Kurzgesagt explains why exercise alone does little for weight loss, since the body compensates by adjusting its total energy expenditure. It argues exercise is still very valuable for health.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN uses it as a sourced, accessible summary in weight-loss and GLP-1 threads.
“exercise is awesome but has little impact on long term weight loss! Check this out”
Explains why exercise has little impact on long-term weight loss.
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Like much of life it's more complicated than simple rules. It works for some people, but does not for everyone. As someone that has struggled with diet for the last decade or so these drugs have been a life saver. I've been able to eat healthy and feel full instead of being stuck in a cycle of eating right for a while and then eventually breaking under load. I've been able to have a consistency in the last 6 months on the drugs that i never thought I was capable of. I've even been able to build up a weight lifting plan that actually works for me and I feel good after the day. There are lots of problems with drug reliance still to be worked out, but I'm excited for the chance to rebuild my habits into something good and work my way off to something normal. Related, exercise is awesome but has little impact on long term weight loss! Check this out: this video
Recommendscrooked-vOct 2024
“Kurzgesagt has a decent pop-science summary”
Decent pop-science summary of how the body offsets exercise calorie burn.
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Just doing more exercise doesn't actually help much with losing weight, as it turns out. The human body will optimize around even intense exercise to reduce calorie burn to a homeostatically stable level. The exercise will still make you healthier (and have some marginal extra calorie burn from e.g. extra muscle mass), but you'll only lose serious weight if you also reduce what you eat. There are a bunch of articles out there about it, but Kurzgesagt has a decent pop-science summary: this video
Cites itteekertSep 2024
“Eat less to lose weight. Exercise more to be healthy.”
Source for weight loss being mostly about eating less
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Apparently it's not exercise! [0] Yes exercise is very healthy, that has been proven, but loosing weight is mostly a matter of eating less, at least according to this (reputable) meta source. Apparently, over eating but not getting fat (which holds true for me), leads to other problems (also true for me, I have an autoimmune disorder). Eat less to lose weight. Exercise more to be healthy. (nice, got my first downvotes in less time it takes to watch 1/10th of my source ;)) [0] this video
Cites ittechjamieSep 2024
“Source”
Cited as source for body adjusting calorie burn regardless of activity.
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Recent science suggests that the body adjusts to burn approximately the same amount of calories per day, given a consistent amount of activity, regardless of how much activity there actually is. So, a person with an active lifestyle will burn approximately the average 2,000 calories, but a person at rest will also burn about the same number. I'm oversimplifying massively, but essentially, the theory is that if you don't give your body an outlet to burn with, it will burn the calories on things that aren't good for you. Eg, increasing inflammation. It wouldn't surprise me if some of these effects are contributing factors. Source: this video
Cites itshagieOct 2024
“Their videos have a section where they link the sources.”
Cites the video and notes it links its sources.
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Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell : We Need to Rethink Exercise (Updated Version) - this video Their videos have a section where they link the sources. In this case link
Cites itjakerepsJan 2025
“This video goes over how it’s not really that simple.”
Video shows the body cancels out calorie deficits from exercise.
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This video goes over how it’s not really that simple. Ultimately your body will cancel that deficit out this video
