Losing weight is actually more about eating at a calorie deficit rather than what exercise you choose. Exercise is still very important in overall health though and can certainly help lose weight, but the actual mechanism is a calorie deficit.
But to more answer your question, chose something you enjoy so that you actually have motivation to stick with it. If you like cardio, do cardio, if you like weight lifting do that, if you like calisthenics do that.
And the last thing, be patient with it and yourself but be consistent in both exercise and eating well. As long as you are consistent you will see results.
I mean, maybe you exaggerate to make a point but there are practical limits to what you can exercise your way out of. I set a challenge to myself to jog a half marathon every day for a year. From January 2022 through January 2023 I jogged 22km a day seven days a week for 367 days. I also did light weights and exercises for my upper body. I burned around 4000/day, as best as I can track with my Garmin watch. Which throw in a couple of milkshakes and you can blow through 5k calories in a day.
I will say, I did struggle to keep my weight up with such a regimen and a fairly healthy diet and dropped to 150lbs at my lowest (6’2"tall). But if I wanted to eat more calories I could easily get there with fried food and ice cream.
Edit: and for most people this is completely infeasible. Most people don’t have the time flexibility to wake up at 4 am every day and put on those kinds of miles.
Also remember that you can’t lose weight in a specific part of your body. As you lose weight, your body chooses where the fat is reduced. No exercise can target fat in a specific area. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling you something.
Should note that working on the underlying muscle might help certain areas look less fat but that effect is negligible compared to finding a regimen that works for you in the long run to keep your calorie intake less than your calorie burn rate .
Exercise helps, but once you do the math and see how many calories hard exercise consumes vs how easy it is to eat more calories, it becomes very clear.
My favorite weight loss exercise is existing but being very cold. Not even joking. That’s the whole thing.
If you want to balance calories with low effort, expose yourself to whatever temperature you shiver at (cold water is great for this because you lose heat 25x faster when wet). You burn an absolute ton of calories for heat, and recruit beige fat cells to function as brown fat cells which exist only to burn through fat to maintain homeostasis. The more you shiver, the more effective you are at ambient calorie burn when you don’t shiver.
Cardio is wonderful for upping your overall metabolism, as is building any muscle. They also both work to strengthen your overall system. Do those things. They are good for you.
But for pure calorie balancing and deficits, cold wins hands down as far as effort involved. Because it’s just sitting there being uncomfortable, and that’s easy, some of us are that way always :)
while i’m sure this does work well, i’d maybe tone down the miraculousity of your message a bit. Don’t want to overhype people and have them hurt themselves or simply not see such a big effect and conclude it’s a sham.
Losing weight is actually more about eating at a calorie deficit rather than what exercise you choose. Exercise is still very important in overall health though and can certainly help lose weight, but the actual mechanism is a calorie deficit.
But to more answer your question, chose something you enjoy so that you actually have motivation to stick with it. If you like cardio, do cardio, if you like weight lifting do that, if you like calisthenics do that.
And the last thing, be patient with it and yourself but be consistent in both exercise and eating well. As long as you are consistent you will see results.
Good luck!
This…everything else is just sales tactics on memberships and gimmics that won’t do much without eating differently.
Run a deficit and be patient.
You can still run a deficit even if you eat 10000 calories a day
I mean, maybe you exaggerate to make a point but there are practical limits to what you can exercise your way out of. I set a challenge to myself to jog a half marathon every day for a year. From January 2022 through January 2023 I jogged 22km a day seven days a week for 367 days. I also did light weights and exercises for my upper body. I burned around 4000/day, as best as I can track with my Garmin watch. Which throw in a couple of milkshakes and you can blow through 5k calories in a day.
I will say, I did struggle to keep my weight up with such a regimen and a fairly healthy diet and dropped to 150lbs at my lowest (6’2"tall). But if I wanted to eat more calories I could easily get there with fried food and ice cream.
Edit: and for most people this is completely infeasible. Most people don’t have the time flexibility to wake up at 4 am every day and put on those kinds of miles.
I give myself a decent cushion to eat garbage by cycling 90 minutes a day. Raising your resting heart rate will also passively help you lose weight.
Exercise lowers your resting heart rate
Also remember that you can’t lose weight in a specific part of your body. As you lose weight, your body chooses where the fat is reduced. No exercise can target fat in a specific area. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling you something.
Should note that working on the underlying muscle might help certain areas look less fat but that effect is negligible compared to finding a regimen that works for you in the long run to keep your calorie intake less than your calorie burn rate .
Exactly!
“You can’t out run a bad diet”.
Exercise helps, but once you do the math and see how many calories hard exercise consumes vs how easy it is to eat more calories, it becomes very clear.
My favorite weight loss exercise is existing but being very cold. Not even joking. That’s the whole thing.
If you want to balance calories with low effort, expose yourself to whatever temperature you shiver at (cold water is great for this because you lose heat 25x faster when wet). You burn an absolute ton of calories for heat, and recruit beige fat cells to function as brown fat cells which exist only to burn through fat to maintain homeostasis. The more you shiver, the more effective you are at ambient calorie burn when you don’t shiver.
https://www.medicaldaily.com/shivering-more-effective-exercise-15-minutes-shivering-may-burn-more-fat-1-hour-working-out-268555
Cardio is wonderful for upping your overall metabolism, as is building any muscle. They also both work to strengthen your overall system. Do those things. They are good for you.
But for pure calorie balancing and deficits, cold wins hands down as far as effort involved. Because it’s just sitting there being uncomfortable, and that’s easy, some of us are that way always :)
while i’m sure this does work well, i’d maybe tone down the miraculousity of your message a bit. Don’t want to overhype people and have them hurt themselves or simply not see such a big effect and conclude it’s a sham.