Can you lose weight without exercise? Yes. Should you try to lose weight without managing your fitness? That’s another story. Here’s why.

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Question for you: Do you want to lose weight or do you want to lose fat?

Yes, there is a difference.

If you’re trying to lose weight, the process is simple (not easy, but simple):

• Drop calories low
• Cut a bunch of carbs
• Keep going until you are small enough

However, if you’ve been following me long enough (and you should, because I’m pretty awesome), you know by now that this is flawed and won’t get you to where you’d like to be in terms of weight loss.

You will not look good doing this.

Nor will you be healthy.

And because movement is not part of your routine, your calories will need to drop to dangerously low and unsustainable levels.

It’ll be next to impossible to keep this up for good.

So the answer to my question is definitive. You want to lose fat.

Today, we’re going to talk about the role exercise plays in the weight loss and fat loss equations. Yes, you can lose weight without exercise, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best path to victory.

Allow me to explain in more detail.

Let’s get into it.

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Lace up the sneakers. Hit the pavement. Crank out 30 to 40 minutes of jogging at a moderate pace. Hope the pounds come off.

Boring, relentless, ineffective steady state cardio ain’t the answer for weight loss.

Neither is cutting out all carbs and starving yourself.

Yet, too many people believe that one of these two paths are what they must take in order to lose fat.

As I’ve already stated, fat loss and weight loss are two different things.

Which is why you need to stop measuring all of your progress based on what that plastic hunk of metal we call the scale tells you every single morning.

Fat loss is what you are truly after when you say you’d like to be “lean and toned.”

And while the two approaches are similar in nature, the execution here is what will make the difference in the finished product.

For that, you’ll need to embrace the slow and steady way.

The slow path is usually the fastest path to long-term success in many things … fat loss is no different.

• Create a moderate calorie deficit
• Ensure adequate protein needs are met
• Perform strength training a few times per week
• Increase your daily activity
• Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Working out is not about weight loss

Read that again.

You are not working out and lifting weights and walking and moving around and all that stuff to lose weight.

Study after study has proven that the best way to control weight loss is through controlling your nutrition. 

In other words, the most important reps you should be managing are the reps of forks to your facehole.

But, but … you said:

“Establish a calorie deficit and weight loss will happen.”

Yes. This is true. To a point.

Unfortunately, it’s easy to get lost in all of the diet culture words and phrases and end up confused by misinformation to conflate calorie deficits with calorie counting.

And then you’ve been convinced that a calorie deficit is only through managing your diet.

This is not exactly true.

Reminder: A calorie deficit simply means that you are burning more calories than you consume.

You are manipulating the energy balance of your body.

If what you eat is energy in and what you exercise is energy out, then by making sure more energy is going out than in, you will create that calorie deficit and lose weight.

There are three ways to make a calorie deficit happen:

1. Exercise only (energy out)

We’ve already addressed that this is simply not efficient. It is possible, but really hard to do.

Why?

Because it can take you all of about two minutes to scarf down that 250 calorie candy bar. However it will take over an hour of vigorous exercise to burn it off.

Additionally, most calories burned trackers are highly inaccurate estimates and are oftentimes over exaggerating by a lot. Which means you cannot measure how many calories you are truly burning per day.

Which leads to the flip-side of this equation …

2. Diet only (energy in)

Find a calorie deficit. Hit that number.

Which means that technically yes, you can lose weight without exercise by controlling your diet only.

As you’ve learned, eating fewer calories than your body burns throughout the day leads to weight loss. Science and all.

Unfortunately, when you are totally sedentary a few things are working against you.

First, because you are not utilizing your muscles consistently, your body essentially gets a signal that you don’t need that lean muscle tissue.

As a result, you’ll end up losing fat and muscle along the way. Yes, the scale weight will drop. But as you continue to lose muscle along with fat, you’ll end up looking smaller (for sure) but also doughy and soft and with zero “tone.”

When you’ve said you want to get “lean and toned” in the past, what you mean by that type of physique implies losing mostly fat and preserving muscle.

Strength training, relative to your abilities, will help ensure that happens (along with adequate protein intake).

3. Diet and exercise

This is the most efficient way to lose fat for good.

By increasing activity, you’ve boosted your total daily energy expenditure (or TDEE). You are increasing that Energy Out of our calorie deficit equation.

Doing so will help provide a bigger cushion for the work you are doing with nutrition.

Just remember that the calories burned through exercise are minimal. But an extra 200 to 300 calories per day does help.

It’s the hidden benefits of exercise, particularly strength training, where this really comes into play.

Building better lean muscle tissue can help with TDEE, but also through improved metabolic rate. Muscle burns more calories at rest. Again, a slight improvement, but every little bit can help.

And an even deeper impact comes from the overall health aspects of regular exercise.

• Cardio leads to a stronger and healthier heart
• Resistance training strengthens not only muscle, but bones as well
• Regular exercise helps ward off some effects of aging

Better cardiovascular health and more lean muscle tissue will allow the body to perform optimally. This includes doing things like chasing kids around the playground, but also on the inside with better hormonal performance.

If the body is running more efficiently on the inside (hormonally), then fat loss will be much easier to achieve. It’s as close to a win-win weight loss scenario that you could possibly create.

So can you lose weight without exercise? Yes.

Should you try to lose weight without exercise? No. Not if you’re committed to being healthy and to looking the part, too.

Start making your health a real priority and make the time to get up and move a little more throughout your day.

It will go a long way towards developing that body you are (actually) seeking.

Let me help you learn that while it’s okay to try and lose weight without exercise … the best path forward is to incorporate some move movement in your day …

I’m here to help you out. 

If you have any questions, reach out. I answer all of my emails at pete [at] petecataldo [.] com … Hit me up with the subject line “Lose weight without exercise” and I’ll answer any questions you have to make this work for you.

Or you can hit me up anytime on the socialz on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

If you enjoyed this post, maybe you’d like more knowledge bombs from me. I’d be honored if you join my mailing list to get regular updates every time I post something pretty dope.