Can you loose weight on exercise alone?!

The only way to lose weight is to lower your daily caloric intake and increase your physical activity. If you continue eating the way you are now and increase your physical activity then your weight loss progress will be slow. It is common sense really when you think about it.

Reducing your daily caloric intake does not mean starving yourself. The majority of your diet should consist of carbohydrates (carbs). Carbs are the main energy source for your body and are burned first during exercise. Good carbs are high in dietary fiber. These foods include whole grain foods, fruits and vegetables. You should take in more vegetables than fruits. Foods that are high in dietary fiber help to sustain your glucose level. Exercise also aids in sustaining your glucose level. A sustained glucose level insures proper metabolism and usage of nutrients. Usually 40-65% of your diet should consist of carbs.

Proteins should make up 20-30% of your diet. When losing weight you want to eat lean meats. White chicken meat. Look for the word loin when eating red meats and pork. Canned tuna in water is the highest amount of protein that you can get in one serving. Pretty much any fish is good protein.

Fats should be 10-25% of your diet. You want the good fats. Stay away from foods that have "hydrogenated" in the ingredients. Hydrogenated usually means trans fat. You want to have mainly unsaturated fats and little saturated fats. Saturated fats are solid at room temperature. Butter, Crisco, meat fats, chicken skin, etc. are saturated fats. Unsaturated fats are liquid at room temperature. These are your vegetable, corn, sesame oils, etc. Poly and monounsaturated fats are the best. You need fats in order to help with fat soluble vitamin absorption. Without fats, your body will not absorb fat soluble vitamins such as vitamins A, D, E, and K from food. Avoid fried foods.

Reducing your caloric intake means reducing your portions and not starving yourself. One way to reduce your portions is to drink 2-3 cups of water before you eat. Another way is to make sure that you eat plenty of carbs high in dietary fiber. These carbs expand in your stomach and are digested slowly. This keeps you full longer, which will keep you from wanting to eat more. A good example of this type of carb is oatmeal that you have to cook, not the instant stuff. Quaker oats that come in the round container. The ingredients are 100% rolled oats. The sweet potato is another good carb and it is probably the most nutritious food out there.

When you want a snack, grab an apple or some other fruit. Yes fruits have sugar, but it is natural sugar. You do not want processed sugar that is in most processed foods. Natural sugars are the best and they will be broken down much easier especially if you are exercising. It does not take much energy to breakdown natural sugars. I use maple syrup to sweeten my oatmeal sometimes. Just reduce your portions, but keep your diet balanced so that you can be properly nourished. Exercise 30-60 minutes a day as many days of the week that you can.

This is what I do and I have lost 22 pounds. Good luck!

Undergraduate -- Health and Human Performance (Exercise and Sports Science)

Wellness Concepts and Applications, 8th Edition
By - David J. Anspaugh, Michael H. Hamrick, Frank D. Rosato

it depends on what you eat. you may end up just countering your workout with the food you eat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zd6wSb03…

Studies have shown that people can gain fat stores even on a semi starvation diet of 1000 calories a day - if it's composition is high carb, low fat. So obviously, calories aren't the key to fat loss.

I recommend to lose weight, cut out all sugars & starches. No sodas, juices, cookies, candy, cakes, etc. As healthy as fruit may be, it's natural sugars do not only not promote fat loss, they actually promote fat storage (fructose is the most lipogenic carb).

Make sure half your meals are green non starchy vegs & eat lots of protein & good fats, limit your complex carb portions to no more than your protein portion.

I am adamantly opposed to low calorie dieting because most people lose a good portion of lean tissue (including vital organs like the heart) along with fat stores. There is no nutrition in fat stores, only energy.

Most people get impatient and lower their calories and increase their exercise to a point where they lose so much lean tissue that when they return to what was maintenance level eating they are now accumulating more fat stores because their caloric needs have dropped due to the loss of this tissue as well as their metabolism slowing down to work more efficiently on fewer calories & it becomes a vicious cycle of dieting and more loss (including vital organs like the heart). This stress to the vital organs cannot be healthy.

The answer to your question is "NO" because you can always eat more calories than you can burn. That said, it is possible to consume calories in an amount sufficient to add fat and then, pursuant to beginning a rigorous exercise program, burn more calories than you consume resulting in a net fat loss. That, however, is a very unlikely scenario as you can eat one large fast food French fry and add about 500 calories which will require about a five mile jog to burn off. Check the following facts to better understand this point.

? If you consume fewer calories than you burn, you have to lose fat eventually. There are no exceptions to this fact.

? There are only two nonsurgical things you can do to sculpt your body and they are (1) add or lose fat and (2) add or lose muscle. Muscle can only be lost naturally through atrophy.

? A pound of fat will yield about 3500 calories (Kcal) of energy.

? An average person must run or walk about 5 miles (8 km) every day to burn one pound of fat per week BUT THEIR DIET MUST ALLOW IT.

? An average person must run or walk about 350 miles (563 km) to burn 10 pounds BUT THEIR DIET MUST ALLOW IT. If they walk 350 miles (13.4 marathons) at 3mph it will take them 117 hours or about three full 40 hour work weeks to burn 10 pounds of fat.

? If an average person consumes 500 calories per day less than they burn, they will lose about a pound a week with no extra time or physical effort required.

?Running does not burn any more fat than walking as long as the distance remains the same.

? It does not matter if a person runs or walks a given distance…they will burn the same number of calories. Calories are energy and energy expenditure is not time dependent. How fast a person runs has nothing to do with how many calories they burn. Only the distance determines the calories burned.

? There is no exercise which will remove fat from a particular place on the body. Your body (genetics) determines where you lose fat, not you nor your diet nor your exercise. Spot fat removal by diet or exercise is a myth which is why people spend so much money on liposuction.

? It is not necessary to do "cardio" to burn fat. Cardio is aerobic exercise while maintaining a heart rate of 80% of max or more which is used to maintain cardio-vascular fitness. You can burn fat in your sleep.

? Most of the calories you consume will be spent just keeping your body at 98.6F.

? It doesn’t matter how hard or how long you exercise, you will not lose any fat if you eat too much. You can always eat more calories than you can burn. When it comes to burning fat, diet always trumps exercise.

? There are no supplements which will make your body burn fat. Only you can do that with diet control.

? An average natural bodybuilder who is just starting to train may gain as much as 4-8 ounces of muscle in a month. An average dieter who is burning fat will lose about a pound a week. Anyone can gain a pound in a few minutes just be drinking a pint of water.

Eventually your "weakness" (food) will be your undoing if you don't learn to how to eat a proper diet and then find the discipline to stick to it. The truth of the old adage "You are what you eat" will make itself known to you as you age.

Good luck and good health!!

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