Simplest approach to weight loss?

[volcs0]

Black Landlord wrote:
[quote=volcs0]
calories out > calories in = weight loss

can't get much simpler than that.

Well, maybe, yeah, no, not quite.
There's that whole "metabolism" thing.
The above forumula would suggest that you could lose weight by exercising more while not changing your diet.
Yes. If you exercised enough to expend more calories (your resting energy expenditure + exercise) than you ingest, you would lose weight. That is part of the reason why Michael Phelps can eat 18,000 calories a day - he exercises a lot. And he obviously has a monstrous metabolism. For most people, exercising alone is not enough to make up for a massive fatty American diet, so the calories need to be simultaneously cut.

All it says is that if your body expends more calories than it takes in, weight will be lost.

How the body expends calories is very individualistic - exercise, metabolism, etc. How the body takes in calories is up to you. But if you keep the balance on out>in, weight will be lost. Right?


Anecdotally for me, weight loss is usually achieved when I:
(1) eat breakfast (oatmeal), (2) eat lunch (yogurt), (3) eat dinner, and (4) nothing between dinner and bed. Exercise helps, but usually doing #1-#4 is enough to get things going in the right direction. Skipping meals and binging at night are what makes the weight go right back up again.