Losing weight without exercise

I've been tracking my calories daily and weekly, and as you all know, to lose 1 lb. per week, you need a 3500 cal. deficit, to lose 1.5 lbs., you need a 5250 cal. deficit, and to lose 2 lbs., you need a 7000 cal. weekly deficit.

I've been tracking my weekly deficit based on food intake and expenditure, and my weekly deficit is usually between -5500 and
-6500... So that means I'm losing between 1.5-almost 2 lbs. a week with no exercise! I mean, some days I do a tonnn of walking, like hours outside or at the mall, so that helps. But I don't go to the gym or anything.

Obviously, I'm getting optimum results like if I went to the gym and toned, but I really at this point just want to get the extra weight off, then when I'm at my goal weight, I can do some light weights to tone. For me, right now getting the lbs. off is all that matters, especially since I don't have time to go to the gym!

Just wanted to let people that are like me out there know you CAN lose weight without going to the gym!

I did that as well for my first few months here.

I wanted to focus on getting the eating part of my life under control before I got on the exercise part.  There are many parts in losing weight.  Even counting calories has many little components.  I prefer to tackle one at a time.

Yes, its better to exercise and diet at the same time.  If you only cut calories, you will end up losing some muscle that you will have to make up later on.

So I did the same as you and lost a good 10-15 lbs by simply keeping to a 500-800 deficit each day.  I tried to stay somewhat active, take walks where I could, but nothing was set, and it was very sporafic.  No gym.

Once I got the eating down, I then added in exercise.  Weights, cardio on a more regular basis, still not as regular as I'd like it to be (although I'm starting my P90X DVDs in a week or so, so that will make my exercise daily).

Just thought I'd add on to the thread =)

you're absolutely right! Most people don't realize that the most important element to losing weight is what you eat and exercise is not necessary. It just makes your body tighter for when all that weight does drop! Good luck & keep up the great eating!!!

I read somewhere that losing weight and living healthy is 75% eat and 25% exercise.  You need both, but one is more important than the other.

I don't think exercise is necessary at first, not while you are getting used to the whole way of living.  But I think it will become necessary if you want to be healthy.

That's great! It's good to take things slow with diets. Many people take on such an extreme diet with unrealistic calorie goals and going to the gym everyday that they get so sick of it and quit after a month.

Patience is the key, and I'm glad to see you found a method that works for you. Good luck!

Dee, great before and after pictures!

It's good that you're making progress, but unless there's something physically stopping you from exercising (terrible joints, bad heart, some other kind of medical condition) there really is no reason whatsoever to avoid it. Walking is a good start, but I guarantee you that you'd drop the fat faster, look better, and most importantly FEEL better if you started hitting the gym. Also, I would like to (once again; this seems to be a recurring theme in my posts) dispel the "toning" myth. I'll save you the long diatribe and instead just link you straight to this place--don't take my word for it, take hers!

For the sole purpose of weight loss, excercise is very unefficient way to do it alone. It takes enormous amount to burn off a pan pizza, while eating it can be relatively easy.

So it is mostly about diet.

Still, during weight loss some working out would be a good idea. If you don't do it, you lose weight from muscles too - and that's not a good thing. So look beyond just numbers. Losing 2 lbs can be a good thing or very bad thing, depending where you lose it from; muscle or fat. Lost muscle also makes it harder to lose more or maintain, as your BMR will decrease.

rotak - thank-you very much for that link. I have been doing cardio and weight training since mid-December and I don't think I would have the same results if I didn't do that and tried with just eating better alone. Not because it doesn't work, but becaue it's a mind-set with me. If I work out I am less lilely to eat crappy...that's just me though and like the original point of this post, it is possible to drop weight without exercise.

Anyways, the link was great because I was always wondering if I was going to gain a bunch of muscle doing squats and other exercises or if I was going to tone, which is what I wanted to do.

I feel like none of that makes sense, lol...but I don't feel like changing it.

Very good point, Nevdull! I have that argument with friends all the time.. I say "I'd rather not have pizza or pasta very often, and when I do, just have a small amount along with mostly veggies/salad, that way I savor it more!" Whereas my friends - who by the way, don't diet OR exercise but still feel like they can contribute... - say "No way, I'd rather eat what I want and then go to the gym for an hour." It's much less work to just skip the e xtra slice of pizza than go burn it off, lol.

P.S.:

In MY experience, saying "It's only an hour at the gym" is COMPLETELY different than when you are sweating your ass off, huffing and puffing for an hour. When you're THERE, an hour feels like a month!

Hi All,  I have been using C-C for about six weeks now and I am amazed at how simple it is to lose weight when you use the tools here.  I have lost about 22 lbs with about 22 to go and I have done it for the most part without regular exercise, (I have a hectic life).

As I am getting closer to my goal however I want exercise to become more regular in my life so I am striving to work it into my life.  The main reason I want this is so when I move to maintaining I will be able to have more freedom and leeway in my diet.  Don't get me wrong, I don't want a free-for-all diet but the freedom to splurge once in a while.  Exercise is the most effective was to increase your basal metabolic rate so the way I see it is exercise is not absolutely necessary to lose weight but it plays a major role in maintaining.

Here is a link to a site that shows the formula for calculating your BMR and you will see the role exercise plays.

I'll agree that an incremental approach to improving one's lifestyle is probably going to work better. However, exercise brings additional benefits to one's overall health, as my doctor just loves to tell me. One hour of exercise = 1 hour of healthy aging. Lower stress, lower cholesterol, lower blood pressure, joints that remember how to move. Muscles. (Menopausal women are subject to muscle loss due to a number of factors.) So getting a heard start in your 20s and 30s can make the difference in your quality of life in the 50s and 60s. 

Your right you can loose weight without exercise but be aware some of that is muscle loose which effectively means you need less calories.

Muscle burns more calories than fat so you want a high muscle ratio. Loosing muscle will slow your metabolism!!!

You're right, anie.

And for someone like me, that is physically unable to exercise, although the progress is slower, you still can do it.

Some of us don't have the privelage of chosing, unfortunately.  I'd prefer to exercise as well, but it's not an option.

Good luck!

Just wondering why people say if you don't exercise while eating fewer calories, you will lose muscle mass. I've never found any real science to back this up and when you read about how the body burns fuel under normal conditions, it seems like carbs are first, then fat over longer periods of endurance, and finally protein under extreme cases like starvation or a triathalon.
So where does the belief come from that muscle loss is a possibility of just eating less and living an average life that doesn't include intentional exercise?
Thanks.

I agree with you Jennys - My husband is in a Physical Therapy graduate program and he tells me the body burns muscle as a source of fuel as a last resort.  Our muscles atrophy with disuse such as lying in bed and not moving when your body is previously used to more activity but if your days are consistent in the amount of activity, you should not be losing muscle mass simply from restricting calories unless you have burned off all of your excess fat stores.

I personally don't buy the argument that you burn muscle if you don't exercise.  By the way please don't think I am downplaying the importance of exercise in overall health and well being.

P.S.  My husband also tells me we don't add cells to our muscles.  Newborns are born with as many muscle cells as they will ever have, the cells just expand.  He showed me this in his textbook but my mind simply cannot comprehend/process this.

I have always had a hard time with the popular notion that muscle is burned along with fat when dieting but not exercising regularly. If you weight train to get bulky muscles and then stop for X amount of time, sure you're going to lose some of that mass (in that case it's a matter of not using the muscles as much if you're not training, not what you're eating - though I hear to build muscle efficiently you need to eat more cals than your maintenence but that's beside the point in this example).

BUT if you have excess fat stores/high bodyfat percentage/are overweight, I don't think dieting without exercise will make you lose the muscle mass that you use just for walking around/going to work/etc. I thought the way our bodies work, we store excess fat in order to use it if there comes a time when we do need it. It seems like it would be a very inefficient system to have a bunch of fat stored in the body, but instead eat away at muscles and organs first while you're cutting calories.

Obviously, I'm not talking about people who already have very low body fat percentages, but for someone like myself, who has tons of extra fat, you would think that would be used as fuel since that just seems to make sense.

I agree totally, anie.  When I first started, I just started cutting back on junk food and cut out the sodas, and only added just a little bit of extra activity -- I had a step-down from my dining room to the living room, and I used it to do a step routine twice a day -- just the length of a song each time. 

And I'd walk to the post office and back, but that was only 3 blocks one way.

but that got me going --

I always use the story of the tortoise and the hare.  the hare got off to a fast start, but it's the turtle that won the race by just plugging along at his own slow but steady pace.

I too am taking the same path as you, I have three young kids and am on a budget so who has the time or money to go to the gym with all that. So I just decreased my calories enough to compensate for that and I have seen weight loss even with out the exercise. I agree I don't think enough people know that you can do this, they assume they have to do it all.