• You don’t burn a great deal more calories exercising than you do just sitting on the couch.

    Depends on how intense the exercise is, but it can easily be more than a factor of 3 times as much energy as sitting around (something like walking) to more than 10 times as much (things like vigorous cycling, running, etc). Would be really hard to maintain 20 times sitting output for any significant period of time though.

    • Wrench@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      That’s serious athlete level of performance, though. And a result of that rigorous of exercise is an increased appetite, for obvious reasons.

      Yes, freakish athletes like Micheal Phelps do exist, and intaking enough calories to fuel their workout is actually difficult. But for the regular humans just trying to lose weight, it’s far more effective to focus on calories than to focus on heavy exercise for 3+ hours a day.

      • What is serious athlete level of performance? 10x for at least 30 minutes/day seems pretty manageable for someone without significant medical conditions to work up to in a short period. Even if you eat back 80% of that, it can still lead to an equilibrium weight that’s like 20lb less.