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I am joining a gym, I really only want to loose weight (expressly in my belly and chin area)
(lemmy.blahaj.zone)
this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2023
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I'm going to disagree slightly with the majority of the comments here and say that excersize is still very important for weight loss.
First off though, because I'm sure some folks are already getting their pitchforks out, all weight loss is CICO, and you can absolutely hit any goal weight just by diet alone without ever getting off your couch. Additionally, what works for weight loss (in terms of actual techniques to achieve a net Calorie deficiency) varies from person to person, what I say below may totally not be the case for you, and that's fine.
All that being said, I think you're going to have a much easier time of it if you also workout in some way.
For one thing, more excersize means more calories out. You can easily (well, your definition of "easy" may vary lol) burn 500 calories during a single workout. If you're making smart eating choices, 500 calories is a lot of food. You would be hard pressed to be physically able to eat 500 calories of an air fried vegetable medely for example. This means that you can lose weight while not feeling starved. And even for less healthy choices, it's still a fair bit of food. You can eat 2 slices of pizza for that one workout and still break even from a calories standpoint.
Basically, excersize = free food - most people fail their diets because they're tired of being hungry all the time and tired of not being able to enjoy the foods they love. Adding excersize into the mix means you can eat more, and still enjoy sensible servings of your favorite "treat" foods while still losing weight.
Secondly, for me at least, working out gives you motivation in the kitchen later. It's a lot harder to cave and order that pizza instead of making the salmon and veggies you had planned for dinner when you know that doing so means "wasting" all that sweat and effort you put in at the gym earlier that day. Remember how earlier I pointed out that a single excersize = 2 slices of pizza? Well that also works the other way around - when you go to reach for a slice of pizza, you wind up asking yourself "is this one slice of pizza worth half a workout?" for me at least, the answer is often no, and even when it's yes (every diet needs room for your favorite junk foods in moderation), I keep asking myself that for each slice, and so will stop eating before I go overboard.
Finally, you probably don't just want to lose weight. OK, maybe you do, idk you - but if you succeed and hit your goal weight, you'll probably just transition to being insecure about fat deposits to being insecure about being scrawny. If your goal is to look good, at least some muscle tone is necessary, and if your goal is to be generally healthier, than it's even more important to add exercise to the mix.
Just my $0.02, Im no dietician or personal trainer, but I've been working hard at getting in shape and have lost 13 pounds in the last month through a combination of diet and exercise, and I truly don't think I could have done it without having added excersize to my routine
Very true, I have a friend who wants to lose weight and said "but eating makes me happy." Easiest way to keep your current habits and lose weight is just add on going to the gym, and the more you go the more you can eat. Added bonus is no matter what happens you'll just feel better in daily life.
Me and my wife are big foodies, so cutting out all food that isn't strictly "healthy" was never an option lol. I usually burn ~800 calories at the gym, that's a whole stick of butter lol
We still have been making healthier choices in general (protein pasta instead of regular, chicken breast instead of thighs, and less oil/butter while cooking, but weve been able to get healthy while for the large part eating the same as how we did before.
The biggest change is that were a lot more cognizent about protein, and we log our meals, but neither of those is an issue
The other thing to note is that nearly all the "permanent" weight you lose (the loss you can actually maintain) is lost from exhaling carbon. Water weight comes back when you rehydrate (and you should hydrate). You don't poop much weight out (it's a lot of water and dead blood cells). But the output of the Krebs cycle (respiration) is carbon dioxide.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citric_acid_cycle
That's carbon you ate in various forms: protein, fat, and sugar.
Strength training is useful but a weight loss exercise regime will have a lot of sustained heavy breathing, i.e cardio.
(Plus with cardio you'll be ready for most zombie apocalypses.)
Your second point is a big one for me. If I hit the gym in the morning, I'm more likely to make better food choices throughout the day. Conversely, if I skip a planned gym day, i'm more likely to binge on anything I can get my hands on...
Like you say, at the end of the day CICO is king.
The only weight loss benefit to working out is that it increases CO. That’s it.
Targeted exercise doesn’t do anything for targeted weight loss. Your body loses fat however the fuck it wants to and the only way to lose belly fat is to lose fat everywhere else your body chooses to first. And that happens with or without exercise.
Sure, if you ignore all the psychological and habit forming benefits that it provides. Saying that the only benefit to exercise is increasing CO workers would be true if you were just a robot who was fully capable of making rational choices 100% of the time. And if that's you, then you wouldn't need weight loss in the first place..
Exercise does a lot to help individuals stick with the Calorie restriction part of CICO, for the reasons I mention.
And also like I said, pure** weight loss is rarely anyone's actual goal**, id wager that close to 100% of people trying to "lose weight" are actually working towards either looking better, or being more healthy (or both, of course) - and for both of those goals, exercise is very important.
Yes, I know? When did I say otherwise?
You need to learn to spell, but otherwise you're not wrong.
Yeah idk why but I can never get exercise right off the top of my head, no idea why spellcheck seems to never catch it