#ok but if a 200lb man is now 180+20lbs of muscle instead of 180+20lbs of fat

[askshivanulegacy]

The thing that annoys me is that people who want to lose weight are talking about fat loss. People who say diet + exercise doesn't work are ignoring that, instead saying that you won't lose weight at all while at the same time not confessing that part of the weight you're not losing is now muscle.

Disingenuous, much?

Of course if you build muscle, it weighs more, therefore losses in fat are offset by gains in muscle. Nowhere in this whole thread does anyone recognize that fact.

When people want to slim down, for the only response to be "lol keep buying larger clothes forever," that's ... incredibly foolish and unhelpful, and it's such a put-down.

If the intent is to make the case that "yes, you will gain muscle, but you also won't lose any fat, and the distribution of fat you currently have will always be there, so give up on everything forever now regarding looking the way you want and fitting into clothes the way you want," then make the case and be clear and specific. Saying "you can't lose weight" is so wishy-washy, non-specific, and deliberately ignores what people are really trying to do.

If, on the other hand, building muscle and maintaining a healthy diet does indeed lead to fat loss even if weight stays the same, then that's obligatory to say.

Ultimately, while I do care about the actual so-what of diet+exercise, what I care more about is the unhelpful and obfuscatory way people tell you to just go be fat about it.

"You can never lose weight!!!1!" It doesn't take a genius to understand the real intent and then to address that question in a clear way.

Me: Exercise does not cause weight loss. This is a fact that has been demonstrated so robustly in research that even doctors, who hate and fear evidence, are grudgingly starting to admit this.

Someone reading that post: Cool, but have you considered that exercise leads to weight loss?

Me: I am going to eat you