2891: Million Dollar Question: Can I Lose Weight Without Exercise by DIYActive

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[00:00:54] So, press play on good sleep tonight because a good tomorrow starts with a good night's sleep. Just search for Good Sleep in your podcast app and be sure to pick the one from Optimal Living Daily. This is Optimal Health Daily. Million dollar question. Can I lose weight without exercise? By DIY Active of DIYActive.com. And I'm Dr. Neil.

[00:01:20] Happy Thursday and welcome back to Optimal Health Daily where I act as your narrator of the best health, nutrition, and fitness blogs. All for free. And then on Fridays, I answer your questions right here on the show. For now, let's get right to it and start optimizing your life. Million dollar question. Can I lose weight without exercise? By DIY Active of DIYActive.com.

[00:01:49] For decades, weight loss has been associated with loud alarm clocks at ungodly hours, sweating senseless while your lungs are on righteous fire. Is this the only way you can get that fat out of your system? Science says maybe there's another way. I hate exercise. What do I do now? Not to worry. There's still hope. Some studies claim while exercise is essential for your well-being,

[00:02:15] your fat loss is made in the kitchen. They are so sure of that fact, they've even put numbers on it. Weight loss is 75% diet and 25% exercise. Since our bodies are built to survive, they are efficient at converting food into usable energy. What this means is that making calories is a much easier mechanism for our body than breaking them. When there is an energy surplus, the body saves it as fat for later when the need does arise.

[00:02:43] A medium donut has about 200 calories or around there and is polished off in under a minute. When it comes down to burning those 200 calories, you're going to have to slog for at least 30 minutes at the gym. It is estimated that if you eat one donut a day without exercise, you'd have gained a pound by the 10th day. Sorry for being so harsh, Krispy Kreme, but someone had to say it. Making of a fat and exercise-free regime.

[00:03:13] Like we've established before, exercises are not the only perspiration-drenched bastion of weight loss. The easiest way to stop gaining weight is to make sure that you stop it at the source, your plate. The key to taking the weight off and keeping it that way is to ease into diets and prepping your body for the impending loss of sugars, carbs, and unhealthy fats. Yes, harmful and potentially addictive substances need to be weaned off the body. Go figure.

[00:03:40] So let's talk about what you need to change to get to the healthy diet part. Adequate hydration. The first thing that can help you feel less hungry is actually the simplest thing you can do. Drink lots of water. Drink water first thing when you get up and make sure you drink at least 2 liters of water throughout the day. A lot of people suggest that you sip on water even if you aren't that thirsty just to keep yourself hydrated.

[00:04:06] The costs of dehydration, even at mild levels, results in mood swings and loss of focus. Don't skip breakfast. A lot of people who claim to skip breakfast claim they're doing okay health-wise. This is more the exception rather than the norm. For the majority of people, skipping breakfast can lead to low blood sugar levels, loss of focus, headaches, and even dizziness.

[00:04:31] Fancy-schmancy concepts do exist like intermittent fasting and 16-8 diets. If you read the fine print, though, you'll notice that most of these methods, if not all of them, come with disclaimers stating they aren't for everyone. So ignore the internet static and don't skip breakfast. Down with processed foods. Ideally, your diet should consist only of natural products and things that aren't processed.

[00:04:57] But this is something that we aren't able to avoid sometimes because potato chips are harder to resist than a 50% off coupon. If this happens, don't be too hard on yourself initially. But make sure you only, quote-unquote, cheat occasionally with Mr. Pringles. Your ultimate goal should be to get your diet wholly scrubbed of anything processed with harmful sugars and synthetic additives. They may interfere with your body's natural processes. Treat yourself.

[00:05:24] If you're in it for the long haul, you need to stop pretending that an occasional treat through a bite of favorite food is fine. When the mind is deprived of things it likes, it tries to compensate for it through other resources. Which means, if you don't give yourself a break on occasion, you're just going to binge with something else that you're going to regret. That said, the smaller you keep your treats, the more advantageous it is for your weight loss. As the adage goes, anything that is too rigid will only break.

[00:05:54] Dinnerware downsizing. This seems pretty straightforward. Tackle the problem right at the source. A smaller plate means that smaller portions would look right-sized. This actually tricks your brain into being content with less food. You could use salad plates to eat rather than dinner plates. Wrap up. The first thing to understand is that, except in a very few cases, it isn't your body's fault.

[00:06:20] It is doing what it is designed to do best with what it has at its disposal. When you start showing it some love through proper diet and laying off sugars, you're bound to see plenty of improvement, and not just weight-wise, but with your health in general as well. Again, don't immediately substitute everything you love with stocks of celery. Take your time, but chalk down short-term goals that are easier to stick to.

[00:06:44] Eventually, they will manifest themselves as habits, and you'll be on your way to a great-looking body without chaining yourself to the treadmill. You just listened to the post titled, Million Dollar Question, Can I Lose Weight Without Exercise? By DIY Active of DIYActive.com. And I'll be right back with my commentary. Dr. Neil here for my commentary.

[00:07:11] It's so true, trying to burn off extra calories is a lot more difficult than simply not eating those calories in the first place. I tried not to feel offended that today's contributors used a donut as their example, since I'm a pizza-french-fries donut lover. But anywho, I'm going to use a different example. I've seen patients that really love their soda. Not diet soda. Regular, fully leaded sodas. Some of these patients' goals were to lose weight.

[00:07:39] I would often pounce on their soda consumption, because this was a point I could easily drive home. Giving up soda, cold turkey. Wow, that was a lot of food references in one sentence. Soda, cold turkey. Anywho, giving it up is not as easy as it sounds. So it often took me a bit of time and a bit of convincing the patient to think about their soda consumption. And I rarely ever make a patient give up something entirely, unless it's likely to cause them immediate harm.

[00:08:08] So let's use a hypothetical. Let's say I had a patient that consumed one regular 12-ounce soda every day, and this individual was looking to lose weight. One regular 12-ounce soda has about 150 calories in it. I would then ask the patient if they'd be willing to consume only half the can, and split the other half with someone else. Usually the answer was no. So I would show them the math.

[00:08:35] If they didn't give up soda completely, they could still enjoy it, but only drink half the can. And if they did that, they would save themselves 75 calories. This usually didn't impress them. But when I showed them that if they only had half a can each day for 7 days, they would end up saving 525 calories. Now their eyes would start to light up. I would use that momentum to then tell them that in just 2 weeks,

[00:09:03] they would have saved themselves over 1,000 calories. Compare that to having to work out at a moderate to high intensity for 30 minutes 5 times to burn that same number of calories. Now giving up a half a can of soda doesn't sound so bad. That usually did the trick. So yes, it's easier to cut back on our calories rather than trying to play catch-up and burn them off. But of course, I have to mention that yes,

[00:09:30] exercise physical activity is a major component of weight management. It can be that little extra oomph that can get you to break through plateaus. Because staying active is great for maintaining your weight once you've achieved your weight loss goals. So we're not saying in any way to ditch the exercise. We're just saying that, remember, food is an important part of weight loss. We can't just rely on physical activity and exercise to get us to our goals. All right, that'll do it for today. Thank you for subscribing.

[00:10:00] Thank you for being here every day. I'll see you back here tomorrow for the Friday Q&A and where your optimal life awaits.