Greetings everyone. I am Jhanvi. I have been struggling with bad knees for quite a while. I am unable to stand for a long time or walk for even a short distance. That’s why I have been gaining a lot of weight. I am looking for a way to lose weight without exercising, since it is physically impossible for me. Can anyone help me with my weight loss journey?
Can I lose weight without exercising?
clackley
(Cathy)
#2
Most people can lose weight without including exercise. The more muscles a person has will impact the speed and longevity of weight loss. However there are many folks who drop weight by simply greatly reducing carbs.
Pjam
(Peter - Don't Fear the Fat )
#3
No need to exercise. That’s part of the old ‘Calories in Calories out’ theory that people here think is nonsense.
Exercise should build muscle, strenghten bones etc etc and is of course great for mental health but IMO not essential to lose weight. I’m really lazy so didn’t work out and went from 94kg to 72kg in about 5 months.
I do workout nowadays however because it’s easier to do when you get to a natural weight/
Shinita
#4
Exercise may help (or not, sometimes it’s counterproductive for fat-loss, depends on the person) but we mostly do it for strength and health and fun and energy and whatnot. Even if it’s helpful, eating is the more important factor. Many loses fat without exercise especially if they don’t have a super tiny energy need when inactive (I find it impossible to eat very little but it’s individual, just like what we mean when we say very little).
Exercise is pretty important though. If you can do something with your upper body, I think it’s good to do it if you can. Hopefully your knees will get better but until then, focusing on your diet is a great thing and as we all wrote, you may lose fat without problem even so!
ctviggen
(Bob M)
#5
I think no exercise is fine. When I started keto for good, I lowered my exercise, ate as much as I wanted, and went from 43 inch waist pants to 34 inch waist. Exercise is not necessary.
scaperdude
(B Creighton)
#6
Yes. You are at the right place. You can definitely lose weight without exercising - do keto. However, it sounds to me like you could still exercise. Doing some upper body strength exercising will help you maintain muscle or even gain muscle, and help you lose fat. It sounds to me like most of your problem is with your legs. You can do arm curls, dips, pull ups, etc without having to use your legs. Swimming would also probably work… No need to exercise like crazy… I do about an hour 3 times a week during keto to avoid muscle loss, and I actually try to gain muscle, and do. I do keto with protein smoothies. I actually don’t get hungry, and even feel full most of the day on my recovery days, when I am packing away the protein. Keto has been known in the body building industry for years… Don’t know why the weight loss industry never got the memo. During the cutting phase, they typically drop the carbs to less than 50 gr/day, while continuing to pack in the protein. That’s what Frank Zane did 50 years ago…
SomeGuy
(Joey)
#7
Exercise produces unparalleled health benefits that simply cannot be achieved through a sedentary lifestyle. But generally speaking, losing weight is not one of them.
wwevo
(Christian Voigt)
#8
Coma patients can lose weight. So yes.
But it is the worst way in the long term, and the worst way in the short term, and the worst way overall.
Muscles aren’t just for looks and power. Humans haven’t realized it yet, but they are essential for general health and longevity. They change how one’s metabolism works on a fundamental level. Not technically speaking, it always metabolizes stuff. But the results will differ dramatically. But it’s not about moving. It’s about effort. When the first thing to go out is the lungs, no walk will build muscle. Walking ten miles a day won’t change a thing, unless it’s in a muscle-building intensity. It won’t even raise energy requirements significantly. A walk in the park might be good in general, it’s not very useful in weight management.
But carrying a single kilo of muscle more? It will permanently raise energy requirements forever. For every second of your being awake or asleep. You can build that kilo within one month, and maintain it with little effort. And yeah, it doesn’t seem much. What’s 15 kcal a day? Well. It’s 60 grams of extra fat not gained each month. For every kg of muscle. For free.
It can be the difference between a piece of cake derailing the entire effort of dieting and having a piece of cake and still losing weight. Not doing actual strength training / Resistance training is, IMO, the reason why most people fail their lifestyle change. They actually believe that they can go back to being a careless junkie.
When your choices are so tightly bound to your limits, what can you do? When you slug around just a few pounds of muscle, even your maintenance calories might be insufficient for providing all nutrients on a daily basis, depending on food quality.The more muscle, the higher the maintenance calories, the higher the potential nutrient intake before one overeats.
In the end, it comes down to a well-formulated diet. It’s much easier with some wiggle room. And much more sustainable in the long run. Eating less is a good notion, but so many dieters forget about the nutrient part, and about processing and its consequences as well. It’s not one-sided.
Being constantly hungry, constantly weak and frail, barely awake… Reading about people consuming 1700kcal a day on their diet, I’m wondering, how? How can one torture themself that way, on top of all for health? That sounds like leeches for cleansing the blood. It’s just not how it works.
How can you get enough protein and fat to operate properly? Actually operating on a satisfying level, not barely operating. Feeling explosive and great instead of very slowly dragging yourself to the mines everyday.
A proper diet should make you feel on top of the world, every day.
A proper diet should feel like a gift and blessing. Cheat days will happen because of cultural pressure, not because of cravings.
What people fail to understand is that exercise isn’t bodybuilding. It’s nowhere near that complicated. You can do all exercises required for maintaining adequate muscle in 2 * 20 minutes per week, at home. Old-school stuff.
Let’s ignore a possible week of adaptation: If you don’t feel fantastically better on your second week of dieting compared to before the diet: it’s a bottom-shelf diet, certainly not nutrient-complete. Not sustainable. If you get actual cravings: your diet is not well-formulated, or your body might be too weak to extract from the diet what it needs.
Muscle is not required. But it is much harder to feed a body without adequate muscle. It requires a very well-formulated approach, well beyond Top-Ten-Foods lists. More muscle rewards you with more metabolic flexibility. And that directly results in comfort, quality of life, and it eases the mind.
Assuming a well-formulated diet based on real food.
Thank you for reading.
clackley
(Cathy)
#9
There is a very apt saying I will repeat…
“exercise does not cause weight loss but weight loss causes exercise.”
Shinita
#10
It’s a very valid number, of course not for everyone… I don’t get how people diet with 1200… 1700 is theoretically possible for me and it gives me a slow fat-loss. If I barely had muscles or activity, it could be my maintenance energy need or more than that. That would be utterly horrible…
No diet does that to me, sadly (as far as I know as I couldn’t try everything but I suspect what’s best for me. still not much energy for me). And I am healthy, someone with serious problems may be happy if they don’t feel super bad.
And cravings just may happen, no matter the diet BUT it’s true that eating well can help tremendously 
(Except regarding coffee, nothing helps me with that.)
lfod14
#11
Most weight loss is from diet, not exercise, exercise just makes it easier / faster. The downside to not exercising is losing muscle over time.
What’s up with your knees? Anything that needs surgery? If not, there’s probably something you can do about it. Knee pain is terrible, I’ve been there done that more than once.
PaulL
(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?)
#13
the mantra, “Eat less, move more,” is a recipe for increased hunger, not weight loss. I lost 36 kg (80 lbs.) on keto without exercising, just by cutting carbohydrate from my diet. It’s the insulin response to all that carbohydrate in the standard diet that causes people to put on weight.
You may find yourself wanting a physical outlet for your energy, after a while on a ketogenic diet. In that case, look into exercises, such as swimming, that are easier on the knees. My mother, who was lame from polio, found swimming to be a very enjoyable way to get her exercise in, without straining her bad leg. Also, many wheel-chair athletes find it quite possible to exercise the upper half of their body, even without use of their legs.
SomeGuy
(Joey)
#14
Ha! Then again, genuine hunger is a wonderful sign of life (i.e., not the kind perverted by advertisements and carb cravings).
Shinita
#15
Slight exercise makes me fuller, heavy makes me hungrier but it depends on the time of the day, actually… A few hours hiking in the morning does nothing except makes eating impossible as I am not at home (it’s usually fine but lately I tend to eat a bit even before noon when even 3pm is too early to start my eating window… but lunch skipping is tough for reasons). Anything at 3pm is recipe for starving, at least it was at some point, I kinda lost it at some point… Moving more, eating less is a great advice to me, I badly need it except it’s difficult as I need to bring myself to do it.
But it’s bad if it’s forceful. Things should come almost automatically, effortlessly or else I won’t do it. That’s where very good food choices (and timing) comes to play. Exercise is just some extra more useful for other things than fat-loss even if it probably helps with it (if I already eat little, that is).
Some people are happy they never are hungry. It’s super bothersome to me, I do want it now and then. It’s fine if it doesn’t come every day but nothing for several days? Super weird and I start to think I do something wrong (like eating unnecessarily as I am prone to do). Proper, nice, useful hunger, I love it. Not the high-carb sudden clawing “feed me NOW” type (I had plenty of normal hunger on high-carb, the mentioned one was occasional but quite inconvenient), I almost forgot what that was like but it was very memorable so I didn’t.
To me, exercise is a little balm, problem mitigating (or solving) when I (normally) eat a bit much… The extra may be not extra due to the exercise!
Bastet1
(Bastet )
#16
My aunt had knee issues too and couldn’t move much. She focused more on portion control and switched to a custom meal plan. Helped her drop weight slowly without stressing her joints. Diet alone can do wonders if done right. Also you can think about weight loss remedies but Idk. Better to read some reviews at https://g-plans.pissedconsumer.com/customer-service.html before tho. You got this just take it one step at a time
Pjam
(Peter - Don't Fear the Fat )
#17
I’m not so sure about this. My portions are bigger and calories are higher than on the SAD diet yet I lost weight (23kg)
I had 3 knee surgeries (ACL x1 and meniscus x2)
Low and Zero Carb means less inflammation so less pain and more ability to exercise. I now do a small workout twice a day. And pain free.