Exercise Sucks To Lose Weight

This article was inspired by the question that I have been asked for many years – “I’m exercising TONS and I’m not losing any weight, why?”

The answer to this question is because exercise sucks as a primary form for losing excess body fat. 

Over the years of this newsletter I’ve focused on many different reasons why exercise is important, including mental health, physical health/strength, improving your gut biome, and increasing your bone mineral density.  But one thing that I haven’t directly touched on is exercise for weight loss. That’s because exercise really isn’t a great way to lose excess body fat.

Yes, exercise. The one activity that most people state they need to do more of to lose weight is probably the last thing they need to do to lose weight. I’m not sure where this idea of exercise and weight loss came from but having grown up during the “Jane Fonda” 80’s where exercise was equated with skinny I have an idea. It doesn’t help that many gyms advertise weight loss as a primary reason you should sign up with them. Or that most fitness ‘influencers’ are going to be skinny, or at least not obese.

So if you are someone that uses exercise as a form of weight loss, I get it. The world around you is telling you that it’s a legitimate way to lose weight. But it really isn’t, it actually is, at best, a B level solution for losing weight.

Think about it in terms of numbers, specifically numbers of calories. If you ate 3,000-plus calories a day presurgery, and postsurgery your max limit is 1,200 calories, then you are going to lose weight thanks to that 1,800-calorie deficit. If you exercise, such as walking for sixty minutes, you’ll burn about 300 calories. When you look at the daily difference between that 1,800-calorie deficit with weight-loss surgery compared with the 300-calorie deficit with exercise, you can see why exercise shouldn’t be seen as a major part of your fat loss but more of an assist. 

So why am I writing about this? 

So you can start to see doing exercise for what it is: to improve every other aspect of your health outside of weight loss. It helps with sleep, slowing bone loss, increasing your cardiovascular strength, improving your gut biome, improving your memory, reducing your risks of falling, improving your mood, lowering your blood pressure, reducing your chance of cancer, among other things. 

Also when you see exercise as a poor choice for weight loss you then take it out of your weight loss plan. It makes you start to think about other more effective avenues towards losing the excess body fat. Those are things like focusing on the Rules of the Tool, and making good choices when it comes to your meals. 
So if you’ve asked the question I posted at the beginning of this article then take a step back and start looking at exercise and weight loss as two separate things.

If you need help with this, reach out and let’s talk about how I can help build you a program that highlights exercise in a way that gives you the most benefit.