Weight Loss Thread

Cad · 2026-07-25T17:26:32-0400

moonarchia said:
If you aren't working out for multiple hours every single day for the rest of your life you will never make a dent on your calories. Exercise has other significant benefits and should absolutely be part of your weekly routine, but losing weight is not on that list of benefits. Making the life changes to eat at the calories needed to maintain the weight you want to be at is the only way to get there and stay there.

Yes, but...

Weight training burns calories during the session, improves insulin sensitivity so more of what you eat gets directed into muscle instead of fat, and as body fat drops that sensitivity improves even further in a self-reinforcing loop, while the added muscle permanently raises your resting metabolism so you burn more calories around the clock for as long as you keep it.

That said if you are overweight you need to eat less and you can't exercise your way out of it, you cannot outrun your mouth. But weight training DOES have benefits in calorie usage/storage/metabolism that goes way beyond that workout.

zombiewizardhawk · 2026-07-26T02:20:59-0400

You don't need to be in a 5300 calorie deficit to lose weight/get fit (i'd imagine most people who want to lose weight want to be more fit and not simply turn into an elliot page body double, even if it took them a little time to realize that can happen even if the number on the scale doesn't go down by a ton).

BrutulTM said:
Just in terms of calories eaten being offset by exercise it's not that much. If you're riding in the Tour de France you're burning a lot of calories. 20 minutes on an exercise bike is like one cookie worth of calories burned so you're going to make a lot more progress by eating less, especially since a lot of people tend to reward themselves for working out by having some ice cream that's 3x the calories you burned off exercising.

Obviously eating a bunch of extra calories doesn't equate to "you don't burn any calories by exercising"... If you do not exercise, and you begin to exercise while maintaining a steady diet, you will see weight loss (unless you were in a high enough surplus already that you were gaining more weight than the exercise you are doing is burning).

moonarchia said:
If you aren't working out for multiple hours every single day for the rest of your life you will never make a dent on your calories.

Burren said:
Yeah. If you're working out and lifting a lot you're going to gain weight, not lose it. However, the type of weight in your body usually shifts away from fat and towards muscle. So, a weight number by itself isn't usually relevant. Sizes (chest, gut, legs, neck, etc.) and percentages of muscle/fat matter more.

Do you guys actually think most people who don't really exercise and are a bit obese are eating anywhere near the same calories as incredibly fit high level athletes do or...? Most people doing intense multi-hour workouts every day are consuming well over 3k calories and they look like athletes. I think when I was watching a bunch of strongman stuff (weightlifters who aren't as aesthetic/shredded for the most part) most of them are well into the 5k+ range. The people who don't exercise that are in those calorie ranges are the 800lb people getting forklifted out of their house to get to the doctors office, not Jack from the office who is a bit chubby.

If a person is somehow not burning any calories then that would be "exercising" and not actually exercising (and no, it doesn't have to be 3 hours a day/7 days a week to be real exercise either).

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Weight Loss Thread

Sheriff Cad

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zombiewizardhawk

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