[yuzi]

I went from 190 lbs. to 138 lbs. over 6 or 7 months. The only exercise I did was jogging for 45 min a day. What I noticed was that jogging made me feel better, which somehow got me to consistently eat better. After a days jogging I didn't want to put crap food in me and ruin what I had accomplished and by doing it everyday I felt good enough, often enough to stick with it.

So, based on my experience, I simply can not agree.

[specialp]

This is very true. Exercise has more of an effect than the calories burned. It improves your health and you feel much better than when you had a sedentary life. As always the answer is that decreasing calorie consumption with moderate exercise is key to maintaining weight loss.

Just as exercising cannot offset massive overconsumption of food, massive underconsumption of food will make one that is dieting feel terrible, and thus not as likely to continue.

In addition the amount of exercise done is never going to really offset a sedentary job. Someone walking on their feet all day vs me being at a desk is going to consume much more energy than me even if I workout after work intensely for an hour. So I am still going to need to consume less than them. But if I did not do the hour of exercise, my body would break down from not being used, and my overall feeling of health would decline.

[yuzi]

From my experience: I didn't have a sedentary life, well at least lets just say I wasn't sitting at a computer all day. I was always out and about. My extra weight was from a mix of overconsumption and poor food choices.

I noticed there were unforseen changes in behaviour due to diet that I still find strange. Things like quitting pop. I used to grab McDonald's food more often, but since quitting pop I avoid the place. Sometimes I still grab a burger from there, like 5 times or so over the last 14 years, but I'll never get a pop and I don't have a desire to go there and still avoid it with ease.

I still think diet changes are the single most important thing, but I just don't think I could have gotten there without exercise.

[mholmes680]

I have also decided this past Jan 1 to stop Soda. And I've phased out sugar in my morning coffee. Not being a big juice drinker in the first place, I think I'm better off as a long term goal to limit the amount of sugar i "drink". I'll stick to just "eating" it, focus on cutting out more processed sugar and being smart about balanced diet in general.

I do crave it still tho, I have not found myself avoiding fast food either. With two kids under 2, it just kind of makes life easier when I make them good meals and can pick up something quick.

[yuzi]

One trick I've learned is to not have pop in the house. My girlfriend hates me for it :). Honestly I couldn't have quit pop if I did have it there. At one point she would buy it for her, but somehow I found myself drinking it so we had to have a discussion; thankfully she accommodated me.

Ideally you and your family can get on the same page in terms of diet, but I imagine with kids that can be extremely challenging. It's worth it if you can do it.

[seanmcdirmid]

This works, but then if you have a job with free soda...discipline is still needed.

[HappyTypist]

I like water more than soda. If you'd like some flavour then try squeezing a few drop of lemon juice

[yuzi]

Or a new job is needed. :)

[yuzi]

One more tip. Finding substitutes really helps. Soda stream is awesome provided you don't add the syrups. I do 90% soda water with 10% orange juice or grape juice and I love the stuff.

[agumonkey]

Exercising trains your cardio vascular system, even if you don't burn calories, it means your cells are fed and cleaned more effectively.

[cushychicken]

I think you're nitpicking the article's message. You're saying that exercise caused you to eat better, but the article (and the data) are suggesting that it was eating better, not exercising, that led to the weight loss.

We can agree to disagree regarding what decision gets the credit for shedding those pounds, but in any case, congratulations on your weight loss. That's a real accomplishment.

[yuzi]

I put forth a response below to a similar point here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11598409

Thanks :)

[cushychicken]

Interesting. My experience - personally, and from other people who have lost weight - seems to mirror the article's conclusions.

Ah well. Not terribly important when faced with the end result - you lost the weight, and that's all that matters!

[yuzi]

I should note I spent the first month ramping up from 20 min of jogging to 45 min of jogging which is why I put 6-7 months. If anyone decides to start jogging based on what I wrote, please don't go from nothing to 45 min a day. I didn't do that.

[keithpeter]

http://www.pcosfoundation.org/5K%20Running%20Guide.pdf

I'm about to start something like this as I have the 'losing weight but losing it from the wrong bits' issue mentioned in another post.

I am physically active, I don't drive, I walk around 3 to 4 miles a day as part of my commute, I go up and down three or four flights of stairs quite a lot of times a day (I'm a teacher and timetabling systems seem to have a Saltationist bias as they have us jumping between lessons) and I work mostly standing up and moving around a large room. So I imagine a vaguely similar activity profile to the hunter gatherers mentioned - I'd love more detail on miles walked per day &c.

[yuzi]

I know knowledge is power and the plan you linked is probably good advice, but for my personality type I don't think that would've worked. It's simply too much work :).

During the first month I did 5 min of stretching and then 20 min of jogging in one shot for the day. Every 3 days I would try to add 5 min. Sometimes I could, sometimes I had to back off and try a few days later. After a month I got to 45 min. I then did only 30 seconds of stretching before the jog. I did't think I needed it anymore (probably should have).

As I understand it the first 20 min of jogging doesn't really help you lose much weight, it's every minute after, for the session, that really burns fat.

As for miles walked, this was 14 years ago I didn't think or care about miles walked.

Probably not helping you, but that was my experience.

[tossaway1]

> I'm a teacher and timetabling systems seem to have a Saltationist bias

Are you a biology teacher? I had to look that one up...

[keithpeter]

Nope, I teach basic Maths to adults: many nursing students so I collude with the real Biology teachers to link up the lessons.

[davidw]

I've been riding my bike a lot lately, and I have lost weight. I find that exercise, for whatever reason, also makes me want to eat healthier. Sometimes it also actually takes the hungry away: I recently did a 6 hour bike ride, leaving at 1000, and getting back at around 1600, and I was not all that hungry, despite having eaten only a few energy bars during the ride.

[lazylizard]

those 'energy' bars are like 1000 calories each? u ate a few of them?

[davidw]

Nope - 200 it says:

http://us-store.bouncelifestyle.com/collections/balls/produc...

[jypepin]

I do agree with the feeling that doing exercise makes you feel better, and that this feelings motivates you to eat better food.

I don't see how you say you simply can not agree with the article tho.

The article stipulates that exercise itself has less effect than diet. Maybe exercise helps to keep a good diet, but exercise + keeping same crapy diet won't be as effective as what you did yourself.

[adrr]

Less effect is what i have a problem with. Dieting requires less effort. Cutting portion sizes is much easier than changing your schedule to accommodate a workout.

[yuzi]

I didn't set out to change my diet or even diet+excercise. I set out to excercise alone. I changed my diet long before that, but it didn't lead me to excecise and it I wasn't able to do it long enough for it to be ingrained. So my advice would be to excercise even if without a diet change because you are more likely find your diet change as a byproduct and actually be able to sustain it.

[lokeshk]

To each his own.

Whenever I tried doing cardio exercises, I remember I would come back from the gym so hungry, I would eat a horse. And, I did. I couldn't stop -- I would eat whatever I could lay my hands on.

A couple of weeks later, my weight had in fact, increased. In my life, I have found I have been able to reduce weight only through two methods:

1. Strength training exercises + Protein (read meat) heavy diet 2. Small amount of vegetarian food three times a day

[Retric]

Exercise is harder to keep up long term and gaining back the same weight after 5 years is not that useful.

[yuzi]

Not for me. I may have stopped working out for long periods, since then, but the 6-7 months of diet change stuck which was enough to maintain the weight loss (approximatley). 14 years now.

[maxerickson]

I see stories like yours and I wonder if the key factor is that you decided in a meaningful way to not be overweight anymore.

The exercise and better diet follow pretty easily from that.

[koluft]

Exercising every 5 years isn't so bad.

[agumonkey]

Came here to say this too (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11598339)

Forgot to mention what you did, 45 mins of continuous activity will trigger endorphins. Cheapest way to feel euphoria (even in low intensity).

Just last week I walked back from the grocery store, taking random turns, with a steep hill at the end. Google Fit[1] tracking some data. 5 miles only, but I felt sweating in a good relaxing way.

[1] Google Fit is a very low barrier way to start tracking your exercises. It interprets accelerations good enough to distinguish car, foot or bike move. And you're happy when you get that notification buzz telling you did your planned distance|time.

[soundwave106]

The article title is kind of clickbait-y, isn't it?

I kind of agree with the article that the diet changes are more important for the weight loss angle. However, when it comes to being healthy overall, I actually think exercise is more important. You can be overweight by BMI, physically fit, and better off overall health-wise than a thin person who is a couch potato. http://healthland.time.com/2012/09/05/can-you-be-fat-and-fit...

Anecdotally, I know someone who has gone from 300lbs to 140lbs using a combination of exercise (walking) and diet changes (Weight Watchers). I think both were equally important to her success, personally.

Some of the article to me was, er, a bit of a stretch. Take point 7: "Exercise may cause physiological changes that help us conserve energy". And the only linked citation is to a paper outlining that people with different genetic composition respond differently to exercise, and a meta study that involved both diet and exercise? "Starvation mode" to extreme diets is well documented, so where's the paper that links to just exercise causing slower metabolic change? I mean, perhaps it's possible, but it runs against the consensus I've heard, so basically, [Citation needed], because what was provided doesn't say what that paragraph said.

I do agree with the article that policy should focus on the low-quality food angle.