new weight.

People don't understand this sometimes and it leads to impatience and frustration.

However, some seriously HATE exercise even though they are not lazy. I can relate. The jarring motion, the monotony of a treadmill, the feel of my hip and knee joints clicking... Yuck. Like nails on a chalkboard.
Or, they just are not ready for it. Losing weight can be stressful. I felt like I had too much on my plate just trying to eat less at first. It wasn't until I had seen significant improvement on the scale that I then incorporated exercise.

It would have been mental overload if I just jumped right into the gym without first feeling better about myself. This is true for a lot of people, I think.

As a guy, I think culturally (esp. among men), there is a rather widely held belief that as long as you exercise, you can eat anything you want and as much as you want.

So, I would disagree that it is more popular to believe that exercise is not given enough credit when it comes to weight loss. Shows like The Biggest Loser focuses way more on exercise than diet.

If you see people on weight-loss forums "minimize" the importance of exercise, I think it's important to remember how hard it can be to initiate an exercise plan at your heaviest (whatever that heaviest is for the person). There is an embarrassment and shame that one has to overcome. But you can change your diet rather discreetly--it's harder to exercise in private.

Ideally, we should change our diet and exercise together--but if you can only do one, it's better than nothing. So, if you hear "80/20" comments and such online, it's more about people wanting other people to do *something* about their weight and less about de-emphasizing the effectiveness of exercise.

I generally move around more but have not introduced myself to any intentional exercise. I will eventually start doing strength training when closer to goal but until then i am focused on the refrigerator.

People "hating on" exercise around here are trying to fight the myth that exercise, particularly extended cardio sessions, is necessary for weight loss. Dieting and exercise are linked in many peoples' minds. I wouldn't say that I exercise. To me, "exercise" means going to the gym and running for the sake of exercise/fitness/weight loss/whatever. I don't do that. I walk over an hour every day to get to and from work. I take walks with my dog, and I like to swim in the ocean or in my family members' pools. I would call these playing, enjoying myself, or taking in nature... not exercise.

This is how it has worked for me - mostly the last go around.

I ate about 1550 calories a day as any less than that and I felt starved. That is about maintenance calories for me (have had times I couldn't exercise and ate about that much and didn't lose). So... it was the EXERCISE that helped me lose weight. I didn't eat back calories and exercise is an appetite suppressant, so on days I exercised, I might eat even fewer calories - like 1400 than on days I didn't, 1500-1600.

So while I had to reel in the eating FOR SURE, I couldn't reel it in enough to lose weight. it was the exercise that took me from maintaining to losing.

With that said, I didn't want to exercise today, but I just made myself do it. Now I feel great and I just helped myself lose more weight by burning 300 calories I wouldn't have burned for the day otherwise.

I agree with this.

Also, as others have said, the point is you can't out-exercise a bad diet. Most of the effort for weight loss is diet-related, and one can lose weight without adding in additional exercise beyond their current daily routine.

You can't out-exercise a bad diet because most exercise does not burn enough calories to create a sufficient deficit if you aren't watching your intake, in some form, as well. Another pitfall is that if one is exercising in order to eat more, there is the possibility of over-estimating the number of calories burned during exercise. That can lead to overeating and weight maintenance or gain during a period where one wants to lose weight.

Overall, I think the healthy ideal is for one to combine a mostly healthy diet and an exercise plan, including some strength training, in a way that is sustainable. But to each their own.

I am not currently exercising but I'm also not hating on exercise either. I am making a choice, based on past experience, to first get myself very secure in my eating habits before adding exercise to the mix. How you eat is 70% or more of the weight loss equation so I feel that is most critical. Once I feel secure in that I will be returning to the gym. Some folks just have their reasons....just like you have your reasons.

Wow. You need to post more. Well stated!

I am by no means an exercise hater but i do often say around here to remember that weight loss is 80% diet. I say this because i've done all forms and found when weight loss is due mainly to a lot of exercise, it never lasts in the long run because i can't maintain the exercise.

Its also no easy matter to suddenly reconfigure your calorie intake when you suddenly stop exercising. You don't hear about the people who've done it successfully but you certainly notice all the sports people who end up well overweight when they stop. We've got olympic athletes all of a sudden showing upon tv with weight problems when they are still young. Its just not an easy transition to make especially if you've always just eaten whatever you wanted because you exercised a ton.

But the main reason i keep saying it around here is on the threads where people indicate they are depending on exercise to get them to goal with minimal attention to the quality of their diet. and some people get into a very unhealthy trend to keep increasing their exercise to deal with plateaus. So people need to actually know that diet is the key thing.

Saying the 80/20 rule does not mean that people don't believe that exercise is not really healthy for all of us. I certainly know it is. But i'm realistic now. Its hard to sustain a long term exercise program. I can only usually do it for a few months. And i haven't been able to find a team or club situation i can afford that I might be able to continue for longer. There are lots of reasons why i find it hard to sustain long term. Its because of that, that i started out not bothering with exercise. With no pressure, it makes it easier to start doing it when ready and with no pressure.

Ideally we all probably want to do some exercise for the health benefits. But for psychological reasons we are not all ready to go full on with a daily program from the beginning. If it wasn't going to be the height of a hot tropical summer here, i'm hoping that after i do my end of year race, i could do a once a week long run or twice a week short but with the heat, i'm not sure what i'm going to do. I don't want to spend the money on public pools or gyms, at least not at this stage. Gardening becomes a pretty good option around this time and occasional afternoon beach walks.

I concur with berryblondeboys. There is something about my body that without exercise, it refuses to give up the fat on diet alone. It seems as if the more I try to diet without exercise, the lesser and lesser does my body expect food as its fuel to the point I can no more sustain the diet lest I should starve. I don't know what causes this -- I can simply think that I have very poor metabolism from a bad thyroid. It seems due to this, that the exercise I am doing is upping my metabolism to the normal range where my dieting begins to make sense for my body.

Yep... This is me - bum thyroid and all.

Yes, the lower calories are what allow me to lose the weight as if I ate 2000 calories a day and exercised 45 minutes a day, I wouldn't lose weight. But I wasn't able to lower the calories enough to just lose weight once I got to about 200-210 pounds.

I'm not an exercise nut. 45-60 minutes a day of intense exercise (cardio) will do it if I do that 5 days a week. That's something I should be doing for life anyway. And once I get to maintenance, I can either drop some of the exercise and keep the calories low, or up the calories a bit and keep the exercise. So, it's not like I'll gain it all back if I stop exercising.