I just wanted to hear peoples opinions from experience on this subject.

Does exercise really use up that many calories?

I am a gardener and work 8 hours a day (cutting grass etc) and yeah I got big muscles but my weight hasn't moved in 2 months.I admit I have been cheating here and there but you would think the exercise would burn any little cheating I was doing, NOT.

Someone posting that her doctor said exercise makes you healthy but it's more about the amount of food your taking in that makes the scale move.

This winter when my husband and I do snow plowing we both lost 20 lbs. doing hardly any exercise.It snows once/twice a week usually.

anywho, just wanted peoples thoughts on this subject.

right now I am cutting calories back to 1,200 approx. to see if the scale moves more.

chrissy

Here is a a thought. You burn 215 calories while walking 45 minutes at a speed of 3 mph. That will cover a snack of a 1 -50 calorie oreo. Yet, that will not cover and extra slice of pizza at 200 calories a slice.

You can never exerice enough in one day to burn 3500 extra calories. That is why most people decrease calories by 200-300 and exerice to burn 200-300. In order to lose 1 lb after 7 -10 days.

Doing both, reducing calories and exercising is my method of choice for several reasons, but I think it's important to remember that exercise is important whether you want to lose weight or not. We need exercise to help strengthen our body, strengthen our heart and lungs and prevent bone loss, so weight loss or not, exercise should be a part of everyone's life in some form or fashion.

Donna

I agree that exercise is important whether it helps us lose weight or not.

But, exercise IS important in weight loss for a number of reasons (IMO), even though we do have to control calorie intake.

Consistent exercise, especially resistance training, burns extra calories just in doing it, but as everyone agrees, not that much. But muscle is metabolically active ... just lying on the couch, a pound of muscle burns lots more calories than a pound of fat. So the issue of building muscle comes down to if you have more, your metabolism functions better and you burn more calories. Add that to a modest decrease and you can really get somewhere.

Not me, of course, 'cause I have the metabolism of a sea cow, but it works for most folks! :)

In my opinion. :)

I've read that both exercise AND diet matter for weight loss, but diet matters more.

If you want a good-looking body, you're going to have to exercise, regardless, or else you'll end up a "skinny-fat" person with zero muscle tone.

I have just read an article about this very subject in 'health' magazine. The author (Gina Kolata) of a book titled "Ultimate Fitness: The Quest for Truth about Exercise and Health" says much of what we know about fitness is wrong. She believes that in order to achieve any benefit from exercise it must be done at a very intense level. About building muscle because it burns more calories than fat she says: "I thought if you added muscle you could eat more, since muscle is metabolically more active than fat. It turns out that the added muscle doesn't burn very many calories compared with the total metabolic needs of your body."

That said, ChangeOne's focus for next week is 'Staying Active for Success.' In the chapter it cites a study done at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, that compared the effects of diet versus exercise. Over 3 months the volunteers in the diet and exercise groups lost more than 16 lbs. But those who exercised lost almost 2 lbs more body fat than the dieters did. They also noted a study from the Univeristy of Maryland that offered evidence of the benefits of combining a weight-loss program with exercise. 24 inactive women were asked to begin walking 3 times a week, and at the same time they were to cut 250-350 calories per day out of their diets. After 6 months the volunteers had lost 8% of their body weight. For a 180-lb woman, that's a loss of 14 lbs. However, their total body fat had fallen by 15%. So, each woman had lost an average of 27 lbs of fat, replacing about half of it with muscle.

For myself, exercise makes me feel good, plain and simple, and that's why I do it.

thanks for all the replies, I agree exercise does do something but I don't think it is burning as many calories as we think.One time I was visiting my doctor and of course no weight loss just gain and I said maybe it is muscle gain and she just smiled and said "No".Anywho I will continue to experiment.

chrissy

I use myself as a "test dummy" all the time to test various theories I come up with and I'd have to say that in the case of my body, exercise counts much more than what I eat. I can maintain my current weight, eating 3000 cal/day and exercising 6 days/week, a combo of strength training (each body part 2x/week and 4 days cardio)

Clearly I could not eat that many calories and not gain if it weren't for the calories burned exercising. My level of exercise is intense/vigorous and I lift heavy weight in order to continue to build muscle and my cardio is varied between high and low impact but always high intensity. So for my body, exercise does burn a significant number of calories, at least enough to allow me to eat a tremendous amount of calories without a gain.
That being said, I'll also add that once I hit 3300 cal/day, even with the exact same level of exercise, I saw a gain of 1.5lbs so that's how I learned what calorie level would allow me to maintain and what would not.

So for me, I can honestly state that exercise does make a difference. It might not if I didn't enjoy eating so much, but since I do, it's a happy trade off! I'll bench press and squat my tail off if it means ice cream can be a regular part of my diet!:D

Donna

Basically, if you eat like crap, you won't lose weight. There is no McDonald's, Ben and Jerry's and Domino's Pizza diet...You have to use common sense with your diet even if you're exercising. All of that said, even eating like crap, you will see positive results from an exercise program, weight loss just might not be one of them.

Donna, you have an awesome exercise attitude!! :up:

I really enjoy it, too, so for me it's a no-brainer ... although I exercise somewhat similarly to you and I can't go much beyond 1800 one or two times a week without gaining. With the trainer's help, I'm lifting heavier these days and I know that'll help.

Ice cream forever!!! :)

so, what I am hearing is by exercising we can eat more but the scale doesn't move.

so, if I want to lose weight cutting calories back is very important for the scale to move.right?

chrissy

Originally posted by chrissy
so, what I am hearing is by exercising we can eat more but the scale doesn't move.

so, if I want to lose weight cutting calories back is very important for the scale to move.right?

chrissy

What I heard, with a combination of calorie cutting and exercise to will have a better quality of weight loss.

With calorie cutting alone you will lose but you will not lose the pecentages of body fat that you would lose if you added exercise.

Exericise and calories must be equalized for maintaince weight and they must be modified for weight loss. The math of this thought is that you have to burn more calories then you take in.

ex. 180 lb person needs 1800 calories to maintain this weight. If you want to lose weight. You have to decrease calories. You can decrease 600 calories a day by
1) eating 1500 and burning 300 calories with exercise
2) eating 1200 calories
3) buring 600 calories with exercise.

chrissy To answer this question needs some soul searching and honest answers, Please excuse my long post, these are my thoughts but we are all different including our way of tackling our weight.
There are lots of variables to consider.
What exactly is the main reason for the weight-gain.
Overeating or under exercising due to a inactive lifestyle or occupation
Here is a brief description of my journey, work as a blacksmith fabricator (self employed) for many years, work is heavy but seldom does it get your heart-rate going, have no control of eating , often reward myself with 1200 to 1500 calories of chocolate when I fill with fuel on the way home, on a stressful day eat similar to ease the pressure, eat bigstyle with no thought of carorie intake versus expenditure, result lifelong weightproblem masking my natural self.
So my journey began no additional planned workout till I dumped 100 lbs , this I achieved in 6 months, Yes I did more walking and changed my daily activity, parked further away etc, climbed more stairs etc,
only then Did I introduce both a treadmill and weight routine work outs and Guess what the weight loss slowed way down, so now I was walking lots , building muscle and getting fitter and a lot of it my body wanted, its natural that if you dump a lot you feel like moving more after all you are escaping the vicious circle,
But and this for me is a "big but " I had lost plenty and the motivation was pushing me even if the scales slowed down but I in all honesty wonder If I had not seen those lbs go and those scales drop would I have felt the same at the early stages. and would I have quit
Motivation for me had to come quickly now its not nearly as important if the scale shows results , indeed my looks , clothes and fitness all are greatly benefiting from exercising and I even enjoy working out, I realize there are lots of reasons for exercise but weight loss can be achieved bigstyle by calorie intake reduction.
To further my view point My wife lives a very active daily life indeed she seldom sits, she is a dog breeder and excellent handler, runs the home and works in the business, over the last 7 or so years she slowly climbed by about 40 lbs, yet she did nothing different activity wise, when I started she joined me and She calorie counted and within 5 months dropped 42 lbs down to 138 and done no exercise pro gramme at all ,? why simply my poor eating habits took there toll and when we changed our eating the weight went back to her natural self, I don't suggest this would work in every case but Mrs Acey spends more energy in an average day that she would find little need for additional and for me its the opposite I intend to compensate by working out but most important of all " control my eating "

Good luck to all.

Acey

thanks for the replies.It is interesting to read everyones different take on exercise and food.

chrissy