The FastDay Forum

I have exercised regularly for almost 30 years. I got the gym habit early, and have always done exercise classes. I think it shows after 40....I am not slimmer than friends the same age who do not exercise but I look more 'pulled in' - like wearing a corset, but naturally. Also, if you exercise regularly you are more body conscious so less likely to just let everything go.

However, I must say that I know a lot of people at my gym who exercise vigorously many times a week (including an instructor) who are overweight and the exercise has not made them slim. Obviously they need to eat less also.

Exercise is definitely good for you and makes you feel good physically and mentally, but I think the saying is: Tone in the gym, slim in the kitchen (in other words you need to change your diet to lose weight).

A PT friend of mine has always said that weight loss is generally at least 80% diet and the exercise bit is more about good habits, keeping/growing your lean muscle mass and because cardiovascular fitness is generally a good thing to have.

Your body does get used to exercise; you need to change it up regularly if you're going to keep seeing results. You need to lift a little more weight, do some interval sessions, take the hilly route home on the bike. Perhaps that was what they meant by your body getting used to it and burning less?

But you need to exercise a lot at a good intensity before you burn off many calories which is why it's unlikely to shift pounds on its own. And that's before people reward themselves. I have a pal who treats herself to a 'healthy' smoothie after a gym session which has more calories from sugar in it than she's just burned off.

Makes me feel good! physically and emotionally! Exercise helps me expel stress and reshapes my bod!

I just saw this article on an American website today:

"Exercise does not burn off pounds
TRUE: It's hard to believe, but in a study of 411 women, those who worked out for over one, two, or three hours a week for six months didn't lose significantly more weight than those who'd devoted themselves to Sudoku or other sedentary pursuits. You'd think this finding was a fluke, but a recent review of 15 studies came to the same conclusion: Moderate workouts don't lead to weight loss, possibly because they make us hungrier. But there's also a biological explanation: As with weight loss, one of the ways your body adapts to an increase in exercise is to lower your resting metabolic rate about 7%, so you actually end up burning fewer calories - anywhere from 50 to 75 fewer per day, the review found."

So, if we just follow the 5:2 and sit around all day, we will lose the same amount of weight?? I don't believe this - do you???

I lost the majority of my weight without doing any exercise at all-didn't start until after I started transitioning into maintenance. Weight loss is about a calorie deficit and it doesn't really have anything to do with exercise, except that when you exercise you create a bigger calorie deficit (though most people over estimate how many calories they're burning and that leads to all sorts of problems). Exercise has it's own benefits, but weight loss isn't really one of them.

ETA: This reminds me of a conversation I had recently with my sister, who's an avid runner. She was telling me how many calories she burned while on a long run, which was an impressive amount. Then she mentioned that she was so hungry after running she came home and proceeded to eat an ENTIRE package of Oreo cookies Figuring out the math she actually did more harm calorie wise, than if she had just skipped the run and then skipped the cookies!

Obviously this is an extreme case, but say you burn 300 calories with an intense work out. Then the work out makes you hungry so you grab a muffin, which has 4oo calories. You're now +100 calories, because you ate a muffin that you otherwise would have not eaten if you had not exercised. Now do this on a regular basis and your exercise can actually hurt your weight loss efforts. Throw in a sports drinks with calories right after your work outs and you're even more in the hole. Obviously you don't have to eat after working out, but how many of us actually don't? I had gotten into the habit of eating a protein bar after strength training, until I realized the ones I was eating had over 200 calories in them, and realistically I'm only burning about 100 calories with my work out. No more protein bars for me lol.

Lots of good replies above, just wanted to add:
- It's unfair to compare the two groups on weight only.
Besides all the benefits of general better wellbeing (mood etc.); two bodies of "you" that weigh the same can have very different shape/muscle tone/level of fitness. Which is a point of 5:2 I guess, it's more than the weight?!
As a runner I must agree with @applespider and others. It's about the calories AND the composition of same (slow carbs, quick carbs, protein, good fats, bad fats).
I have run a lot without losing anything

You will not lose weight if you are taking in more calories than you are burning. Since I have been running seriously, around 40kms a week including interval training, I have put on a couple of kilos. It isn't just muscle, I have also been eating more to fuel my body, a little too much sadly! But I'm extremely fit, running also gives me a high mentally as well as physically so it really doesn't matter too much. I look better than I did when I was thin and scrawny with no muscle tone. Sadly articles like this make people turn off exercise. It is more important to be fit than just thin.