[Closed] Weightloss: diet versus exercise

There is a saying that is used on the gym forums what i go on that i think is good advice: 6 packs are made in the kitchen,not the gym. 😀

I have barely changed my diet since christmas, but been running 3-4 times a week.

I have lost nearly 11lbs.

I would say eating less is easiest way to lose weight as alot of people (not very relevant here maybe) start eating more than can be justified by the (often small) amount of new exercise they are doing. "I've just walked the dog for 30 mins so I'll have a pie" false logic.

If exercise is sufficient to burn a decent amount of calories then that must be best solution because as well as losing weight you will probably look better, feel better and probably be healthier than if you were just slim but not very fit.

It's a lot easier to cut out calories from your diet than to burn it off.

Both.

Depends on a HUGE number of factors.

1) your physiology
2) your psychology
3) the exercise you do, and how you do it
4) what your goals are

clear as mud then! more input please -tribalchief?

I would say both and what molgrips stated.

More excercise=more muscle=heavier?

In terms of time, effort and motivation, diet is the best way. For example there's about 280 kcals in a Mars bar, it doesn't require much motivation to eat it, takes <2 mins to scoff and requires little effort to do so. To expend that energy takes the best part of 30 mins of running, which requires motivation, and a reasonable amount of effort. So it's easier not to eat it in the first place.

Lack of time, motivation, and effort are the main reasons people cite for not exercising.

sorry andrewh but that premise is proven false every time i step on the scales.

controlling food in has gotta be easiest, its basic hunger management, when you start to exercise the equations get more complicated

If you build more muscle your metabolism will increase, meaning you will burn more calories even at rest.

Anyone wishing to lose fat should cut out the junk and do cardio as well as resistance training.

People often delude themselves that they are the same weight as they were in their twenties. This may be so, but most likely their body composition has changed and weight that used to be muscle is now fat. Hence I would recommend resistance training to everyone, it's use it or lose it folks.
That goes for women, the elderly, everyone.

I can't really answer th OP's question as there is no one answer, but.. reducing calories will give you the quickest short term 'weight' loss.

Its suggested that if you limit your calorie intake (cut your intake so that your weight falls rather than stops increasing) your body reacts like you are in a starviation situation so tries to limit your exersion, so you end up tired. When you stop starving and begin to eat normally (rather than excessively) your body hordes the calories for fear of another starvation event. So the weight goes back on and you stay listless.

Thats why diet books are so easy to sell.

Exercise in the marketable workout/gym membership/dancercise sense, even running to an extent is also too aggresive, you just wear yourself out before you've actually done a lot of actual energy burning exercise, and they are faddish and eventually too boring to sustain.

For weightloss just walk about. 'Walking about' is difficult package to sell to anyone in book or video form but so long as you've got somewhere interesting to walk to you won't get tired or bored before you've done a useful amount of it. You could walk about all day, never really getting tired, bored or out of breath and be exercising all the time. Riding a bike can't hurt either but because bikes move you about so efficiently you have to deliberately make cycling difficult for yourself (go the long way, go the steep way, go fast) to get a lot of exercise out of it. When I lived in a city I didn't cycle around very much because a bike got you there too quickly to enjoy the journey. Walking took a nice amount of time and was interesting.

Unfortunately it took me past a lot of pie shops

Unfortunately it took me past a lot of pie shops

Otherwise, good post.

Walking is seriously boring and you have to do a lot of it to burn any real calories!

I've lost 5kg since Christmas by just eating more sensibly (72kg - 67kg). Where as I used to have some biscuits with tea in the morning, then a sandwich or something hot from the canteen for lunch, with crisps and a chocolate bar, some sweets in the afternoon, when I filled up with petrol etc. Now, I may have some nuts or a GoAhead bar in the morning, salad for lunch with fruit, some more nuts or fruit in the afternoon and the same breakfast/dinner as I used to.

Frankly I surprised myself how easy it was, and it's all just hollow calories I was eating before, you don't need them, I'm not even hungrier, I was just eating because it was there!

Kept exercising the same amount, generally 10-13 hours a week, mainly on the bike, with a couple of runs and a couple of swim sessions.

I'd definitely say changing diet is the easiest way to do it, but it depends totally on whether you have obvious places to cut calories in the first place!

Eating less will lose weight more quickly, but you will end up thinking about food constantly. Eating less saturated fats (pies, chips, chocolate ie junk food) will generate weight loss, but without the constant hunger pangs. If you are excercising strenuously, then you don't want to drop too many calories too quickly. Start off in moderation and build up slowly. There is a decent article in Issue 56 (and some other back issues) about weight loss and excercise.

Often dieting will show quick weight loss. This is water. Unfortunately of fortunately depending on how you think to effectively change the fat content of your body you will need to change your lifestyle. Namely exercise also what you eat needs to change. There is no quick fix. It will take time. You may also find you don't actually loose weight at all. This doesn't matter though, weight is a term used when actually meaning fat mass. You will probably find it hard to loose a great deal of weight at all. Unless you are over weight. Too much fat not enough muscle.

The majority of your calorie intake should be from carbohydrate because it is bulky so makes you feel full, and releases energy slowly so you don't need to keep topping up your energy source. Look for stuff with a low GI index

Stay away from fat, especially saturated fats

Watch out for low fat foods as they often have added sugar to improve the taste.

Don't diet, just slightly change your habits. 3 roast potatoes rather than 4, chocolate only at weekends, only drink 3 nights a week etc. Slower weight loss than a diet, but diets end and you pile the weight back on. Changing habits will last long term

what molgrips said + "5. How much you eat"

Funnily enough, not every question can be answered in the general case.

More excercise=more muscle=heavier?

More excercise=more muscle=heavier?

Muscle is more dense that fat, so for any given weight, the more muscle you have the less fat you look

I find exercise much easier than dieting. That said, I'm not a massive fan of any typical "cut out" foods like pasties, pies, mars bars etc. which means that cutting a lot of calories is very difficult. And I quite enjoy exercising.

Its almost impossible to burn off fat, say you 'loose' 1kg, this will be 250g of fat, 250g (about 10% of it protein) of muscle and 500g of water.

Those numbers arent exact, or probably even close, but they ilustrate the point. Gym freaks work on the principle of bulking and cutting. How long you do either it upto you, but you have to do one or the other, not both.

Bulk:
Calorie positive, lots of resistance training. Your aim is to build up lots of mucscle.

Cut:
Calorie negative, lots of cardio training that uses all the muscles but not to the point they break down (becasue they wont be repaired). Your aim is to cut off some fat (but inevitably muscle goes with it).

If you run at a calorie deficit, your body won't lay down muscle, simple as that. So you have to alternate between loosing weight and gaining muscle. Could be as short as 1 month of each, or as much as 6 months.

Its almost impossible to burn off fat

No it's not. You exercise, you burn up a certain percentage of fat, and a certain percentage of carbs. Low carb stores will result in increased appetite and you'll eat more, but if you eat well and don't overdo it, the fat stays gone.

This is the idea behind long low intensity training, as you end up burning a higher proportion of fat.

If you ride slowly for an entire day, you'll burn up a measureable chunk of fat, and it'll stay gone. The carbs/water you lose will come back as you eat, but the fat's gone. It only comes back if you are running a +ve energy balance - as I understand it at least. If you run at a CARB deficit your body won't lay down muscle....

I lost 1kg/week like this and it stayed off for a year or so, but it took a LOT of riding.

I have totally the opposite problem, I'm 6ft and weigh 9 stone. I eat truck loads off food, Pasta, rice, red meat white meat, salad, fruit, junk food, Chips cheese and gravy. I probably put away twice as much food away as my friends.

If I sit on my ass I loose weight, the only way I can put weight on is through muscle and the Gym costs too much and is boring. I cycle AM and DH, run and sometimes rock climb. I know I am the way I am just it annoys me how thin I am. Some people say how lucky I am but I'm always conscious off people looking at me, especially on the beach.
Has anyone tried protein shakes for energy replacement? any recommendations?

Stally - how old are you? By the time you reach 23 it'll probably all swap around 🙂

Funny you should say that, doctors have been saying that for years. I'm 31 now.

More excercise=more muscle=heavier?

doesn't matter then,
Strictly speaking, I guess most people actually want to lose fat but refer to it as losing weight

Personally, I hate being hungry & would rather run for an hour & have a good meal [& a pudding] than stick to a rabbit's diet

For protein just get whey protein, you can spend silly money on various special secret recipies, but ultimately its still just protein. I know various people who swear by 33% whey:egg:pea protein mixes, others who spend a fortune on 95% protein stuff. I just stick to the bog stantard stuff which is about 80% protein, the remainder is just the other stuff in whey like a few carbs, a little fat, some fiber etc....

Try myprotein.co.uk and use the code MP200391 to get 5% off. *

You can either get flavoured stuff and drink it like milkshake before/after a ride, or the unflavoured stuff and add it to porrige/cereal.

*for the sake of honesty, its a referal thing, I get 5% of your first order value in vouchers as well.

I have a mate like that Stally. He's probably in his late 30s. and has about a 26" waist, being about 5'10. He gets very upset with people going on about his thin-ness, like it's some kind of great thing that he's alarmingly scrawny.

He wishes for a bit of muscle, but can't put any on no matter what he does. He's also pretty fragile too, lots of injuries.

n.b. the muscle is heaver than fat argument is simply an old wives tale,

Density of muscle tissue 1.06kg/dm3
Density of adipose tissue (fat cells) 0.92kg/dm3

Which in the grand scheme of things isnt much.

In other words, you're not 'big boned' you're just fat.

In other words, you're not 'big boned' you're just fat.

Its me glands honest.

yeah, only 14% more. not much at all...

thisisnotaspoon - Member

For protein just get whey protein, you can spend silly money on various special secret recipies, but ultimately its still just protein. I know various people who swear by 33% whey:egg:pea protein mixes, others who spend a fortune on 95% protein stuff. I just stick to the bog stantard stuff which is about 80% protein, the remainder is just the other stuff in whey like a few carbs, a little fat, some fiber etc....

Try myprotein.co.uk and use the code MP200391 to get 5% off. *

You can either get flavoured stuff and drink it like milkshake before/after a ride, or the unflavoured stuff and add it to porrige/cereal.

*for the sake of honesty, its a referal thing, I get 5% of your first order value in vouchers as well.

Thanks for the info, Ive looked at the site. There are a few different whey proteins, which do you recommend?

I've been speaking to a friend and he has given me a recipe for a shake.
5 tablespoons of Muesli
5 tablespoons of porridge oats
1 Yogurt
1 bannana
1 egg
1 scoop of protein
1 splash of milk
and blend

I've tried some last night without the protein, its very nice.
I've done some spending recalculations and plan to start at the gym, on low rep high weights. Just got to wait for my shoulder to sort it's self out (had a bad crash at the weekend)

I'm sick off being the size that I am and going to do something about it. sod the doctors. I will put weight on.

On a different thought I would love to go on super skinny v's super fat (or what ever its called) I would really confuse people when they saw that I'm eating more than the fat guy 😀 (Not that I would want to go on TV)

I think it's down to the individual. I eat what I want but I'm pretty skinny because I do a lot of exercise and I do it very hard. That way works best for me. Dieting sounds like some kind of hell.

I'm well aware though that for most people the reverse is true.

I'd just try a bit of both if I was trying to help a normal person.

I eat what I want but I'm pretty skinny because I do a lot of exercise and I do it very hard.

And your metabolism tends that way. If I did that I'd bulk up loads.

Its almost impossible to burn off fat

what a silly thing to say - fat is the body's primary energy store and wouldn't work if it were not readily metabolised at need.

Allan Peiper looks this thin

because like Robert Millar he never ate for 20 years.

type of exercise makes a diffference -

folk at the gym seem to think that sitting reading a magazine on the exercise bike puting in zero effort is a workout ...

i think alot of it is definantly in the intensity of the exercise

i can eat what i want and im pretty sure that if anyone who complains metabolism this and metabolism that did what i do and fairly sure the same applies to samuri at the same intensity they would be skinny.

Diet. Weightlifting. Cardiovascular exercise. In that (decreasing) order of importance(in my opinion).

I believe that if you get really anal about what you're eating (like bodybuilder levels of macronutrient precision, keeping food logs, eating [i]really[/i] clean.etc) you don't even have to exercise to get results. But exercise is fun, and what little muscle we have makes us look good nekkid, so why'd you want to do that?!

Bagstard makes a good point - there are so many people deluding themselves that they are the same weight as when they were younger, but often they've lost muscle and have skinny legs, arms and a belly hanging over their trousers. Rather than being obessessed with weight, its probably better to get a pair of skin calipers and measure your body fat percentage. Or failing that your grab your belly and see how much excess fat you have. (men only as excess fat in women tends to accumulate in different places)recommendation to weight train is also a very good one especially for those in the 40+ category.

>they are the same weight

Yeah, I've been pretty much the same weight since my mid 20s (almost 47 now) - though I *have* been a bit more careful about what I eat since I was 30 - it seems like 30 and 40 are the points at which you might start loading on the lard if you're not careful - seems to be the case with some blokes.

I started going to the gym (weights/CV stuff) when I was about 35 (I think), when I realised I was looking a bit ropier than I liked in shorts/no shirt. Just shuffled the weight around to where it looked a little better 😉
Hit 40 fitter and stronger than I'd ever been..then picked up assorted injuries which messing up doing weights work 🙁 Also spent a few years feeling generally knackered before/after a house move a while back, but managed to haul my arse in the gym more regularly over the last 6 months. The one thing I *have* been doing religiously over the last 8 years is Pilates, which has kinda kept a fair amount of muscle tone even when I wasn't doing much else.

I'm now back commuting on the bike, which helps quite a bit - I can tell when I've not been doing much CV work or eating too much crap, 'cos the simple measurement is a tape measure around bellybutton level.

And with that...time to get on the bike for a 13 mile ride back home via the gym 🙂

Build muscle, you'll burn more calories building muscle and raise your metabolism when are rest due to the extra muscle. Diet is important, ditch any foods that come in a box, is my basic guideline to diet, so organic meat, vegetables and fruit, with minimal carbs, so zero grain and rice basically. If you want to burn fat whilst training look at kettlebells, as you'll blast the cardio and weight train simultaneously.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/definitive-guide-primal-blueprint/

Is it true that an hour or so of hard exercise first thing in the morning, without eating any food beforehand, is a good way of burning some fat off? Or is that just something I think I heard once?

Theory is you train the body to burn fat, as you haven't fuelled yourself yet. Problem is too often people then come back from training and eat more calories than the deficit they create. Too often you see people train burn off a few calories then drink a energy drink.

Sounds like it's a decent way of burning fat after all......as long as I resist the bacon rolls when I get to work afterwards!

exercising on no carbs = burn muscle, not good.

The way I lost a load of weight (I'm now down about 34kg with a load more to go!) was just cutting down portions, only having "bad" food every so often, and getting out on the bike more. 5 high-ish intensity miles a day seems to work, I don't really do many long rides!

[i]exercising on no carbs = burn muscle, not good. [/i]

Is it not okay to do it for just an hour or so? I'll admit I'm no expert here, just going by some stuff I've read.

Kate Moss said "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels".

She's right. I'm getting back on the diet and back on the bike. Time to shed a stone and get race fit again.

Hence I would recommend resistance training to everyone, it's use it or lose it folks.

You exercise, you burn up a certain percentage of fat, and a certain percentage of carbs. Low carb stores will result in increased appetite and you'll eat more, but if you eat well and don't overdo it, the fat stays gone.

This is the idea behind long low intensity training, as you end up burning a higher proportion of fat.

Oh, and on diet vs exercise, I don't think I've changed my diet much at all in the last 18 months, yet in that time I put on almost 2 stones to Xmas this year, and have now lost over a stone since then - most of that I think in the week I spent XC skiing when I probably actually ate more than normal. I always seem to lose weight on my holidays 😉

cynic-al - Member

exercising on no carbs = burn muscle, not good.

You wont start burning muscle in an hour - you will just use up all yor easily available energy sources and get very very hungry

Like a caterpillar?

You wont start burning muscle in an hour - you will just use up all yor easily available energy sources and get very very hungry

Like the ravenous bugblatter beast of traal

Its on the interweb so it must be true:

http://www.negativecaloriefoods.com/

..... either you loose a lot of weight, or make a lot of compost trying to eat your way to being thin.

There's a couple in one of my wife's womens magazines who are existing on 1200 calories a day.

I use the word 'existing' on purpose because that's what it looked like and nothing else. They looked like a pair of miserable ****ers in the photographs and I was shocked to find out the guy was only 39, he looked 50 odd.

I enjoy eating and I'm assuming all the biffers out there do too. That leaves them only one path if they want to lose weight. Get them sweating cobs doing some hard stuff and get their metabolism up and running sharpish.

There's a couple in one of my wife's womens magazines who are existing on 1200 calories a day.

I existed on 1200-1400 cals per day quite happily (soups for lunch, stir-frys for tea) quite happily for 6 weeks. I really enjoy chicken, veg and soup, so no real problems there!

Eat every 3 hours without fail, if your bulking eat every 2-2.5 hours.

Diet is about what you eat but more importantly when you eat it.

Reduce your complex carb intake, don't eat complex carbs after 5pm. Keep your protien intake high, increase you good fat intake. If you can take amnio acids as a supplement and also fat supplement (fish oil, flax seed)

Simples.

Excerise 3-5 times a weak. You only need to do 30-45 minutes of cardio. Mix HIIT sessions with 60-70% constant sessions. You will oose some muscle but you will mainly lose body fat.

Eat carbs and protien after you have a hard excerise session. If your really stripping, cut your carb intake to less than 30grams a day preferably 10grams.

To gauge your progress do not get hung up on body weight, get out the calipers and measure your body fat.

couple of points;

Thanks for the info, Ive looked at the site. There are a few different whey proteins, which do you recommend?

The cheepest per gram, and all the flavours are nasty.
Think foam fruits form penny mixes when you were a kid.

And the you can't burn off fat comment should have read, you can't burn off just fat. If your running a calorie deficit your body will eat a certain ammount of its muscle as well, which is why everyone from body builders to TDF cyclists put on a few lbs over the winter, its easier and more benificial to train at a slight calorie surplus than it is to try and maintin <4% body fat all year round.

coffeeking :

I existed on 1200-1400 cals per day quite happily (soups for lunch, stir-frys for tea) quite happily for 6 weeks. I really enjoy chicken, veg and soup, so no real problems there!

I have tried that and just feel like the death....but then that was with exercise thrown in as well.

I have tried that and just feel like the death....but then that was with exercise thrown in as well.

Indeed, that was with no exercise. I'd not try significant exerise AND cut cals that far, that would be madness.

Reduce your complex carb intake, don't eat complex carbs after 5pm. Keep your protien intake high, increase you good fat intake. If you can take amnio acids as a supplement and also fat supplement (fish oil, flax seed)

Simples.

Excerise 3-5 times a weak. You only need to do 30-45 minutes of cardio. Mix HIIT sessions with 60-70% constant sessions. You will oose some muscle but you will mainly lose body fat.

Eat carbs and protien after you have a hard excerise session. If your really stripping, cut your carb intake to less than 30grams a day preferably 10grams.

Personally I'm having no problem at all losing weight at the moment, despite eating lots of complex carbs as sinfully late as 9pm some days.

You only need to do 30-45 minutes of cardio

Advice for couch potatoes hitting the gym perhaps. For a cyclist that's nothing.

That was ::::swallows last mouthful of battered mars bar:: good reading folks. cheers.

Food has the greatest effect IMHO and it's esaier to impliment some plan based on your feeding.

A few simple rules would include cutting out or down on booze.
Not snacking.
Not eating too late in the evening.
Cutting out the high-fat foods.
Smaller portions.
Drop to 2 meals a day if you're not exercising.
Hard training can't be done not is effective if you're hungry.
None of this is news per se, it's just managing your days and keeping up the exercise routine.
It soon drops away.