[Sohcahtoa82]

> I'm now down well over 60+lbs without having put in hardly any effort to exercise (occasional walking) - pretty stunning to me.

Losing weight despite not exercising isn't surprising. Exercise, even intense cardio, burns far fewer calories than most people think. I'm about 240 lbs, 5'8", 36 years old, and according to this calculator [0], if I ran a 5k at a fast-paced 10 mph (6 minute mile), I'd only burn about 250 calories. That wouldn't even be enough to burn the calories in the energy drink I might drink before it!

Great work on the weight loss. I was 255 lbs at the beginning of the year and switched out my sugary sodas for unsweetened tea or occasionally a diet soda and lost 15 lbs in 4 months. I plateaued because I haven't changed much else.

[0] https://www.freedieting.com/calories-burned

[jaegerpicker]

Most exercise based weight loss isn't about the actual exercise it's about the changes the intense exercise makes to your body that causes you to burn more calories while resting. Exercise often tunes your body to burn calories at a higher rate as you gain muscle and / or increase muscle health which requires more energy to support even while resting. So while you don't NEED exercise to lose weight it certainly is a super important part of weight lose for most people.

[GeekyBear]

Some recent research contradicts those ideas.

Contestants on an extreme weight loss television reality show saw their resting metabolism drop after a rigorous program of exercise.

>The group as a whole on average burned 2,607 calories per day at rest before the competition, which dropped to about 2,000 calories per day at the end.

Six years later, calorie burning had slowed further to 1,900 per day, as reported in the journal Obesity.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/6-years-after-the...

Another recent study showed that diet effected metabolism.

>a large new study published on Wednesday in the journal BMJ found that overweight adults who cut carbohydrates from their diets and replaced them with fat sharply increased their metabolisms.

After five months on the diet, their bodies burned roughly 250 calories more per day than people who ate a high-carb, low-fat diet

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/well/eat/how-a-low-carb-d...

[gamblor956]

That research on the biggest loser participants has since been disproven. Sorry can't pull up those studies easily by mobile do I'll try to update wheni can.

[lhl]

Every time the Biggest Loser study (PMC4989512) gets cited someone pops up and mentions that it's been disproven but I've never seen any citation or followup. In fact, from my research I've seen lots of studies that show that there are long term metabolic changes (PMC6033771) related to adaptive thermogenesis/fat oxidization that is a fat-free mass independent effect on REE (doi: 10.3945/ajcn.115.109173).

Other studies seem to show that the lowered RMR doesn't seem to happen either doing a ketogenic diet (PMC5816424) or with ADF (PMC5042570) vs CR. I also think that the Biggest Loser results are in large part so unsuccessful due to their "crash diet" nature and the lack of any healthy habits being built for maintenance.

* https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4989512/

* https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6033771/

* https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26399868

* https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5816424/

* https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5042570/

[nimmy]

I was curious to check out your source because I'm 5'8, 130 ish pounds and my 10 min mile 5k only burns a little bit less than 250 calories, which I thought wasn't a big enough calorie difference for the difference in weight. I put your stats in for an 18 minute run and it came up as 350 calories. Am I putting something in wrong?

[nimmy]

10mph*!