I like the general thrust of this article that some calorie deficit is the key to weight loss. Alas, he is still suffering under the misconception that cardio works for weight loss/fat loss. All the published research shows this never happens. Here is a summary of that research[0]. The research always shows that humans who expend extra calories during one activity will, over the course of the rest of the day, expend fewer calories to, on average, expend essentially the same amount of energy as those who did not engage in the strenuous activity. Women who train for their first marathon gain, on average, 2-3 lbs of fat, even though they have expended tens of thousands of extra calories during their marathon training. Cardio has its uses in fitness, just not for losing fat.
Being fat is hard; being fit is hard too. You get your abs in the kitchen, not on a treadmill. Also, exercising so one can get away with indulging a higher caloric count sounds dangerous and reads like "exercise bulimia." Sweating so you can cheat and eat some cake or candy is still going to tax your pancreas, gallbladder, and liver. YMMV
Walking outside in colder weather will make you lose more weight than sweating on a treadmill with no breeze. Running, cycling, and swimming are great too, for you can do races which are more communal and a future goal keeps you at it.
You're going too far here. "Never happens" is wrong. If anything, perhaps cardio doesn't help on average. But I know individuals who have lost huge amounts of weight through serious cardio activity and no special diet work. I mean 'serious' cardio though: 2-3 hours/day on a treadmill. I've personally leaned out a lot through cycling.
Sure, I lost a lot of weight when I started running and cycling a lot, but I wasn't tracking my food at all. I was suddenly "the kind of person" who doesn't put crap in the temple of their body, etc. When the laboratory experiment is done, in a controlled environment, same food with exercise results in same weight without exercise. If you want to change how you eat as you start a cardio exercise program, great things will happen. Just because someone loses weight when they start cardio does not imply the cardio led to weight loss. Though the 50% of floor space in big box gyms devoted to cardio would make you think that is the most important effect. The gyms just never get around to presenting any literature to back up that presumption that sells so many memberships.
I care, a lot. I'm lazy and I very much want an ideal body but I very much loathe the effort many people put into getting an ideal body. I've had great success with extended fasts and the more research I do, the more I believe that is the optimal path to achieving my ideal body, both for losing fat and gaining muscle.
I'll tl;dr; this comment by saying I'm a longer term fasting fan boy now so I can stay on topic and say that it very much matters to me what cause and effect are because I don't want to do cardio.
If you want a technical approach to weight loss, you might read The Hacker's Diet[0], free online. He even has an online weight tracking app that is great for smoothing out the fluctuations in daily weight measurements[1].
The cardio is not necessary, but, alas, the strength training may be. If you are losing a large amount of fat by dieting alone, you are saying goodbye to pounds of muscle, too, unless you are suggesting to your body that you still need that muscle (strength training). Sarcopenia is taking your muscle mass fast enough as you age; don't let it speed up because it is a bitch to get it back once it is gone.
If you just want the simplest diet to lose weight, start eating a lot of protein[2]. Fats and carbs have raised the energy balance of typical processed foods, so reverse that trend in what you eat and you will lose weight while eating ad libitum (at will).
extended fasts lose far less muscle than any calorie restriction diets. Hence my poorly worded note about it's the best diet for gaining muscle. What I really meant is that fasting is the best way to lose fat while preserving as much muscle as possible.
> The research always shows that humans who expend extra calories during one activity will, over the course of the rest of the day, expend fewer calories to, on average, expend essentially the same amount of energy as those who did not engage in the strenuous activity.
It's quite possible to adopt an exercise regime where one, on average (even taking into account rest days), expends more in strenuous activity per day than one would expend in total per day without strenuous activity, in which case it is physically impossible to offset the additional calorie expenditure in activity with reduced calorie expenditure at rest (and since the body does actually have irreducible needs at rest—and since exercise, by creating microinjuries that require repair, increases that minimum, even if it also increases resting efficiency) the actual limit where this becomes impossible is a much lower active expenditure.
It's possible that there is a range in which additional strenuous activity is offset, and it's possible most practical attempts to boost strenuous activity for weight loss end up within that range. But it's also certainly possible to get outside of the range where that effect can operate.
I'd really like any reference to that in the exercise science literature. I would be looking for full blown calorimeter studies with fixed diets. Does not seem to exist.
[0] https://youtu.be/jHOeoGMiFz8?t=270