Hear me out. This sub is CICO-centric and I am not here to deny that calorie deficit = fat loss. I understand that, calorie for calorie, you will have a greater deficit through reducing calories rather than trying to 'burn' calories through exercise. I know this is where the 90/10 rule comes from: 90% of the deficit is going to have to come from diet because exercise can't burn enough calories alone to meaningfully reduce fat.
However, I think this framing REALLY undervalues exercise and how exercise indirectly HELPS you stay on track with CICO (and many other non-weight-related goals you have in life). Let me count the ways:
- Muscle-building and metabolism: If you focus on weight loss alone, you will not only lose fat but muscle, too. You need muscle. Especially if you strength-train, you will maintain or build muscle and, in the process, almost certainly lose fat. Your body requires more energy (and will burn more calories at rest) to maintain your muscles than it does to maintain fat. That energy = additional calories in your deficit. In other words, your TDEE gets higher and your deficit gets larger. This makes it easier to meet your CICO targets - you have more wiggle room.
- Post-Exercise Food Psychology: While I don't encourage anyone to feel like eating a meal "undoes your workout" you are much more likely to make a healthier choice that supports your post-workout recovery if you just put in a solid 45 minutes of work. A diet-specific change, prompted by exercise. (PS, if you don't eat after a workout to fuel your recovery, you are wasting that workout, not the other way around. Thanks to Casey Johnston for that lightbulb moment.)
- Energy: Exercise contributes to energy. People often eat/drink carbs/sugar because they feel tired and need a pick-me-up. By incorporating exercise, this opportunity to eat unnecessary calories is minimized. So this is a diet-specific change, prompted by exercise.
- Sleep: Exercise, especially strength training, improves your sleep. Improved sleep means your ghrelin levels (hunger signal hormones) are lower, you'll be less likely to make food choices based only on convenience while tired, and you will be less likely to overeat unnecessarily and therefore consume fewer calories. A diet-specific change, prompted by exercise.
- Stress & Mood: Exercise reduces stress/cortisol levels (they spike temporarily but in the long term, exercise is beneficial). Being less stressed means you are less likely to reach for comfort food and your hunger hormones will be less likely to be affected. A diet-specific change, prompted by exercise.
- Insulin levels: Many people (one estimate says 40 percent of Americans) are insulin-resistant but don't find out until their blood sugars/A1C reaches pre-diabetic or diabetic levels. Exercise helps stabilize and sensitize your insulin and helps you 'use up' your blood sugar which reduces the insulin that gets released in your system. Insulin is a fat-storing hormone. By reducing insulin, you will be more likely to use those calories to build muscle or give you energy first, rather than prioritizing fat storage. Insulin is the hormone that carries sugars to your various cells, and insulin resistance means that sugar isn't being efficiently used up by your body, which leads to sugar/carb cravings. Getting insulin controlled means fewer cravings and propensity to overeat carbohydrates. A diet-specific change, prompted by exercise. (Though if you are insulin-resistant you might need medication like metformin, inositol, berberine or other options, talk to your doc.)
- Endorphins: Exercise releases endorphins, the same kind you might get from eating something sugary and indulgent, so you are less likely to crave sugary foods. A diet-specific change, prompted by exercise.
- Strength & Health: Exercise will make you stronger and healthier. Being stronger and healthier will make everything else in your life easier, including CICO. But strength and stamina also increase faster than pounds decrease, which means you will see 'results' of your efforts more quickly and be motivated to keep going in a positive feedback loop, which likely means you'll maintain your healthful eating habits. A diet-specific change, prompted by exercise.
All of these things interact with each other, and sleep is similar to exercise in the way it affects so many underlying circumstances that affect your food needs, cravings, and choices.
So yes, calories in/calories out, eat a good nutritious high-protein, high-fiber, low-sugar diet at a deficit from your TDEE or whatever diet works best for you. You can lose weight without exercise simply by eating fewer calories than your body burns at rest. But your food choices don't exist in a vacuum. Your body responds to infinite external stimuli. If you are able, exercise contributes to creating the best conditions to help you make those food choices in the CICO equation. I think its value is misrepresented in the 90/10 framing.
I know there are plenty of people on this sub who already know all this (see post from 2 months ago here), but I'm just trying to emphasize this to people who may be new to weight loss and unsure where to direct their efforts and looking to this sub for guidance, then walk away thinking that exercise is almost pointless (see this post for example) and I have noticed that a lot of the most popular comments stop at the '90% diet' mark. The wiki's 80/20 rule mentions exercise as a way to burn extra calories and emphasizes that it's only secondary to diet when it comes to weight loss and diet should be the primary focus (though it acknowledges other benefits to exercise exist), but I believe the indirect benefits of exercise significantly affect diet enough to merit more emphasis on this sub / everywhere.
Do I have a better X/X ratio? Not really - I think food and activity are intertwined and it's not possible to disentangle one from the other in their contribution to successful long-term weight loss. My point with this post is: the 90/10 rule of thumb should not lead one to think that exercise is an afterthought for CICO-based weight loss efforts. I'd like us to emphasize that 90 percent of someone's calorie deficit is due to diet, but exercise is one key contributor to a diet that maintains a consistent deficit and leads to long-term success in fat loss.
Thanks for reading, feel free to share other ways exercise is useful for CICO!
PS - I'm not a scientist and this is my own understanding of these things, please let me know if I misrepresented anything.
PPS - I am not even touching all the reasons you should exercise no matter what weight you are or trying to be, I'm just focusing on its relation to CICO in this post. So even if you disagree with all of this, definitely try your best to incorporate activity in your life, if you are able. I do understand that many of us have chronic pain, injuries, or conditions that don't make this possible.
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