I think it’s also worth pointing out that in our nursing home facilities, all residents are given a physician ordered “diet” upon admission. The order can also change when a resident’s nutritional needs change. The diet ordered for residents who need to lose weight are exclusively calorie reduction diets. No physician has ever ordered a fad diet for a resident, such as a cabbage soup diet or carrot stick diet. The reasons for this are those type of diets have proven to be unhealthy and do not work.

A well-balanced diet that incorporates sufficient quantities of proteins, carbohydrates, vegetables, fruits, and vitamins and minerals are by far the most common diets ordered by our physicians. Even for morbidly obese residents. The only time a physician will write an order for a diet that excludes one of the aforementioned items is when the consumption of said item is devastating to a resident’s health and would do more harm than good. These are rare occasions. Even our residents who suffer from diabetic conditions are not prohibited from consuming limited levels of carbohydrates/sugars.

I also cut corners on food. If I want bacon or burgers, I eat turkey bacon or burgers. If I want dairy, I get 2% milk and cheese. If I want chocolate, I get the darkest chocolate. If I want bread, I get whole wheat. You see where I’m going with this?

Also, lean proteins and an electric grill can be your best friend. Sure, it dries out your food, but you can compensate with an array of spices and low-fat sauces such as vinegar.

My point is that you can consume less calories without starving yourself.

And to the person who thinks exercise is necessary to lose weight, yes, if you sit on the couch all day you WILL lose weight IF you are eating fewer calories than you expend. It is a very simple matter of calories in versus calories out. And from a weight loss standpoint it doesnt’ matter if you create your calorie deficit by diet, exercise, or a combination of the two. It’s the equation that matters. Why is that so damn hard to understand? Yes, of course it’s healthier to exercise than to be sedentary, but it is NOT, by itself, an efficient was to create a calorie deficit. To lose a pound a week you need a calorie deficit of about 500 calories a day. To achieve that by exercise alone you’d have to run about 10 (not 5) miles a day. Isn’t it a lot easier to achieve the same calorie deficit by running 3 miles a day and cutting your food intake by 350 calories? It’s calories in vs. calories out. It’s basic physics. No escaping that truth.

Now suppose you’re willing to accept a very slow and gradual weight loss. That could be achieved by exercise without caloric restriction. But most people want to see a loss of one or two pounds a week and running 10 miles is not acceptable.

As for the claims of weight loss or gain in amounts such as 10 pounds a week, that is preposterous. The human body cannot gain or lose that much tissue that quickly. Most of that weight is water.

The question is why does exercise work in obesity? Because it burns calories? That’s ridiculous. Twenty minutes of jogging is one chocolate chip cookie, I mean you can’t do it. One Big Mac requires three hours of vigorous exercise to work that off, that’s not the reason that exercise is important, exercise is important for [...] reasons exclusive of the fact that it burns calories.

The first is it increases skeletal muscle insulin sensitivity, in other words it makes your muscle more insulin sensitive, therefore your pancreas can make less, therefore your levels can drop, therefore there’s less insulin in your blood to shunt sugar to fat. That’s probably the main reason that exercise is important and I’m totally for it.

The second reason that exercise is important is because it’s the single best treatment to get your cortisol down. Cortisol is your stress hormone, it’s the hormone that goes up when you are mega-stressed, it’s the hormone that basically causes visceral fat deposition which is the bad fat and it has been tied to the metabolic syndrome. So by getting your cortisol down you’re actually reducing the amount of fat deposited and it also reduces food intake. People think that somehow exercise increases food intake, it does not, it reduces food intake.

You are correct that there are different levels of exercise than just the two extremes. And I can believe that high intensity training would be more beneficial for weight loss than aerobic exercise. I wouldn’t call this a metabolism increase without some compelling evidence, though. If you exercise and the body has to do repair work, it will burn calories during the repair. However, that doesn’t necessarily imply an actual increase in metabolism, anymore than getting a fever implies an increase in metabolism. (I’m considering longer-term metabolism here. You could argue than muscle repair and a fever both increase your metabolism today, while they’re occurring, but when your muscles are repaired and your fever is gone tomorrow, I’d expect the measured metabolism would return to prior levels.)

I will, however, concede that I can see how high-intensity training could cause the appearance of increased metabolism, even if actual metabolism remains constant. And I agree that if that’s the case, it’s basically just as good.

And seriously, if you read this comment, and you know where I can get a copy of that article, let me know.

I agree with the argument that types of exercise will increase your metabolism after your workout. Derek, you have been arguing that cardio is only good for energy expenditure during the actual workout (which is fairly accurate). You also argue that not everybody wants to building large amounts of muscle so ‘bodybuilding’ is not for them. That is fair. However, exercise cannot be divided simply into ‘cardio; or bodybuilding. The best exercises for weight loss improve heart function and endurance but also increase muscle mass(most people will not exercise enough to actually ‘bodybuild’) and thus increase metabolism. High intensity interval training is such a modality.

Trembblay A, Simoneau JA, Bouchard C. (1994). Impact of Exercise Intensity on Body Fatness and Skeletal Muscle Metablism, Metabolism. 43(7): 814-818.

You are right that fat loss requires your body to use more calories that it ingests. However, this is obviously not simply a balance of intake versus exercise. It is well known that transitioning from a three meal diet to an equal calorie 5-6 meal diet wil result in weight loss. Energy is expended by the gut to digest this more frequent intake. This will also not increase your hunger.

I agree with your general principle that short term dieting is not beneficial in the long run and that 30 minutes of daily cardio is not sufficient for fat loss. However, you make too many broad assumptions! Fat loss can be obtained with a change in your diet(diet = your nutrition pattern) in combination with exercise (resistance training with an increase in heart rate).

Exercise gives a very small payback when you look at in terms of calories in a snickers bar compared to how long you have to exercise to burn it off.

However, taking a walk or something other than sitting on your butt BEFORE you crack open the Ben and Jerry’s helps cut the edge once you return to the fridge.

Also, packaged food does have the all the nutrition info right on the package and you don’t have to eat the whole thing. However, packaged food can sometimes have more calories than a salad, or a bunch of broccoli. This is where the the decisions come in. Ask yourself, do I want two cups of broccoli, or do I want two tablespoons of peanut butter?

Lastly, as mentioned by Derek, cutting your calorie intake by 300 calories is a good thing. The hard part is making sure that you have actually cut it day after day, after day. For me, I must monitor each and every meal and snack to make sure I have stayed within my daily allotment. If I do not monitor it, then I go over and this in itself makes the dieting take longer.

Good luck to everyone and hang in there!
Brian