by SIE » Sat Jun 26, 2021 8:23 am
Many times people say things like "My doctor said I need to lose 50 pounds" without considering what that really means.
An excellent question would be "Lose 50 pounds of WHAT exactly?"
All a simple scale does is register weight, the pull of gravity on your body. It doesn't tell you what that weight consists of, so though it is convenient it really isn't the best tool for the job. The body consists of many things - vital organs, skin, muscle, bones and of course fat, to name a few.
We'd all like to get rid of excess fat, but nobody in their right mind wants to lose muscle or bone mass.
To simplify this, many break down the body into fat mass and everything else - which they call "lean mass".
The idea is to get rid of fat, but not lose muscle or bone - but since "lean mass" isn't just muscle, roughly half of it is other things like skin, blood vessels, organs of the body and so forth - and a part of that supports fat storage, for example extra skin and blood vessels - some lean mass is always lost when fat is lost.
Many times, people lose weight consisting of both fat and muscle, only to regain all the fat and then some - but not regain the lost muscle. When this is repeated over time, the dieter becomes weaker and fatter with each cycle. Not what you want.
What's important is to minimize muscle loss, and maximize fat loss.
Lean healthy muscle mass is vital to human function - doing day to day tasks, having good insulin sensitivity, and much more.
A good way to think of it is that for the most part what you eat determines what you weigh, and exercise determines how much of that weight is muscle tissue.
So, yes, to answer the original question, nutrition controls weight and you absolutely can lose weight whether you exercise or not.
Meanwhile, exercise is a separate and important thing. Any exercise you can do will help prevent muscle loss.
All of this to say, be creative - my mother in law had a back that was so bad she couldn't walk over 50 feet. Didn't stop her from having a little set of pedals on the floor she could sit in a chair and pump without engaging her back, and a couple tennis balls to squeeze, and about a half dozen little ways to exercise around her disabilities. She also insisted on walking that 50 feet as often as her condition would allow, and kept trying to add a few extra feet to it. Added good functional years to her life. She could have been totally sedentary and weighed 10 pounds less - but she'd have carried more fat and had less muscle, and been unable to get out of her chair without help.
So - two different things, with two different goals.
1. Eat the McDougall way, be healthy and lose fat.
2. Do whatever you can do to help stay strong as that fat is coming off.
And - trust tape measure and fit of clothing rather than the bathroom scale.