40 replies on “Exercise won’t help you lose weight”
Actually, it makes perfect sense. Just last week, I was just explaining the exact same thing to an overweight friend of mine who was expecting miraculous weight loss after joining the gym.
I basically explained to him that his 30 minutes of workout on an elliptical is worth about 250 calories. Eat one donut and he is back to square one.
If you want to lose weight, diet is the primary control. You want to feel great and stay healthy, then exercise.
true that.
This article makes a few good points and fails in many. Exercise isn’t irrelevant. It’s the 50% you need to lose the weight you have on ya.
Diet is the 2nd 50% you’re gonna need. I read the comments on that article and it seems the people who are commenting know much more than the idiot scientist that has been conducting this research for about 11 years.
To simplify:-
a) Diet only : You get thin with flabby skin all over. Or you turn anorexic and die.
b) Exercise only : If you’re doing aerobics you’re not gonna lose zip.
C) Exercise and diet : Win.
OR
d) Weight lift and eat breakfast!!(seriously)
My dad, 46, has been on this “trying to lose weight” mission for the last 9 months. He eats all the same stuff we usually do but eats tiny portions. Like less than half a spoon of rice and just 2 small piesces of chicken etc. etc. and then he eats a little more salad and has fruit at the end of the meal. He skips breakfast and for dinner he eats fruit again. Every weekend/every other weekend we still go out as a family and eat at a restaurant and he orders whatever he wants, except heorders water instead of soda.
Every day he makes an effort to walk for one hour and sometimes I join him. I used an app on my phone to see how much calories we burn from walking for one hour and it was a grand total of… 100 calories. I was like, wow.. this kind of seems useless lol. 100 calories is nothing when it comes to eating food. Someone would have to seriously work their ass off 3 hours a day to achieve something like 5000 calories! But he still does it because he says it makes him feel better.
So with all this that he’s doing, in 9 months he’s lost 9kg (20 lbs). It doesn’t seem like a lot but it’s with absolute minimal effort and once a week he has a cheat day. I think his system is pretty good.
I read this yesterday on the Huffington Post site and thought it was a load of crap. It’s really a dangerous article that’s going to discourage people from exercising.
I knew it, I knew it. That why I don’t exercise anymore.
This is not encouraging at all!! Been trying to drag myself to the gym for over 2 months, tomorrow is supposed to be the first day! I will not let this affect me, i will not let this affect me.. I’ll just keep saying that to myself 😀
It makes perfect sense. It reminded me of this article which I read a while ago and which I’m implementing successfully. With the two combined, you’ll make sense of things:
Absolutely true and has been known for some time. This is by no means the first study to show that either. Exercise burns a negligible amount of calories. Just stop stuffing your faces.
@Haitham, if you think HuffPo is crap then don’t read it. More importantly HuffPo linked to the article in The Guardian. Also there is nothing dangerous about getting people to eat less and exercise less.
I agree with kidou33,
this article says the gym is no help at all? yeh ok burning like 200 or 300 calories at the gym will do nothing if u arent dieting too. but when i went to the gym for 6 months straight, and burned an average of 700 to 1000 calories per day, and went on a 1500 calorie diet, that helped ALOT.
i guess this article has a point. like if u are doing 20 or 30 minutes of exercise and then grabbing a bite to eat from McDeees LOL, no point to that
It was posted on the Guardian. Their website is a load of trite.
lets see..you stuff your face with 2000 odd calories a day, and work out and lose a small portion…say 200-500 a day…you do the math…it dont work!
@kidou33
The article is not written by an idiot scientist. It is written by a writer who cites scientific research instead of personal opinion.
Don’t confuse healthy life-style with weight loss. Weight loss is simply a numbers game – and in the numbers game, exercise plays very negligible role. Let me explain.
An average adult needs 2000 calories a day (that 14,000 calories per week). An average gym member goes 3 times a week to the gym and spends 30 minutes of moderate workout (300 calories per session x 3 = 900 calories per week). So the gym workout yields 6.4% of calories compared to average needs. He then thinks that because he goes to the gym, he can eat an extra chocolate bar as a reward each day (200×7 = 1400 calories). Over a period of few weeks, our gym member actually ends up gaining weight!!
I can say from experience that diet or exercise alone has a little effect compared to the combination of both
Exercise compliments healthy eating perfectly and helps achieve one’s goals (not necessarily weight loss for fit people)
@cajie: Your assessment assumes rewards as common mentality among gym goers; When in my personal opinion, I’ve found people who go to the gym for reducing weight, supplement it with a reduced diet. And even if you’re right, it doesn’t mean that you don’t lose weight in the gym. Just that people are generally stupid.
@Eliasoz: Guardian’s one of the few newspapers around holding onto fundamental journalistic roots and ethics. Not sure why you would say that.
@Sahar: Even if the research is correct, gym helps you get a lean body, builds self-confidence and generally makes you more energetic. Look around at the people who go to gym and those who don’t and you’ll see the difference,.
@samurai. I was highlighting the dangers of assuming that gym-work=weight loss by taking the negative approach and basing it on experience of what generally happens. Even if you remove the extra supplement, you can see how little impact 900 calories a week will make on your weight-loss goals. It only takes one big slice of cheesecake during the week (perhaps as a “cheat meal”) to undo those 3 hard days of workout.
As everyone here as said, gym+sensible diet is what needs to happen. People should be made aware of the calorie game and then only will they start seeing tangible benefits.
@yousef
I actually think ur dad is doing a good job, seriously… Slow and steady thats the way.. As an ex-overweight person myself i can guartantee him those 9kg will stay off..
diet + brisk walks = good results
walking is extremely helpful
i now a guy who was about 140 KG
he used to walk for 3 km every day ( that’s 3 times back and forth in our mamsha in jabriya
he lost about 55 kg so far in 3 months
no diet shit
no gym shit
nothing … just walking
55 kg in 3 months?!?!?!?!? are you serious?!? he can actually cause harm to his body, no?
don’t now but he did and he seems fine to me
@ahmad..The numbers don’t add up.
You need to expend 3500 calories to lose 1 pound of weight.
Therefore 55Kgs = 121 pounds
3500 calories x 121 pounds = 423,500 calories
If he dropped that many calories in 3 months, it means he spent an extra 4706 calories per day (423500/90) by walking just 6 kilometers.
6 kilometers walk is around 300 calories.
We are missing 4406 calories a day!!
hmmm, 55 kg in 3 months? no diet? nothing? sorry but that is kind of impossible lol, like cajie says, there are 4400 missing calories that he somehow burned.
i used to work out bel gym, over 1 hour a day, burning about 800 calories, AND sticking to a 1500 calorie diet, o qaseb 6aya7t 40 kg in 4 months lol. he must be doing something else. not that im doubting your words, but there has to be something else involved
A million other studies prove the one mentioned in this post wrong.
There will always be differing opinions but for thousands of years, humans have been engaged in rigorous physical labor and therefore our bodies are designed by nature to cope with physical demands placed on them.
Anyone who says exercising does not yield lower numbers in the weight department doesn’t know what they’re talking about, ph D or not.
Exercising as someone put it leads to an increase in self confidence and that alone has numerous benefits. For example the release of endorphins plays a big part in how our mind views its overall self which consequently affects our physical appearance as well.
It’s always been mind over body, never the other way around. You supplement your exercise with a proper and nutritious diet, you don’t starve yourself or miss an important meal, you eat smaller portions but several of them over the course of the day.
Also, if someone ‘works out hard’ in the gym, it totally depends on their mind set at the time.
If said person is just going through the motions mechanically and looking at their watches every five minutes until they realize an hour has passed by, they won’t achieve anything.
Exercise is an in the moment type of thing, you have to feel your muscles contracting with each repetition and you have to feel your body going through each motion and ultimately you have to enjoy the feeling, you have to enjoy going to the gym/exercising and not loathing it.
It seems now everyone knows everything about nutrition and dietetics.
Everyone has an opinion and a theory. It seems getting a degree in dietetics is a waste of time since I can just come out and make a bunch of claims and people will believe me. Wtf? Why don’t you leave the claims to people who spent years studying and researching the biochemistry of the body and understanding the exact processes that the human body goes through, cause at the end thats what it all comes down to. These are the people who can actually make true claims. Not some dude with a business degree who read a bunch of articles on the internet.
Leave it to the Brits to come up with such nonsense! Exercise combined with good nutrition will help with weight reduction, not to mention the other benefits: fights osteoporosis, diabetes, heart aliments etc.
@ohk: Don’t be so naive. Just because you supposedly wield a piece of paper that says you did this and studied that has no significance to the words of a self-taught man who for example is the embodiment of physical perfection.
Let’s not go into the whole subject of whether or not the university you attended has a sound reputation (of course you will mention some fancy university to back your claim) and how the essence of learning and obtaining knowledge isn’t found in all universities.
Universities are a business and you can have a degree in almost any subject which is laughable which further proves how the meaning of education has stagnated into something meaningless over the years.
I’ve lost 11kg during ramadan, eating what ever I want and cycling.. I guess you guys know what kind of sweets we eat during ramadan, and that damn vimto drink lol.
@ohk
Most commentators (including the author of the Guardian article itself) have made no claims on nutrition and diet. This is a complex science and we need all the help from professionals who study the interaction between different foods and the body – and we look to their advice on the right type of foods to eat.
The article is ONLY about weight-loss. For that, we don’t need any help. Millions of years of human evolution has taught us these simple rules:
1. Eat what you need to survive.
2. Eat a lot and you become fat
3. Eat less and you become thin.
It is just about calorie deficit. What the author claims (and is supported by credible scientific research) is that exercise play very little role in the calorie deficit game.
Exercise is obviously very important for a healthy lifestyle but the article was not discussing healthy lifestyle.
i don’t believe it
@Adam: Don’t be a smartass. I read HuffPost every day; it’s an article from the Guardian that was linked to by HuffPost, not written by them.
Maybe you intentionally missed my point. That article most likely will get people to say, “what’s the point,” and then not put any effort in at all.
Exercise combined with a good diet is the key, but one without the other is still better than nothing.
To lose weight and achieve a lean body you should focus 70% of your effort dieting and 30% exercising.
The exercising is important, but so is a sensible diet.
moderate exercise plus diet will yield results. thought that was just common sense?
Callin out Fahad! u there?
In my opinion the article is ridiculous.. I think dude just wanted grab readers with that headline.. Everyone knows and has heard it a million times that diet alone and exercise alone are not as affective as both together..
well u can lose weight without exercising minimum 4 kilos a month, i did it my self it’s not that hard..
im gunna share a secret with ya’ll
1-eat 500 calories less than your maintenance need.
2-Lift weights HEAVY 3 times a week for 30-45 mins.
3-?????
4-PROFIT!!!
This research is nothing but crap from a desperate fat guy.. who can’t control his diet and lazy to hit the gym..
the whole idea is that you’re going to build your muscles which in turn will burn more calories than fat does. so while it might not cause a direct immediate result, on the long run it will make it easier + you won’t end up with the flappy skin if you lose weight relatively fast (as with the people that had undergone the gastric bypass operation).
2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003
40 replies on “Exercise won’t help you lose weight”
Actually, it makes perfect sense. Just last week, I was just explaining the exact same thing to an overweight friend of mine who was expecting miraculous weight loss after joining the gym.
I basically explained to him that his 30 minutes of workout on an elliptical is worth about 250 calories. Eat one donut and he is back to square one.
If you want to lose weight, diet is the primary control. You want to feel great and stay healthy, then exercise.
true that.
This article makes a few good points and fails in many. Exercise isn’t irrelevant. It’s the 50% you need to lose the weight you have on ya.
Diet is the 2nd 50% you’re gonna need. I read the comments on that article and it seems the people who are commenting know much more than the idiot scientist that has been conducting this research for about 11 years.
To simplify:-
a) Diet only : You get thin with flabby skin all over. Or you turn anorexic and die.
b) Exercise only : If you’re doing aerobics you’re not gonna lose zip.
C) Exercise and diet : Win.
OR
d) Weight lift and eat breakfast!!(seriously)
My dad, 46, has been on this “trying to lose weight” mission for the last 9 months. He eats all the same stuff we usually do but eats tiny portions. Like less than half a spoon of rice and just 2 small piesces of chicken etc. etc. and then he eats a little more salad and has fruit at the end of the meal. He skips breakfast and for dinner he eats fruit again. Every weekend/every other weekend we still go out as a family and eat at a restaurant and he orders whatever he wants, except heorders water instead of soda.
Every day he makes an effort to walk for one hour and sometimes I join him. I used an app on my phone to see how much calories we burn from walking for one hour and it was a grand total of… 100 calories. I was like, wow.. this kind of seems useless lol. 100 calories is nothing when it comes to eating food. Someone would have to seriously work their ass off 3 hours a day to achieve something like 5000 calories! But he still does it because he says it makes him feel better.
So with all this that he’s doing, in 9 months he’s lost 9kg (20 lbs). It doesn’t seem like a lot but it’s with absolute minimal effort and once a week he has a cheat day. I think his system is pretty good.
I read this yesterday on the Huffington Post site and thought it was a load of crap. It’s really a dangerous article that’s going to discourage people from exercising.
I knew it, I knew it. That why I don’t exercise anymore.
This is not encouraging at all!! Been trying to drag myself to the gym for over 2 months, tomorrow is supposed to be the first day! I will not let this affect me, i will not let this affect me.. I’ll just keep saying that to myself 😀
It makes perfect sense. It reminded me of this article which I read a while ago and which I’m implementing successfully. With the two combined, you’ll make sense of things:
https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/stand-up-while-you-read-this/?em
Absolutely true and has been known for some time. This is by no means the first study to show that either. Exercise burns a negligible amount of calories. Just stop stuffing your faces.
@Haitham, if you think HuffPo is crap then don’t read it. More importantly HuffPo linked to the article in The Guardian. Also there is nothing dangerous about getting people to eat less and exercise less.
I agree with kidou33,
this article says the gym is no help at all? yeh ok burning like 200 or 300 calories at the gym will do nothing if u arent dieting too. but when i went to the gym for 6 months straight, and burned an average of 700 to 1000 calories per day, and went on a 1500 calorie diet, that helped ALOT.
i guess this article has a point. like if u are doing 20 or 30 minutes of exercise and then grabbing a bite to eat from McDeees LOL, no point to that
It was posted on the Guardian. Their website is a load of trite.
lets see..you stuff your face with 2000 odd calories a day, and work out and lose a small portion…say 200-500 a day…you do the math…it dont work!
@kidou33
The article is not written by an idiot scientist. It is written by a writer who cites scientific research instead of personal opinion.
Don’t confuse healthy life-style with weight loss. Weight loss is simply a numbers game – and in the numbers game, exercise plays very negligible role. Let me explain.
An average adult needs 2000 calories a day (that 14,000 calories per week). An average gym member goes 3 times a week to the gym and spends 30 minutes of moderate workout (300 calories per session x 3 = 900 calories per week). So the gym workout yields 6.4% of calories compared to average needs. He then thinks that because he goes to the gym, he can eat an extra chocolate bar as a reward each day (200×7 = 1400 calories). Over a period of few weeks, our gym member actually ends up gaining weight!!
I can say from experience that diet or exercise alone has a little effect compared to the combination of both
Exercise compliments healthy eating perfectly and helps achieve one’s goals (not necessarily weight loss for fit people)
@cajie: Your assessment assumes rewards as common mentality among gym goers; When in my personal opinion, I’ve found people who go to the gym for reducing weight, supplement it with a reduced diet. And even if you’re right, it doesn’t mean that you don’t lose weight in the gym. Just that people are generally stupid.
@Eliasoz: Guardian’s one of the few newspapers around holding onto fundamental journalistic roots and ethics. Not sure why you would say that.
@Sahar: Even if the research is correct, gym helps you get a lean body, builds self-confidence and generally makes you more energetic. Look around at the people who go to gym and those who don’t and you’ll see the difference,.
@samurai. I was highlighting the dangers of assuming that gym-work=weight loss by taking the negative approach and basing it on experience of what generally happens. Even if you remove the extra supplement, you can see how little impact 900 calories a week will make on your weight-loss goals. It only takes one big slice of cheesecake during the week (perhaps as a “cheat meal”) to undo those 3 hard days of workout.
As everyone here as said, gym+sensible diet is what needs to happen. People should be made aware of the calorie game and then only will they start seeing tangible benefits.
@yousef
I actually think ur dad is doing a good job, seriously… Slow and steady thats the way.. As an ex-overweight person myself i can guartantee him those 9kg will stay off..
diet + brisk walks = good results
walking is extremely helpful
i now a guy who was about 140 KG
he used to walk for 3 km every day ( that’s 3 times back and forth in our mamsha in jabriya
he lost about 55 kg so far in 3 months
no diet shit
no gym shit
nothing … just walking
55 kg in 3 months?!?!?!?!? are you serious?!? he can actually cause harm to his body, no?
don’t now but he did and he seems fine to me
@ahmad..The numbers don’t add up.
You need to expend 3500 calories to lose 1 pound of weight.
Therefore 55Kgs = 121 pounds
3500 calories x 121 pounds = 423,500 calories
If he dropped that many calories in 3 months, it means he spent an extra 4706 calories per day (423500/90) by walking just 6 kilometers.
6 kilometers walk is around 300 calories.
We are missing 4406 calories a day!!
hmmm, 55 kg in 3 months? no diet? nothing? sorry but that is kind of impossible lol, like cajie says, there are 4400 missing calories that he somehow burned.
i used to work out bel gym, over 1 hour a day, burning about 800 calories, AND sticking to a 1500 calorie diet, o qaseb 6aya7t 40 kg in 4 months lol. he must be doing something else. not that im doubting your words, but there has to be something else involved
A million other studies prove the one mentioned in this post wrong.
There will always be differing opinions but for thousands of years, humans have been engaged in rigorous physical labor and therefore our bodies are designed by nature to cope with physical demands placed on them.
Anyone who says exercising does not yield lower numbers in the weight department doesn’t know what they’re talking about, ph D or not.
Exercising as someone put it leads to an increase in self confidence and that alone has numerous benefits. For example the release of endorphins plays a big part in how our mind views its overall self which consequently affects our physical appearance as well.
It’s always been mind over body, never the other way around. You supplement your exercise with a proper and nutritious diet, you don’t starve yourself or miss an important meal, you eat smaller portions but several of them over the course of the day.
Also, if someone ‘works out hard’ in the gym, it totally depends on their mind set at the time.
If said person is just going through the motions mechanically and looking at their watches every five minutes until they realize an hour has passed by, they won’t achieve anything.
Exercise is an in the moment type of thing, you have to feel your muscles contracting with each repetition and you have to feel your body going through each motion and ultimately you have to enjoy the feeling, you have to enjoy going to the gym/exercising and not loathing it.
It seems now everyone knows everything about nutrition and dietetics.
Everyone has an opinion and a theory. It seems getting a degree in dietetics is a waste of time since I can just come out and make a bunch of claims and people will believe me. Wtf? Why don’t you leave the claims to people who spent years studying and researching the biochemistry of the body and understanding the exact processes that the human body goes through, cause at the end thats what it all comes down to. These are the people who can actually make true claims. Not some dude with a business degree who read a bunch of articles on the internet.
Leave it to the Brits to come up with such nonsense! Exercise combined with good nutrition will help with weight reduction, not to mention the other benefits: fights osteoporosis, diabetes, heart aliments etc.
@ohk: Don’t be so naive. Just because you supposedly wield a piece of paper that says you did this and studied that has no significance to the words of a self-taught man who for example is the embodiment of physical perfection.
Let’s not go into the whole subject of whether or not the university you attended has a sound reputation (of course you will mention some fancy university to back your claim) and how the essence of learning and obtaining knowledge isn’t found in all universities.
Universities are a business and you can have a degree in almost any subject which is laughable which further proves how the meaning of education has stagnated into something meaningless over the years.
I’ve lost 11kg during ramadan, eating what ever I want and cycling.. I guess you guys know what kind of sweets we eat during ramadan, and that damn vimto drink lol.
@ohk
Most commentators (including the author of the Guardian article itself) have made no claims on nutrition and diet. This is a complex science and we need all the help from professionals who study the interaction between different foods and the body – and we look to their advice on the right type of foods to eat.
The article is ONLY about weight-loss. For that, we don’t need any help. Millions of years of human evolution has taught us these simple rules:
1. Eat what you need to survive.
2. Eat a lot and you become fat
3. Eat less and you become thin.
It is just about calorie deficit. What the author claims (and is supported by credible scientific research) is that exercise play very little role in the calorie deficit game.
Exercise is obviously very important for a healthy lifestyle but the article was not discussing healthy lifestyle.
i don’t believe it
@Adam: Don’t be a smartass. I read HuffPost every day; it’s an article from the Guardian that was linked to by HuffPost, not written by them.
Maybe you intentionally missed my point. That article most likely will get people to say, “what’s the point,” and then not put any effort in at all.
Exercise combined with a good diet is the key, but one without the other is still better than nothing.
To lose weight and achieve a lean body you should focus 70% of your effort dieting and 30% exercising.
The exercising is important, but so is a sensible diet.
moderate exercise plus diet will yield results. thought that was just common sense?
Callin out Fahad! u there?
In my opinion the article is ridiculous.. I think dude just wanted grab readers with that headline.. Everyone knows and has heard it a million times that diet alone and exercise alone are not as affective as both together..
well u can lose weight without exercising minimum 4 kilos a month, i did it my self it’s not that hard..
im gunna share a secret with ya’ll
1-eat 500 calories less than your maintenance need.
2-Lift weights HEAVY 3 times a week for 30-45 mins.
3-?????
4-PROFIT!!!
This research is nothing but crap from a desperate fat guy.. who can’t control his diet and lazy to hit the gym..
the whole idea is that you’re going to build your muscles which in turn will burn more calories than fat does. so while it might not cause a direct immediate result, on the long run it will make it easier + you won’t end up with the flappy skin if you lose weight relatively fast (as with the people that had undergone the gastric bypass operation).