Exercise is a poor way to lose weight. Men, if they gain enough muscle, can raise their metabolism, and thereby lose a lot of weight, but this is only after several months of hard work before they can see results in this manner. The best way to lose weight is to change your lifestyle as this is the easiest to implement and the second best way to do so is to diet which loses weight slightly faster but is much harder to implement. Exercise should be done for health and to build muscle; not to lose weight.
Some numbers:
Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis—Standing up instead of Sitting Down for 8 hours a day is 320 calories per day or 2240 calories per week.
Dieting -
Cutting 400 calories from your intake yields 2800 calories per week. Don’t worry too much about which diet you choose. Any diet that reduces calorie intake is going to work. Low-carb diets are slightly more effective than low-fat diets. The well-known, tried-and-true method of reducing alcohol, sugar and starch while increasing vegetable intake is very effective. Most diets are some variation of that.
Exercise -
A vigorous 1 hour long workout regimen will burn about 600 calories. If done 3 times per week, this will burn 1800 calories. It is more common to workout for half an hour 5 times a week. You’ll be able to obtain a slightly higher burn rate because the sessions will be shorter, so you’ll probably still end up around 1800 calories. That is, of course, a lot more exercise than people who claim they’re starting a workout program generally do.
I lost about 20 pounds by increasing my NEAT and another 10 through dietary changes. My weight varies slightly depending on how strict of a diet I’m currently following, but is always in a normal range. None of my workouts last more than 15 minutes, and my only piece of exercise equipment is a pull-up bar. The benefits to your system of each additional minute of exercise diminish very quickly if you’re going at maximum intensity the whole time.
With due respect, you are not really understanding the spirit of my article. What I am trying to say is the whole thing is primarily psychological and what sucks about fitness culture is ignoring it. You too have completely ignored the psychology part here. Yet this is precisely I am trying to draw attention to so I must object here.
Basically people don’t have poor diets simply because they are misinformed. There are all kinds of psychological mechanisms here, from comfort eating to thinking you suck and you don’t deserve a good body and so on.
To change the diet, we need to put people into a proper psychological frame for that. There are various aspects of it how sports help. Better mood. Feeling more proud due to having physical successes, feeling proud and good about yourself for having the will to do it. Fat looks better with muscle under it, this is what people call toning up. More importantly, changing the self-image from “self-hatting glutton slob worthless jabba couch potato” to “proud active athlete who achieves goals aw yiss”. Taking hedons from activity, not consumption. Not wanting to feel stuffed because it interferes with active movement. Not wanting to feel food coma, because enjoying the new, more aware, more active, less of a mind-fog existence. And so on.
Of course, this could partially replaced by other sources of joy and other sources of feeling achivement. I am working from a “nothing special happens, normal office career, no challenges” assumption here.
Everything you wrote is right, it is just missing the point. You are talking about how the body works. I am talking about how the mind, the psychology works. My criticism of fitness culture is precisely too much focus on how the body works and too little on how the mind.
One more thing. Insulin sensitivity, leptin sensitivity, HGH and T. All having an effect on fat. This is how basic calories math is misleading: if you cells refuse to take energy, or your body refuses to deliver it to cells, or whatnot, you simply end up storing it as fat and as not getting enough energy, you feel tired and become inactive. Eat less calories and you are just more tired. There is an obvious problem here and this is what is fixed with exercise or sports.
I’m not disagreeing with your diagnosis of the problem. I think your diagnosis is in part highly speculative, but I’m not too concerned with that. You are correct that motivation is a major factor. I’m disagreeing with your proposed solution, which you highlighted in italics under a section labeled solutions:
If you are fat (or skinnyfat), and struggle with the motivation / discipline to exercise, I can help you. Forget fitness and exercise and start a sport you like.
Which you are proposing as a solution for:
I am working from a “nothing special happens, normal office career, no challenges” assumption here.
I’m saying this is wrong. A typical casual sports club won’t allow most people to burn nearly enough calories to bring about significant weight loss during the course of a regular season. Most of this weight will then be gained back in the off-season. This is why many people on those teams are fat. The best solution for the office worker is to switch to a stand-up desk. The second best solution is to eat more vegetables. Sports teams require a much bigger commitment than is actually required to meet basic fitness goals, which can be done with as little as 30 minutes a week of exercise.
Basically, I view weight loss like this:
50% NEAT
40% Diet
10% Exercise
Your article reads like this:
98% Exercise
2% Diet
0% NEAT
Anybody relying on your advice is going to have a very skewed perception on how to lose weight.
Sports teams require a much bigger commitment than is actually required to meet basic fitness goals, which can be done with as little as 30 minutes a week of exercise.
I don’t know how to explain it better. You need to feel good, and feel proud about yourself to make the kinds of changes you say. This is what sports do. Put you in a I-am-a-hero mood which enables you to change these things. The calories burned is a remote extra.
Example: most of my own fat comes from alcohol and the burning hunger that creates, currently I am on day 5 of zero booze, compared to my, probably strongly addicted, 2 liter beer a day habit. I know that if I was not doing boxing for months now I had no chance to make this change, I hated myself too much and felt too bad and too weak to resist. Boxing made me find this inner strength and pride and self-approval to deserve a positive change.
My example is not very typical but replace booze with sugar/choco and junk food, or overdosing on standard homecooked food until sleepiness, and now we are closer to typical cases.
BTW fitness is not simply weight loss.
Your article reads like this: 98% Exercise 2% Diet 0% NEAT
No, the point I am trying to drive home it iss 90% psychology, 90% things that happen inside your head and the other three happens after. Sport is self-esteem training, in a way, although this is not the only psychological factor created by it.
Exercise is a poor way to lose weight. Men, if they gain enough muscle, can raise their metabolism, and thereby lose a lot of weight, but this is only after several months of hard work before they can see results in this manner. The best way to lose weight is to change your lifestyle as this is the easiest to implement and the second best way to do so is to diet which loses weight slightly faster but is much harder to implement. Exercise should be done for health and to build muscle; not to lose weight.
Some numbers:
Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis—Standing up instead of Sitting Down for 8 hours a day is 320 calories per day or 2240 calories per week.
Dieting - Cutting 400 calories from your intake yields 2800 calories per week. Don’t worry too much about which diet you choose. Any diet that reduces calorie intake is going to work. Low-carb diets are slightly more effective than low-fat diets. The well-known, tried-and-true method of reducing alcohol, sugar and starch while increasing vegetable intake is very effective. Most diets are some variation of that.
Exercise - A vigorous 1 hour long workout regimen will burn about 600 calories. If done 3 times per week, this will burn 1800 calories. It is more common to workout for half an hour 5 times a week. You’ll be able to obtain a slightly higher burn rate because the sessions will be shorter, so you’ll probably still end up around 1800 calories. That is, of course, a lot more exercise than people who claim they’re starting a workout program generally do.
I lost about 20 pounds by increasing my NEAT and another 10 through dietary changes. My weight varies slightly depending on how strict of a diet I’m currently following, but is always in a normal range. None of my workouts last more than 15 minutes, and my only piece of exercise equipment is a pull-up bar. The benefits to your system of each additional minute of exercise diminish very quickly if you’re going at maximum intensity the whole time.
With due respect, you are not really understanding the spirit of my article. What I am trying to say is the whole thing is primarily psychological and what sucks about fitness culture is ignoring it. You too have completely ignored the psychology part here. Yet this is precisely I am trying to draw attention to so I must object here.
Basically people don’t have poor diets simply because they are misinformed. There are all kinds of psychological mechanisms here, from comfort eating to thinking you suck and you don’t deserve a good body and so on.
To change the diet, we need to put people into a proper psychological frame for that. There are various aspects of it how sports help. Better mood. Feeling more proud due to having physical successes, feeling proud and good about yourself for having the will to do it. Fat looks better with muscle under it, this is what people call toning up. More importantly, changing the self-image from “self-hatting glutton slob worthless jabba couch potato” to “proud active athlete who achieves goals aw yiss”. Taking hedons from activity, not consumption. Not wanting to feel stuffed because it interferes with active movement. Not wanting to feel food coma, because enjoying the new, more aware, more active, less of a mind-fog existence. And so on.
Of course, this could partially replaced by other sources of joy and other sources of feeling achivement. I am working from a “nothing special happens, normal office career, no challenges” assumption here.
Everything you wrote is right, it is just missing the point. You are talking about how the body works. I am talking about how the mind, the psychology works. My criticism of fitness culture is precisely too much focus on how the body works and too little on how the mind.
One more thing. Insulin sensitivity, leptin sensitivity, HGH and T. All having an effect on fat. This is how basic calories math is misleading: if you cells refuse to take energy, or your body refuses to deliver it to cells, or whatnot, you simply end up storing it as fat and as not getting enough energy, you feel tired and become inactive. Eat less calories and you are just more tired. There is an obvious problem here and this is what is fixed with exercise or sports.
I’m not disagreeing with your diagnosis of the problem. I think your diagnosis is in part highly speculative, but I’m not too concerned with that. You are correct that motivation is a major factor. I’m disagreeing with your proposed solution, which you highlighted in italics under a section labeled solutions:
Which you are proposing as a solution for:
I’m saying this is wrong. A typical casual sports club won’t allow most people to burn nearly enough calories to bring about significant weight loss during the course of a regular season. Most of this weight will then be gained back in the off-season. This is why many people on those teams are fat. The best solution for the office worker is to switch to a stand-up desk. The second best solution is to eat more vegetables. Sports teams require a much bigger commitment than is actually required to meet basic fitness goals, which can be done with as little as 30 minutes a week of exercise.
Basically, I view weight loss like this: 50% NEAT 40% Diet 10% Exercise
Your article reads like this: 98% Exercise 2% Diet 0% NEAT
Anybody relying on your advice is going to have a very skewed perception on how to lose weight.
I don’t know how to explain it better. You need to feel good, and feel proud about yourself to make the kinds of changes you say. This is what sports do. Put you in a I-am-a-hero mood which enables you to change these things. The calories burned is a remote extra.
Example: most of my own fat comes from alcohol and the burning hunger that creates, currently I am on day 5 of zero booze, compared to my, probably strongly addicted, 2 liter beer a day habit. I know that if I was not doing boxing for months now I had no chance to make this change, I hated myself too much and felt too bad and too weak to resist. Boxing made me find this inner strength and pride and self-approval to deserve a positive change.
My example is not very typical but replace booze with sugar/choco and junk food, or overdosing on standard homecooked food until sleepiness, and now we are closer to typical cases.
BTW fitness is not simply weight loss.
No, the point I am trying to drive home it iss 90% psychology, 90% things that happen inside your head and the other three happens after. Sport is self-esteem training, in a way, although this is not the only psychological factor created by it.