amsterdam_pete said:

Pet owner bonus of training: my dog is also losing weight because we're walking 2-3x more than before.

Gym confidence after training weight loss: walked into a gym for the first time in 10 years yesterday. Was terrified. But you know what? Nobody stared. Nobody judged. Everyone was focused on their own workout.

Started with 20 minutes on the treadmill and some machine-based resistance exercises. Nothing fancy. But I DID IT. And I'll go back tomorrow.

To anyone too intimidated to start: the hardest rep is walking through the door. Everything after that is just movement. 💪

One concrete data point for the thread. Worth stating the units and the reference range whenever you post a number here. A large fraction of the apparent disagreement in these threads is two people using different units and both being right.

Dr.BariatricHTX said:

Gym confidence after training weight loss: walked into a gym for the first time in 10 years yesterday.

There is a second half to this that has not been said yet. Most of what circulates confidently in this community traces back to one summary of one study, and the qualifier was dropped somewhere in the third retelling.

Following on from Dr.Martinez — and this may be the naive question:

How would you tell the difference between that and the alternative explanation?

OP back with an update, since a thread like this is useless without one.

Resolved, and the thing that resolved it was the least interesting suggestion in the thread. Writing that down for the next person who wants the interesting answer.