[throwaway0255]

I'm on the same track as you, I've lost about 80lbs so far and I've done zero exercise.

I've found that when I tell people this, they worry about my health even more than they did when I was 80lbs heavier. It's bizarre.

Never mind the fact that my blood pressure is now a pristine 110 over 70, all my pre-diabetic symptoms have disappeared, my sleep apnea is cured, my gastroesophageal reflux disease is completely gone, my cholesterol and triglycerides are back to normal, etc.

The fact is exercise has an almost negligible impact on weight loss.

Let's be very generous and say an hour of typical exercise burns 350 calories. If you're overweight, compare that to the 120 calories you burn per hour spent sitting in your chair. That's an extra 230 calories you burned by exercising for an hour.

That 230 calorie expenditure costs you:

* 1.5 to 2 hours of disruption to your daily life

* An hour spent being extremely bored and uncomfortable

* An ever-growing amount of generalized aches and joint pains as you put together consecutive days of doing this

And at 230 calories per hour, doing an hour of exercise every single day nets you 1610 calories per week, which is less than 1 pound of fat loss every 2 weeks. You turn your whole life upside-down, make yourself miserable and in pain every single day, take significant time away from work and studying and family, and all you get is LESS THAN 1 additional pound lost every 2 weeks.

I honestly think the net impact of promoting exercise as a weight loss option is people getting and staying fatter. People have a tendency to dramatically overestimate the calories they're burning, people want to use exercise as a way to avoid having to eat less, and people use exercise as an excuse to eat more. It also causes an amount of disruption and discomfort in people's lives that's probably the number one cause of people giving up on their weight loss goals.

As far as health impacts, I'm still not convinced on the cause-and-effect here. I want to start doing some physical activities soon, but that's not going to cause me to be less depressed, that's a result of me being less depressed because of all the weight I've been losing. All the studies I've seen on exercise and health draw the same sort of "playing basketball makes you taller"-conclusion.

[jpfr]

Sure, eating better has a huge impact. But you miss the main argument why physical training helps in weight loss: Physical training increaes your resting metabolic rate by ~10%. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11283427

Since you are not doing sports 95% of the time, this has a lot of leverage. And you can build muscle with 30min of training per day easily.

Also, you please check whether you mean kilocalories when you say calories.

[Boothroid]

Lifting weights is different - the muscle consumes calories just being there. Also call me a masochist, but I love lifting weights - its a physical rush, a challenge, allows me to work off frustrations, and like Arnie I enjoy feeling pumped. I can get in and out of the gym within an hour having hammered my muscles plenty. Do that 3 or 4 times a week and you'll keep yourself strong and young into old age. You should only get aches and pains if you are doing something wrong or have an underlying health issue - and even if you do, doctors still almost always recommend weight bearing exercise.

[jasonwelk]

> An hour spent being extremely bored and uncomfortable

In the beginning, this is often true. But exercise is addictive! When your body gets used to it, you really want it and it is not uncomfortable. That "runners high" is also not a myth.

[WalterBright]

I've been jogging for a long time. For the first year, I had to force myself to do it. After that, I was surprised to find I started enjoying it, looking forward it, and missing it if I didn't do it.

I don't try very hard at it, I'm not running against time, I just jog and don't worry about it.

As for boredom, the opposite happens to me. I find I think better while jogging. I work on programming bugs while jogging, and often find solutions that eluded me while sitting at my desk. I write articles and compose presentations while jogging. It's often my most intellectually productive time of the day.

[Fnoord]

When you run, your brain enters the diffused mode of learning [1]

[1] https://staciechoice1010.wordpress.com/2014/08/08/focused-vs...

[randallsquared]

I'm willing to grant that this must be true for some people. However, I don't think it's true for everyone, or maybe even most people. In the early 90s I was in the US Army for a couple years, and exercise never got better: it was always a struggle: boring, painful, and stressful. I suppose one good thing about it was that it was very rare that anything worse happened to me later in the day... :)

Looking around at the PT groups I was in during that time, I do not think most of them were looking forward to it.

[jasonwelk]

Just guessing, but maybe a difference between recreational exercise by choice vs duty or imposed regimen. Or perhaps just having choice over the kind of exercise makes a difference.

[prestonbriggs]

Yeah, well, the Army can make anything boring, painful, and stressful.

[WalterBright]

I've never been able to reach a point where weight training is anything but boring and painful. The trouble is it requires mental focus, and I cannot think about other things while lifting.

I try to mitigate the boredom by watching a movie while doing it.

[pnutjam]

I listen to headphones, music, podcasts, ebooks. I find it a very stimulating time and I feel better about it at a gym, even though I don't socialize much.

Just seeing the same people every day makes me feel like a community member and helps me stay motivated and connected.

[wingworks]

I agree, exercise is addictive, and I love running, but I worry that it's bad for the joints, from what I've read, which is the only thing holding me back at the moment. But I see all these people running, and I wonder, are there no join issues, or does everyone just not know yet.

[nradov]

Running won't damage your joints provided your joints are healthy to start with and you run with proper form.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/well/move/running-may-be-...

[phaus]

>Let's be very generous and say an hour of typical exercise burns 350 calories.

This isn't being generous at all. Once you get past the initial few weeks of not being physically able to put that much effort into exercise, 350 calories for an entire hour would be on the low end of what I expect most people to burn.

>I honestly think the net impact of promoting exercise as a weight loss option is people getting and staying fatter. People have a tendency to dramatically overestimate the calories they're burning, people want to use exercise as a way to avoid having to eat less, and people use exercise as an excuse to eat more. It also causes an amount of disruption and discomfort in people's lives that's probably the number one cause of people giving up on their weight loss goals.

Virtually everyone that advocates exercise as a way to lose weight mentions in the same breath that it has to go hand-in-hand with a diet. It is an objective fact that if you burn more calories in a day because you exercise, that you will get away with eating more food. How much more depends on how many calories you burn when exercising.

The concept of weight loss is very simple. Burn more calories than you eat. People need to start somewhere by making an estimate of how many calories that they burn on a daily basis and then adjust it slowly if they don't lose weight.

Its silly to act like the concepts of physical fitness and weight loss are so complicated that people are being manipulated and/or confused into gaining weight. The only thing difficult about losing weight is the consistent execution of an incredibly simple process.

[throwaway0255]

> Virtually everyone that advocates exercise as a way to lose weight mentions in the same breath that it has to go hand-in-hand with a diet.

Something must be wrong with exercise then, because that’s not true of dieting at all. Just dieting will do just fine.

[phaus]

There are more reasons to exercise than just weight loss and there's more to being healthy than just maintaining a specific weight.

[throwaway0255]

> There are more reasons to exercise than just weight loss and there's more to being healthy than just maintaining a specific weight.

This is the worst advice you could ever give to someone who's very overweight.

For overweight people exercise is a complete waste of time, and their bodyweight actually is what matters above all else as far as their health goes.

Telling an obese person that they should do some jumping jacks so their heart will be nice and healthy is just absurd. I see parents doing this all the time (and had it done to me), they get their obese kid running around and encourage them to engage in all these ultra-boring uncomfortable painful "fitness activities" that will never in a million years form into a habit for them. Then they take them home and give them some chicken nuggets for a job well done.

These people are more concerned with the theater of weight loss than they are with actual weight loss, because the theater of it gives them the highest ratio of guilt relief to effort expended.

For those kids, for the rest of their lives, every time they consider trying to lose weight, they'll see visions of running toward a brick wall for an hour without ever getting closer to it, and taking an hour out of their day to go somewhere and move things with their arms until they're sore. "Yeah fuck that", they'll say, never fully realizing that weight loss is really just about passively managing their food intake. Or maybe they'll try, it'll make them completely miserable (like it does for most people), and they'll perceive that as a personal failing and give up both dieting and exercise, once again not realizing that 99% of their goal can be achieved with just the dieting part.

The reality is that as long as you're overweight, your primary health objective should be to lose weight, and the only way to do that is to change what you eat and how much of it you eat over the long term. If adding exercise to that equation adds a 0.1% chance of you giving up, then it's not worth it.

Until you're at a normal weight, exercise is a premature optimization.

[Fnoord]

> If adding exercise to that equation adds a 0.1% chance of you giving up

That's because you put on a (too) high standard, and if you don't make it, instead of lowering your goal you end up with a defeatist attitude and give up. If you do that in your professional life as well that's a recipe for a burnout.

Example: say you want to go to the gym but you can't make it this week. Is that a huge issue? Does that mean you shouldn't go anymore at all? That everything's lost? No! Just try next time again, and do your best. Say your training scheme tells you that you should run 5 km in 30 min, you're on 20 min and only at 2,5 km. Does that mean you should give up? No. It means you should follow your pace as far as you can push it. Overcoming such might even strengthen you if the adversary is burnout.

If you're under the guidance of a quality physician or training scheme (basically same, as physician makes that for/with you) that shouldn't happen.

I replied to a previous post of you where you were saying you were running for an hour (!) at the gym. An hour! That's not how you start with getting fit. That's way too hardcore already. For one, its too long. Second, its the same stuff all the time, while you clearly don't seem to enjoy running. If you enjoy running, sure, but you don't.

Why don't you try different exercises and accept that there's some you like and some you dislike? Example: if you're only rowling for 10 minutes while you enjoy planking more which is next, you got something to look forward to. Plus, perhaps you'll start to like rowling eventually. My (anecdotal) experience is that eventually, once I get good at it, I start enjoying it more.

When I do daily exercises as broadcasted on TV (using rebroadcasted IPTV) there's all kind of exercises I enjoy and some I dislike. Especially the stuff I'm relatively bad at (basically anything involving hamstring like multiple, deep squats) is rough. But after I did them I feel the difference. And if I can't do it exactly as the example shows, I can at least try to mimmic it as good as I can. Eventually, I'll get better.

[dyarosla]

Just wanted to point out- 350 cal/hour is inaccurately low for even light exercise, and exceptionally low if you are overweight.

Properly doing exercise and keeping at it won't result in joint pains or aches, and may also uplift your mood due to endorphins+more.

IMO your reasoning for avoiding exercise should be revisited.

[throwaway0255]

It's not inaccurately low at all. You're basing your estimate on perfect/ideal scenarios, I'm basing it on the kind of thing the average overweight person trying to lose weight does when they spend an hour in a gym. They walk on a treadmill or they do more intense things with a lot of breaks in between.

Also, there is no proper form of exercise for an obese person that won't cause pains or aches, it doesn't exist. We might just be coming from different backgrounds and talking about different body types here.

[naasking]

> Also, there is no proper form of exercise for an obese person that won't cause pains or aches

Swimming. Doing laps is a great calorie burner too.

[DanBC]

> and may also uplift your mood due to endorphins+more.

there's very little evidence for this, other than a very short lasting boost.

[hellofunk]

> I want to start doing some physical activities soon, but that's not going to cause me to be less depressed

How do you know?

I think you are being unfair to yourself to so easily dismiss what exercise can do for your moods. When I'm feeling down, getting my heart rate up for 45 minutes totally turns around the day. I don't know the exact reason, maybe all the rapid blood flow or found energy, whatever it is, it is not a reaction I get from anything else.

An article was shared here recently how so many great artists and scientists in the past were slaves to a ritual of long stretches of physical activity every day. It really changes how your brain works.

[DanBC]

> How do you know?

Because researchers keep failing to find evidence of effectiveness.

[hellofunk]

Mayo Clinic is a respected place, and they seem to think there is a link:

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/depression/in-...

Even if there was no evidence, surely the testimonies of many others right here on this page would at least be worth the possibility that it could be effective.

[DanBC]

Here's a well run meta analysis.

http://www.cochrane.org/CD004366/DEPRESSN_exercise-for-depre...

> Exercise is moderately more effective than no therapy for reducing symptoms of depression.

[...]

> The reviewers also note that when only high-quality studies were included, the difference between exercise and no therapy is less conclusive.

[...]

> The evidence about whether exercise for depression improves quality of life is inconclusive.

Since depression is a potentially fatal illness it's important to stick to evidence based treatments.

[hellofunk]

No one is suggesting that exercise replace any other treatment. Is that the impression you were getting? But because it has in fact helped at least some people, it seems limiting for any person to disqualify that for themselves without a try.

[Fnoord]

I'm a proponent of light daily exercise (my government recommends 21 min a day light exercise and twice a week heavy exercise [1]), but this argument doesn't hold water. There are also people who claim to benefit from homeopathy (a pseudoscience). Is their anecdotal evidence worth as much as ours?

[1] To be precise: 150 min a week of medium movement (walking, cycling), twice a week heavy movement (running, soccer aka football), and avoid sitting still [2]. Also, the difference between 0 and 15 min of exercise is larger than 15 and 30 min. That's why it feels so good to start with exercises and only do it very little.

[2] https://www.gezondheidsraad.nl/nl/taak-werkwijze/werkterrein...

[zaptheimpaler]

Exercise increases your metabolic rate so you burn much more calories throughout the day, its not just the number on your treadmill.

I still agree with your main point though, that weight loss is mostly about diet. Just saying questions about fitness and nutrition are incredibly nuanced because the body is a complex system.

[nradov]

Why are you so adverse to a little pain and discomfort? There's more to life than being comfortable.

[sonthonax]

An hour of intense exercise will burn roughly a thousand calories.

[throwaway0255]

> People have a tendency to dramatically overestimate the calories they're burning

[szemet]

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=male+80+kg+1+hour+runn... = 1050 calories

[throwaway0255]

15 years of being very overweight and trying to lose weight through exercise = 1050 calories/hour only if I exercise at a level of intensity that risks injury and causes me to be practically bedridden for a week even without injury.

Your calculation is for a person who weighs 80kg, which is someone who doesn't need to lose any weight. People who have a lot of weight to lose aren't capable of running for an hour.

[szemet]

Ok, but if you plan to do something(not just excercise) regularly, maybe it is better not to calculate with the initial costs/benefits but with the long term averages...

There are plenty of activities in life that initially only have costs and zero benfits - excercise at least consumes calories from day 1...

[Fnoord]

> Your calculation is for a person who weighs 80kg, which is someone who doesn't need to lose any weight.

If you are 1m80, quite possibly. Don't forget it isn't just about BMI but also waist circumference. Obese men and alcoholics likely have high waist circumference.

[oligopoly]

That's stretching it a LOT. Your body adapts to the exercise and you use lot less energy. Closer to half of that