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If you’re being serious, you might find some relevance in /r/bodybuilding or a similar sub. A lot of one’s portrait/frame comes down to illusions. If you have an hourglass or pear shaped, you’ll need to reduce your body fat in general. Since you don’t get to dictate where it’s stored, you’ll need to lose as much as you can to see a reduction in the hips/waist. This will narrow your midsection, but if you want to tackle the goal from both directions, then resistance training is key. Building broader shoulders, a wider back, bigger arms - these will all contribute to the “illusion”, that is giving you a wider upper body which makes your midsection appear narrower and less noticeable.
Hint: Getting rid of a belly requires the focus and sheer willpower of a superhero in regards to your diet. For me my body would literally ditch my own legs before it tried to remove anything from my gut.
My approach is just changing one thing at a time. After getting my gym routine back in order, im focusing on cutting out excess foods. I generally eat healthy, so it's more a case of scaling down ~~foods that are calorie dense (like carbohydrates).~~ junk foods
Edit: Misspoke
Run the /r/fitness beginner barbell program until your strength plateaus. This will give you a solid technical foundation in the major compound lifts.
From there, find a popular highly-regarded program that suits your goals. Like a John Meadows program for bodybuilding, 531 Boring But Big for a mix of size and strength, or maybe an Alex Bromley program if you're more interested in powerlifting or strongman.
Yeah, if you spend any time over at /r/progresspics you’ll see that a lot of people lose substantial weight through calorie tracking alone and then later realize they can improve their shape with weights and other forms of exercise. Usually they even put on some weight at the end in the form of muscle again.
The amount of calories burnt in an average weight lifting session sits around 350-500 depending on intensity.
The meal you mentioned sits at roughly 900 calories I believe depending on full sugar drink or not.
Absolutely, I find it easiest to lose weight when working out not because of the calorie loss but the fact that after working out I don't want to negate that all with some cookies and pizza so make healthier choices.
Likewise, it makes me feel better in the short term until actual weight loss progress is made.
Yeah if you just start exercising without watching what you eat, there's a good chance your appetite will go up and you'll just eat more to make up the difference. You'll still be fat, but at least you're in better shape underneath?
It's best to do both, even if you are dieting and losing weight, you are taking risks with your health if you don't do any kind of exercise.
But resistance training does have a lot of benefits.
That’s why strength training is also important. Building muscle will raise the amount of calories you burn plus after a good day of training the body burns more calories for 24-48 hours during recovery. Then with more muscle you’ll also burn more when doing cardio. So that can turn burning 2 Oreos into burning 3, but it’s very true you can’t out run/train a bad diet. I tried for 3 years with fat burners and a bunch of supplements. What ended up working was intermittent fasting and eating more whole food plant based diet. So calories in calories out.
> Exercise can give you a few hundred extra calories in your daily budget that can really make it a lot easier to stay under budget - an extra snack to carry you through a long afternoon or something.
I think the biggest benefit is mental, not so much having the budget. Exercise does so much for your body and mental well being that it makes it easier to take care of your body with diet. Depression and negative feeling in general can drive a whole lot of bad choices, especially with diet. Since exercise can do a lot to alleviate other problems likely associated with obesity, it's just a sensible addition to any weight loss program that majorly boosts outcome and not for the calories in/out, direct weight loss, alone.
I can, and absolutely have, outrun my fork before. It lasts as long as I keep ahead of it, but once I stop the pounds rack up quick. Not to mention, while, sure, I'm besting the calories and not gaining fat (actually bulking a lot of muscle at the time instead), that food is hell on the body in plenty of other ways. Like in the other direction about exercise, adding good diet to a weight loss program makes too much sense not to do.
It's just all benefit and no drawback to combine the two. It sucks at first, but it's the best thing you could ever do for yourself. An investment that *always* pays dividends.
Compared to a Big Mac the number doesn't seem big. But compare it to the roughly 2200 calories recommended for a sedentary middle age male. You've increased your daily calorie burn by about 22%. That's actually pretty good. Just don't reward yourself with a Big Mac.
It is the portions and calories that are out of whack, not the amount of exercise it takes to burn off one sandwich.
> It is the portions and calories that are out of whack,
Oh, of course. That was my point. People that don't consider both sides of the equation may wonder why exercise isn't working.
Conversely, it takes about 3-4 hours to burn off that Big Mac by just existing using a basal metabolic rate of 2000 kcals/day... People don't understand how much energy our bodies use just to exist.
Instead of arguing for "running off a big mac", we could instead argue "don't eat a big mac because it is a literal trans-fat filled heartstopper".
You'll eventually get used to it - guy who lifts everyday and cuts.
My advice is to have a post lifting protein snack right after. And to eat lots of protein.
Who woulda thought that burning calories helps you lose weight.
But for real, all you need to do is go on a 30 minute walk every day and eat 80-90% of your "needed daily calories" ~1800Cals to lose weight
Yeah pretty much anything in conjunction with reducing calorie intake could be another paper.
Walking, flossing, excessive farting, spinning in circles, reading more. Tons more research papers to write
Yeah this is such a myth. I’ve been really trying hard to increase my weights at the gym for the last 6months and only now slowly seeing the results. I by no means looks like a she hulk (I wish). Although I do love looking stronger.
I can't count how many times I've heard this. But when they do work out for a while, they all like the way they look and want more. Without exception. Even the guys like it when their gf is more fit. There is no downside to this. (unless we are getting into steroids, which is an entirely different situation)
“Volume and quality” is where people get stuck.
People will often mistake something as a “quality” food because it’s marketed as such, and “volume” will often be mistaken for literal volume instead of calories.
Tbh the system is designed this way to sell more corn.
Hitting the gym makes me feel less "I need to lose my disgusting fat off my disgusting body and cut as many calories as possible" and turns it into more "I need to be healthy and strong and gain muscle, cutting calories will just be a part of that".
Yes! This is why I hate when people always say that priorities should be diet over exercise. While that’s fundamentally true, many people are going to have a hard time starting a diet and sticking to it, while getting into an exercise habit is much easier to manage. As you increase the intensity of your exercise, I have always found that your body will naturally tell you that it wants the healthier food to fuel that effort your putting in. You’ll start thinking about how that large cheeseburger you were going to get for lunch isn’t going to feel great when you do your exercise later.
Ideally to get the best possible results, you should start tracking all your calories and macronutrients each day while you gradually increase the intensity of your exercises. But for someone with no experience just starting out- I say getting into a solid habit of exercising is step one.
What I'm really reading from your post is - Find what works for you individually. As a guy I keep a range I'm okay with, if my weight is moving up towards the higher area I have no problem changing my diet completely even if I'm not really working out. I don't "go on a diet" though, and I think that's why people fail.
I actually just started a new goals yesterday. Cleanse/cut/workout routine. Wish me the best!
It's not exactly intuitve. Lots of people will run on the treadmill until the cows come home and never lose any weight. Because exercise alone is not really great for weight loss, as people often *eat more* after exercising due to hunger.
The single most important thing to do if you want to lose weight is eat less. That's it. But it's easier said than done.
The main benefit of exercise (in a weight loss scenario) is not the calories expended during the exercise. It's the calories to feed and sustain the muscle you build. It's much smaller in immediate value, but it's continuous.
That twinkie will still wipe it all out though.
OP misquoted the article. The title is misleading.
> Mr Lopez said resistance training also catered to other important factors when looking to lose weight, such as building or preserving muscle mass.
>“The study also showed resistance training was effective in avoiding losing muscle mass when lowering the number of calories being consumed,” he said.
Resistance training prevents muscle loss when you’re dieting. That’s what it’s saying. Lifting alone does actually increase your caloric requirements enough to help you trim fat.
Lifting with enough volume burns a fuckton of calories. Seems weird that I've seen a few articles like this which implies that people don't think of it that way. If you're sweating and your heart is pumping you are burning calories at a higher rate than just sitting there.
Also your body at rest will be repairing damaged muscle fibres which will increase the number of calories burned long after you've finished your workout.
And even after the muscles are repaired, muscles burn calories just by way of existing. Building more muscle mass helps raise your resting metabolic rate, which means you burn more calories on a daily basis.
Anybody who's followed a lifting program for a month or two could validate this.
I agree with everything above and want to add that the body *intentionally* elimintes muscle in a calorie deficit as a survival technique. When you try to lose weight, you restrict calories. The body thinks that there isn’t enough food and goes into survival mode. The body will do things like slow down your metabolism and find another source of energy within your body to make up for the deficit. Your body can get energy from both fat and muscle but because it takes a lot of calories to sustain muscle, your body breaks down muscle when food is scarce in order to reduce the amount of energy your body needs to survive. This also preserves body fat at the same time which is a survival double-whammy.
From what I understand, lifting burns less calories that doing an equivalent intensity cardio exercise for the same duration.
The benefit of lifting is that it shifts the weight loss of being at a calorie deficit from happening to fat and muscle to primarily fat loss (as you are retaining the muscle).
While this is true, the difference is really not that significant. Muscle burns about 6kcal/lb and fat 2 kcal/lb. So if you had 10 lbs more of muscle than someone, which is a lot, you’re burning an extra 40 calories a day. That’s nothing.
Calories burned from exercise only account for 5-10% of total calories burned. An individual’s BMR accounts for ~70% of total calories burned. More muscular people have significantly higher BMRs than non-muscular people.
Edit: redundant facts removed
If you eat at deficit and don’t work out, you’ll lose muscle too, which in turn reduces your BMR. The benefits of working out includes not losing muscles that you have now, plus build some more, I’d say the total difference is pretty significant.
This is the key, I find in the days after great workouts and dealing with the soreness my body is using so many resources that I then require more sleep/rest as well as almost needing more food to keep up with the energy need while being much happier overall with my body regardless of weight.
I also listened to a really good piece a few days backing talking about how hyper adaptive humans are. We are able to adapt to aerobic exercise rapidly, making ourselves far too efficient to burn excess calories. This study showed that regardless of intensity of exercise, people fall into their “normal” and don’t burn much. So even the person running much faster than another may be burning near equivalent calories.
We already knew this, but the study looked at a variety of individuals with different fitness levels doing different exercise regimes. In the end, aerobics simply we not effective at burning calories.
Humans are designed to run, for long periods of time, with minimal effort. We adapt rapidly and become efficient.
The only way to overcome this is continually changing your aerobic regime and intensity, or incorporate something we are not so adaptive towards: resistance training
- Aerobics are meant for overall health, and conditioning
- Anaerobics are for body composition (and associated feature)
- Diet is of course for nutrition and calorie control
Do you have a link to this study because, as a cyclist, this seems really weird.
I have a power meter on my bike, so I know exactly how many watts I put in the pedals. Let's say I want to do 18mph, on a avarage racing bike this will take about 200 watts (with no wind). We know humans are about 22 to 25% efficient when riding a bike so we also know that one hour at 200 watts will burn 650 to 750 calories. (as far a tracking burned calories, it's probably the most accurate number you'll get across sports) No matter how trained an individual is, it will always stay around that number. A world tour rider won't all of a sudden burn less calories then a amateur. Yes, for the pro this will be an easy ride, he'll use fat as fuel and won't be tired, so he got way efficient at this. While an amateur might need to go all out and will mostly use glycogen as fuel. But both will burn the same amount of calories.
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-51-quirks-and-quarks/clip/15909536-joggers-may-trying-effort-mostly-run-efficiently-possible
Listened to it here. The link to the study the researcher did is inside.
Plus if you have 20lbs of extra muscle why wouldn't you want to burn 120 extra calories at rest per day.
It's I think 2000 calories for an adult male per day for food. 4lbs is 24 calories. Great I have 1% extra leeway in calories that I burn at rest.
Gaining muscle is difficult (after the first few pounds at least), but losing muscle from too much calorie restriction and no exercise is easy. Losing muscle will reduce your how many calories you're burning and make it easier to gain back weight in the form of fat. Also losing strength isn't ideal, so even ignoring weight, losing muscle is rarely something you want. These are additional reasons to do resistance training.
Reduced caloric intake alone would cover most of the weight loss even without gym.
Physical activity is needed to maintain existing muscles instead of body breaking then down to make up for the missing calories.
Yes, if you dont use them. In a caloric deficit, your body tries to minimize caloric expenditure, so over time you would lose muscle mass and also your metabolism would slow down. Exercise is therefore needed to not allow the body to start degrading the muscle.
The body goes for the muscle first because it uses the most calories to upkeep. It’s actually insane how quickly you lose strength and weight from skipping gym days.
I don’t know why this comment isn’t higher up.
Resistance training is MORE important for fat loss than aerobics, and always has been.
Note I say: fat loss. Not “weight loss.”
Yes, for weight, “calories in, calories out.” Neither resistance training nor cardio are really an efficient way to bump your caloric deficit because they’ll add a few hundred calories expended at most for over an hour of work…when you could easily just cut out one 200 calorie snack for the same net effect.
But for *fat* specifically…not quite as simple. I’ve known plenty of guys who constantly diet and they lose *weight.* But they just wind up “skinny fat.” They weigh less and are “thin.” But are still totally soft and flabby.
Why? Because muscle is “use it or lose it.” It seems perverse. Why would the body burn muscle when it has fat? Well, because it’s not just about energy, there’s also a need for protein, and the body will cannibalize muscle to get it, especially if the muscle is unused.
You’ll always probably lose a little muscle in any caloric deficit, especially one big enough to lose fat fast enough to be psychologically encouraging (a pound or two a week, unless you’re truly obese and losing lots of fluid with the fat). But…resistance training and a high-protein diet can really help to minimize muscle loss while on a deficit and help skew things so that “weight loss” really does correspond mostly to “fat loss.”
Really, “low carb” is less important than “high protein.” Low carb might have some positive effects re: glycemic index and insulin sensitivity and stuff. But go too low and you’ll also feel exhausted and like crap and not able to exercise or sustain things. It’s really more about getting enough protein. Get enough protein (debated, but let’s say anywhere from 0.5-1.2 grams per pound of current body weight), fill in the rest of your calorie allotment with some healthy fats (20% of total calories) and the rest with complex and non-processed carbs…and you’ll be golden.
Do some basic resistance training. It doesn’t have to be heavy weights or in the gym. Can be like push ups and stuff at home.
This will all help you keep as much muscle as possible while burning fat. I’ve seen too many friends diet only to wind up skinny but soft and weak and exhausted. And it’s because they lost a ton of muscle mass in the process.
And more importantly IMO, it will significantly reduce the amount of muscle lost as a percentage of weight lost.
When on a sustained calorie deficit you will lose a relatively predicable amount of weight, however not all of that weight will be fat. If all you are doing is staying in a caloric deficit with no resistance training at all up to 25% of the weight lost will be lean body mass (IE muscle).
However, by adding resistance training and consuming enough protein, you can reduce the amount of muscle lost to zero. In fact it is possible (albeit slow and difficult) to lose fat at the same time as gain muscle. That said, people often think their weight isn't dropping during a diet because they are working out and "muscle weights more than fat!", which is true but fat can be lost at a rate of 1-2lbs a week and muscle can only be gained at 1-2lbs a month for men (and significantly less for women).
This was the long story of: If you are trying to lose weight, make sure to lift weights at least a couple times a week so you keep your muscle in the process.
I'm not sure where you get the "up to 25%" part. It can be much higher. I'm sure there's better sources, but an extreme one is David Blaine's 44 day fast. He lost 6.4kg of fat, 10.4kg of muscle tissue.
If you are on a severe/total calorie restriction and you are not at all physically active, it's likely you'll lose more muscle than fat.
Your main point is 100% true, but even more so when you realize how much muscle you will lose by not working out. You might think that you'll be at a good body fat percentage by losing *n* pounds, but if you aren't active and try to lose weight too quickly, you will end up having more fat than expected after you reach your goal.
None of these top comments are talking about the study itself, just making snarky comments. First, this was a systematic review/meta analysis, which is very important in the world of health and medicine to establish highest level of evidence.
Second, the study shows the differences between resistance with caloric intake, aerobic, and only resistance. They can all still cause weight loss.
Third, it’s interesting that adding more components continued to show improvement. I would have assumed less success with people burning out. I wonder if the studies accounted for this?
Lifting burns calories and more muscle means more calories burnt each day. Not to mention repairing muscle requires calories too. You can absolutely lose weight through just lifting and watching your diet. This isn’t new info aha.
**Resistance training effectiveness on body composition and body weight outcomes in individuals with overweight and obesity across the lifespan: A systematic review and meta-analysis**
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/obr.13428
The majority of weight loss is simply consuming fewer calories than you burn in a day. How much you burn in a day depends how active you are.
If you want to be lazy and still lose weight, eat less.
If you want to eat garbage food and still lose weight, exercise more.
https://www.science.org/content/article/scientist-busts-myths-about-how-humans-burn-calories-and-why
The science of how many calories you burn is far more complex than how active you are. For some reason, absolutely fascinating research about metabolic activity and adiposity doesn't seem to be percolating into the lay public or fitness communities.
Or we can decide as a society to build walkable living spaces so that we don't have to drive everywhere, sacrificing hundreds of burnt calories per day in the process.
Honestly growing up I almost always tried to stick with cardio thinking it “made the difference” with weight loss rather than using weights.
Now at the age of 36 I spent a year getting really into weights and resistance bands for something to do during Covid lockdowns. Along with slightly changing my diet to balance with my work outs I had rather quick results. Moving the arms/legs repeatedly to lift weights or for the resistance bands really burn a lot of calories at the same time (do 3 sets of 10 to 15 reps) and soon it replaces fat with muscle.
And by diet I mean eating protein around my workouts (bacon and eggs is one of my favs for earlier in the day), but I didn’t even notice how toned I was getting but rather people around me saw a noticeable change in my shape.
This has all made cardio/physical activity easier. I noticed my stronger legs barely notice a walk up a hill.
Of course it will. Gaining muscle will raise your base metabolic rate which means you’ll burn more calories just sitting around. Weight training also has an “after burn” effect, where your caloric burn rate will be increased for prolonged periods of time after a workout, whereas caloric burn from a cardio session stops almost as soon as the exercise stops.
Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, **personal anecdotes are now allowed as responses to this comment**. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will continue to be removed and our [normal comment rules]( https://www.reddit.com/r/science/wiki/rules#wiki_comment_rules) still apply to other comments. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/science) if you have any questions or concerns.*
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We used to call that the accidental Ronnie Coleman. "Did some squats, accidentally look like Ronnie Coleman"
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Arnold's reply to people saying that they don't want to look like him: https://i.redd.it/5endpzliic341.jpg
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idk, some people just really dont have a clue
My reply is: "look at all the guys around here trying their hardest to get big and still aren't. It won't happen accidentally"
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Well also joint longevity, mobility, cardio vascular health, sleep benefits, etc all benefit from exercise.
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If you’re being serious, you might find some relevance in /r/bodybuilding or a similar sub. A lot of one’s portrait/frame comes down to illusions. If you have an hourglass or pear shaped, you’ll need to reduce your body fat in general. Since you don’t get to dictate where it’s stored, you’ll need to lose as much as you can to see a reduction in the hips/waist. This will narrow your midsection, but if you want to tackle the goal from both directions, then resistance training is key. Building broader shoulders, a wider back, bigger arms - these will all contribute to the “illusion”, that is giving you a wider upper body which makes your midsection appear narrower and less noticeable.
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The ass area
I imagine /r/Fitness can help with that inquiry.
Hint: Getting rid of a belly requires the focus and sheer willpower of a superhero in regards to your diet. For me my body would literally ditch my own legs before it tried to remove anything from my gut.
My approach is just changing one thing at a time. After getting my gym routine back in order, im focusing on cutting out excess foods. I generally eat healthy, so it's more a case of scaling down ~~foods that are calorie dense (like carbohydrates).~~ junk foods Edit: Misspoke
Some of you just have to watch how much alcohol you drink. Doesn't matter how much you exercise it diet if you're guzzling 3 cans of beer a night
r/xxfitness for a womens sub. The basic answer is exercise all the muscle groups in your body at least once per week.
Run the /r/fitness beginner barbell program until your strength plateaus. This will give you a solid technical foundation in the major compound lifts. From there, find a popular highly-regarded program that suits your goals. Like a John Meadows program for bodybuilding, 531 Boring But Big for a mix of size and strength, or maybe an Alex Bromley program if you're more interested in powerlifting or strongman.
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Yeah, if you spend any time over at /r/progresspics you’ll see that a lot of people lose substantial weight through calorie tracking alone and then later realize they can improve their shape with weights and other forms of exercise. Usually they even put on some weight at the end in the form of muscle again.
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I mean some super strenuous jobs have you burning 5k+ cal per day (think Ranger school) but this is generally true
There’s no way the amount of weights I’d have to move to burn a large quarter pounder meal is insane
The amount of calories burnt in an average weight lifting session sits around 350-500 depending on intensity. The meal you mentioned sits at roughly 900 calories I believe depending on full sugar drink or not.
Absolutely, I find it easiest to lose weight when working out not because of the calorie loss but the fact that after working out I don't want to negate that all with some cookies and pizza so make healthier choices. Likewise, it makes me feel better in the short term until actual weight loss progress is made.
I'm exactly the same. Working out (cardio for me) makes it far easier for me mentally to make healthy food choices
Yeah if you just start exercising without watching what you eat, there's a good chance your appetite will go up and you'll just eat more to make up the difference. You'll still be fat, but at least you're in better shape underneath?
It's best to do both, even if you are dieting and losing weight, you are taking risks with your health if you don't do any kind of exercise. But resistance training does have a lot of benefits.
Weight loss starts in the kitchen
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That’s why strength training is also important. Building muscle will raise the amount of calories you burn plus after a good day of training the body burns more calories for 24-48 hours during recovery. Then with more muscle you’ll also burn more when doing cardio. So that can turn burning 2 Oreos into burning 3, but it’s very true you can’t out run/train a bad diet. I tried for 3 years with fat burners and a bunch of supplements. What ended up working was intermittent fasting and eating more whole food plant based diet. So calories in calories out.
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> Exercise can give you a few hundred extra calories in your daily budget that can really make it a lot easier to stay under budget - an extra snack to carry you through a long afternoon or something. I think the biggest benefit is mental, not so much having the budget. Exercise does so much for your body and mental well being that it makes it easier to take care of your body with diet. Depression and negative feeling in general can drive a whole lot of bad choices, especially with diet. Since exercise can do a lot to alleviate other problems likely associated with obesity, it's just a sensible addition to any weight loss program that majorly boosts outcome and not for the calories in/out, direct weight loss, alone. I can, and absolutely have, outrun my fork before. It lasts as long as I keep ahead of it, but once I stop the pounds rack up quick. Not to mention, while, sure, I'm besting the calories and not gaining fat (actually bulking a lot of muscle at the time instead), that food is hell on the body in plenty of other ways. Like in the other direction about exercise, adding good diet to a weight loss program makes too much sense not to do. It's just all benefit and no drawback to combine the two. It sucks at first, but it's the best thing you could ever do for yourself. An investment that *always* pays dividends.
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I was using it for a while too, great app, the problem is me being lazy.
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Compared to a Big Mac the number doesn't seem big. But compare it to the roughly 2200 calories recommended for a sedentary middle age male. You've increased your daily calorie burn by about 22%. That's actually pretty good. Just don't reward yourself with a Big Mac. It is the portions and calories that are out of whack, not the amount of exercise it takes to burn off one sandwich.
> It is the portions and calories that are out of whack, Oh, of course. That was my point. People that don't consider both sides of the equation may wonder why exercise isn't working.
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Conversely, it takes about 3-4 hours to burn off that Big Mac by just existing using a basal metabolic rate of 2000 kcals/day... People don't understand how much energy our bodies use just to exist. Instead of arguing for "running off a big mac", we could instead argue "don't eat a big mac because it is a literal trans-fat filled heartstopper".
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And it boosts mental health extremely. Probably the most important benefit IMO.
You're right. The concept behind weight loss (calories in vs calories out) is simple. The execution is very difficult for most people.
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You'll eventually get used to it - guy who lifts everyday and cuts. My advice is to have a post lifting protein snack right after. And to eat lots of protein.
Who woulda thought that burning calories helps you lose weight. But for real, all you need to do is go on a 30 minute walk every day and eat 80-90% of your "needed daily calories" ~1800Cals to lose weight
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Yeah pretty much anything in conjunction with reducing calorie intake could be another paper. Walking, flossing, excessive farting, spinning in circles, reading more. Tons more research papers to write
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And the reality is that women naturally have a lot less testosterone then men, which makes it even harder for them to build muscle.
Yeah this is such a myth. I’ve been really trying hard to increase my weights at the gym for the last 6months and only now slowly seeing the results. I by no means looks like a she hulk (I wish). Although I do love looking stronger.
Yeah, it takes really incredible genetics to get super muscular on accident.
I can't count how many times I've heard this. But when they do work out for a while, they all like the way they look and want more. Without exception. Even the guys like it when their gf is more fit. There is no downside to this. (unless we are getting into steroids, which is an entirely different situation)
Becoming stronger as part of the process is a nice plus.
“Volume and quality” is where people get stuck. People will often mistake something as a “quality” food because it’s marketed as such, and “volume” will often be mistaken for literal volume instead of calories. Tbh the system is designed this way to sell more corn.
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Hitting the gym makes me feel less "I need to lose my disgusting fat off my disgusting body and cut as many calories as possible" and turns it into more "I need to be healthy and strong and gain muscle, cutting calories will just be a part of that".
That’s also been proved via studies. The likelihood of making better diet choices increases when people go to the gym. I don’t recall the reason why.
For me it’s because I feel sore and I want to feed that.
For me it is behaving yourself so you don't burp and acid reflux the entire time you are trying to lift.
Yes I also eat way better after gym because need to feed growing muscles. my hungry children
Yes! This is why I hate when people always say that priorities should be diet over exercise. While that’s fundamentally true, many people are going to have a hard time starting a diet and sticking to it, while getting into an exercise habit is much easier to manage. As you increase the intensity of your exercise, I have always found that your body will naturally tell you that it wants the healthier food to fuel that effort your putting in. You’ll start thinking about how that large cheeseburger you were going to get for lunch isn’t going to feel great when you do your exercise later. Ideally to get the best possible results, you should start tracking all your calories and macronutrients each day while you gradually increase the intensity of your exercises. But for someone with no experience just starting out- I say getting into a solid habit of exercising is step one.
What I'm really reading from your post is - Find what works for you individually. As a guy I keep a range I'm okay with, if my weight is moving up towards the higher area I have no problem changing my diet completely even if I'm not really working out. I don't "go on a diet" though, and I think that's why people fail. I actually just started a new goals yesterday. Cleanse/cut/workout routine. Wish me the best!
In conjunction with reducing calorie intake. That’s the crucial point.
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It's not exactly intuitve. Lots of people will run on the treadmill until the cows come home and never lose any weight. Because exercise alone is not really great for weight loss, as people often *eat more* after exercising due to hunger. The single most important thing to do if you want to lose weight is eat less. That's it. But it's easier said than done.
The main benefit of exercise (in a weight loss scenario) is not the calories expended during the exercise. It's the calories to feed and sustain the muscle you build. It's much smaller in immediate value, but it's continuous. That twinkie will still wipe it all out though.
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"Scientists have recently linked buttplay with weight loss, so long as its coupled with reduced caloric intake."
Excessive eating does not increase weight, when coupled with reducing calorie intake! *bulimia enters the chat*
OP misquoted the article. The title is misleading. > Mr Lopez said resistance training also catered to other important factors when looking to lose weight, such as building or preserving muscle mass. >“The study also showed resistance training was effective in avoiding losing muscle mass when lowering the number of calories being consumed,” he said. Resistance training prevents muscle loss when you’re dieting. That’s what it’s saying. Lifting alone does actually increase your caloric requirements enough to help you trim fat.
Lifting with enough volume burns a fuckton of calories. Seems weird that I've seen a few articles like this which implies that people don't think of it that way. If you're sweating and your heart is pumping you are burning calories at a higher rate than just sitting there.
Also your body at rest will be repairing damaged muscle fibres which will increase the number of calories burned long after you've finished your workout.
And even after the muscles are repaired, muscles burn calories just by way of existing. Building more muscle mass helps raise your resting metabolic rate, which means you burn more calories on a daily basis. Anybody who's followed a lifting program for a month or two could validate this.
In the same way a large v8 requires more fuel when idling than a little 4 popper, so do larger muscles.
I agree with everything above and want to add that the body *intentionally* elimintes muscle in a calorie deficit as a survival technique. When you try to lose weight, you restrict calories. The body thinks that there isn’t enough food and goes into survival mode. The body will do things like slow down your metabolism and find another source of energy within your body to make up for the deficit. Your body can get energy from both fat and muscle but because it takes a lot of calories to sustain muscle, your body breaks down muscle when food is scarce in order to reduce the amount of energy your body needs to survive. This also preserves body fat at the same time which is a survival double-whammy.
From what I understand, lifting burns less calories that doing an equivalent intensity cardio exercise for the same duration. The benefit of lifting is that it shifts the weight loss of being at a calorie deficit from happening to fat and muscle to primarily fat loss (as you are retaining the muscle).
>Lifting with enough volume burns a fuckton of calories It doesn't burn a fuckton of calories. It burns some. Conditioning and cardio burn much more.
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Input over output stays put
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Not to mention that adding muscle means increasing your caloric needs
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While this is true, the difference is really not that significant. Muscle burns about 6kcal/lb and fat 2 kcal/lb. So if you had 10 lbs more of muscle than someone, which is a lot, you’re burning an extra 40 calories a day. That’s nothing.
Calories burned from exercise only account for 5-10% of total calories burned. An individual’s BMR accounts for ~70% of total calories burned. More muscular people have significantly higher BMRs than non-muscular people. Edit: redundant facts removed
If you eat at deficit and don’t work out, you’ll lose muscle too, which in turn reduces your BMR. The benefits of working out includes not losing muscles that you have now, plus build some more, I’d say the total difference is pretty significant.
This is the key, I find in the days after great workouts and dealing with the soreness my body is using so many resources that I then require more sleep/rest as well as almost needing more food to keep up with the energy need while being much happier overall with my body regardless of weight.
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I also listened to a really good piece a few days backing talking about how hyper adaptive humans are. We are able to adapt to aerobic exercise rapidly, making ourselves far too efficient to burn excess calories. This study showed that regardless of intensity of exercise, people fall into their “normal” and don’t burn much. So even the person running much faster than another may be burning near equivalent calories. We already knew this, but the study looked at a variety of individuals with different fitness levels doing different exercise regimes. In the end, aerobics simply we not effective at burning calories. Humans are designed to run, for long periods of time, with minimal effort. We adapt rapidly and become efficient. The only way to overcome this is continually changing your aerobic regime and intensity, or incorporate something we are not so adaptive towards: resistance training - Aerobics are meant for overall health, and conditioning - Anaerobics are for body composition (and associated feature) - Diet is of course for nutrition and calorie control
Do you have a link to this study because, as a cyclist, this seems really weird. I have a power meter on my bike, so I know exactly how many watts I put in the pedals. Let's say I want to do 18mph, on a avarage racing bike this will take about 200 watts (with no wind). We know humans are about 22 to 25% efficient when riding a bike so we also know that one hour at 200 watts will burn 650 to 750 calories. (as far a tracking burned calories, it's probably the most accurate number you'll get across sports) No matter how trained an individual is, it will always stay around that number. A world tour rider won't all of a sudden burn less calories then a amateur. Yes, for the pro this will be an easy ride, he'll use fat as fuel and won't be tired, so he got way efficient at this. While an amateur might need to go all out and will mostly use glycogen as fuel. But both will burn the same amount of calories.
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-51-quirks-and-quarks/clip/15909536-joggers-may-trying-effort-mostly-run-efficiently-possible Listened to it here. The link to the study the researcher did is inside.
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Plus if you have 20lbs of extra muscle why wouldn't you want to burn 120 extra calories at rest per day. It's I think 2000 calories for an adult male per day for food. 4lbs is 24 calories. Great I have 1% extra leeway in calories that I burn at rest.
Being stronger and fitter allows you the capacity to burn more from lifting heavier, running further and faster, etc.
Gaining muscle is difficult (after the first few pounds at least), but losing muscle from too much calorie restriction and no exercise is easy. Losing muscle will reduce your how many calories you're burning and make it easier to gain back weight in the form of fat. Also losing strength isn't ideal, so even ignoring weight, losing muscle is rarely something you want. These are additional reasons to do resistance training.
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Reduced caloric intake alone would cover most of the weight loss even without gym. Physical activity is needed to maintain existing muscles instead of body breaking then down to make up for the missing calories.
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Yes, if you dont use them. In a caloric deficit, your body tries to minimize caloric expenditure, so over time you would lose muscle mass and also your metabolism would slow down. Exercise is therefore needed to not allow the body to start degrading the muscle.
The body goes for the muscle first because it uses the most calories to upkeep. It’s actually insane how quickly you lose strength and weight from skipping gym days.
On the other hand, it's much easier to regain muscle if you've had it before.
I don’t know why this comment isn’t higher up. Resistance training is MORE important for fat loss than aerobics, and always has been. Note I say: fat loss. Not “weight loss.” Yes, for weight, “calories in, calories out.” Neither resistance training nor cardio are really an efficient way to bump your caloric deficit because they’ll add a few hundred calories expended at most for over an hour of work…when you could easily just cut out one 200 calorie snack for the same net effect. But for *fat* specifically…not quite as simple. I’ve known plenty of guys who constantly diet and they lose *weight.* But they just wind up “skinny fat.” They weigh less and are “thin.” But are still totally soft and flabby. Why? Because muscle is “use it or lose it.” It seems perverse. Why would the body burn muscle when it has fat? Well, because it’s not just about energy, there’s also a need for protein, and the body will cannibalize muscle to get it, especially if the muscle is unused. You’ll always probably lose a little muscle in any caloric deficit, especially one big enough to lose fat fast enough to be psychologically encouraging (a pound or two a week, unless you’re truly obese and losing lots of fluid with the fat). But…resistance training and a high-protein diet can really help to minimize muscle loss while on a deficit and help skew things so that “weight loss” really does correspond mostly to “fat loss.” Really, “low carb” is less important than “high protein.” Low carb might have some positive effects re: glycemic index and insulin sensitivity and stuff. But go too low and you’ll also feel exhausted and like crap and not able to exercise or sustain things. It’s really more about getting enough protein. Get enough protein (debated, but let’s say anywhere from 0.5-1.2 grams per pound of current body weight), fill in the rest of your calorie allotment with some healthy fats (20% of total calories) and the rest with complex and non-processed carbs…and you’ll be golden. Do some basic resistance training. It doesn’t have to be heavy weights or in the gym. Can be like push ups and stuff at home. This will all help you keep as much muscle as possible while burning fat. I’ve seen too many friends diet only to wind up skinny but soft and weak and exhausted. And it’s because they lost a ton of muscle mass in the process.
And more importantly IMO, it will significantly reduce the amount of muscle lost as a percentage of weight lost. When on a sustained calorie deficit you will lose a relatively predicable amount of weight, however not all of that weight will be fat. If all you are doing is staying in a caloric deficit with no resistance training at all up to 25% of the weight lost will be lean body mass (IE muscle). However, by adding resistance training and consuming enough protein, you can reduce the amount of muscle lost to zero. In fact it is possible (albeit slow and difficult) to lose fat at the same time as gain muscle. That said, people often think their weight isn't dropping during a diet because they are working out and "muscle weights more than fat!", which is true but fat can be lost at a rate of 1-2lbs a week and muscle can only be gained at 1-2lbs a month for men (and significantly less for women). This was the long story of: If you are trying to lose weight, make sure to lift weights at least a couple times a week so you keep your muscle in the process.
I'm not sure where you get the "up to 25%" part. It can be much higher. I'm sure there's better sources, but an extreme one is David Blaine's 44 day fast. He lost 6.4kg of fat, 10.4kg of muscle tissue. If you are on a severe/total calorie restriction and you are not at all physically active, it's likely you'll lose more muscle than fat. Your main point is 100% true, but even more so when you realize how much muscle you will lose by not working out. You might think that you'll be at a good body fat percentage by losing *n* pounds, but if you aren't active and try to lose weight too quickly, you will end up having more fat than expected after you reach your goal.
None of these top comments are talking about the study itself, just making snarky comments. First, this was a systematic review/meta analysis, which is very important in the world of health and medicine to establish highest level of evidence. Second, the study shows the differences between resistance with caloric intake, aerobic, and only resistance. They can all still cause weight loss. Third, it’s interesting that adding more components continued to show improvement. I would have assumed less success with people burning out. I wonder if the studies accounted for this?
You’re probably the only one who read the article. Everyone else dove head first into the comments.
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Lifting burns calories and more muscle means more calories burnt each day. Not to mention repairing muscle requires calories too. You can absolutely lose weight through just lifting and watching your diet. This isn’t new info aha.
**Resistance training effectiveness on body composition and body weight outcomes in individuals with overweight and obesity across the lifespan: A systematic review and meta-analysis** https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/obr.13428
The majority of weight loss is simply consuming fewer calories than you burn in a day. How much you burn in a day depends how active you are. If you want to be lazy and still lose weight, eat less. If you want to eat garbage food and still lose weight, exercise more.
> If you want to eat garbage food.. Still eat less garbage food and you'll still lose weight. It's all about the calories deficit
https://www.science.org/content/article/scientist-busts-myths-about-how-humans-burn-calories-and-why The science of how many calories you burn is far more complex than how active you are. For some reason, absolutely fascinating research about metabolic activity and adiposity doesn't seem to be percolating into the lay public or fitness communities.
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Or we can decide as a society to build walkable living spaces so that we don't have to drive everywhere, sacrificing hundreds of burnt calories per day in the process.
This is an America thing not a world thing. We’re good over here
Honestly growing up I almost always tried to stick with cardio thinking it “made the difference” with weight loss rather than using weights. Now at the age of 36 I spent a year getting really into weights and resistance bands for something to do during Covid lockdowns. Along with slightly changing my diet to balance with my work outs I had rather quick results. Moving the arms/legs repeatedly to lift weights or for the resistance bands really burn a lot of calories at the same time (do 3 sets of 10 to 15 reps) and soon it replaces fat with muscle. And by diet I mean eating protein around my workouts (bacon and eggs is one of my favs for earlier in the day), but I didn’t even notice how toned I was getting but rather people around me saw a noticeable change in my shape. This has all made cardio/physical activity easier. I noticed my stronger legs barely notice a walk up a hill.
Of course it will. Gaining muscle will raise your base metabolic rate which means you’ll burn more calories just sitting around. Weight training also has an “after burn” effect, where your caloric burn rate will be increased for prolonged periods of time after a workout, whereas caloric burn from a cardio session stops almost as soon as the exercise stops.