Table of Content:
- Introduction
- Weight lifting and cardiovascular exercise
- Strength training and weight lifting
- Weight training and high-intensity interval exercise
- Eating and training
- Other benefits of exercise
- Benefits of Exercise vs. Diet
- Dietary modifications
- Day-to-day routines
- Suggestions
- To summarise
Introduction
If you’re trying to lose weight, you might be wondering does Exercise really help in reducing weight? Then, YES Exercise helps with both weight loss and weight maintenance. Exercise can increase your metabolism or the number of calories you burn each day.
It can also assist you in maintaining and developing lean body mass, which allows you to burn more calories per day. Simply burn more calories than you consume to lose weight. As a result, incorporating exercise into your routine makes sense because it aids in calorie burn.
In contrast, vigorous activity can help you build up an appetite. This may raise concerns about the role of exercise in weight loss and if it is beneficial. So, what’s the point of working out if you’re trying to lose weight? This post explores the statistics to assist you in determining the best solution for you.
Weight lifting and cardiovascular exercise
Aerobic exercise, sometimes known as cardio, is a popular type of weight loss exercise. Here are two such examples:
- Walking
- Running
- Cycling
- Swimming
Aerobic exercise has less of an effect on muscle mass than weight training. It is, nevertheless, quite good at burning calories.
A study of the effects of exercise without dieting was conducted with 141 obese or overweight people love a period of 10 months. The participants were separated into three groups and instructed not to limit their calorie intake.
Those who burned 400 calories every cardio session (five times per week) lost 4.3% of their body weight, whereas those who burned 600 calories per session (also five times per week) lost 5.7% of their body weight. Despite not exercising, the control group gained 0.5% of their body weight.
According to other research, cardio can help you burn fat, particularly dangerous belly fat, which increases your risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
Adding cardio to your lifestyle is likely to help you maintain your weight and improve your metabolic health if you keep your calorie consumption steady.
Strength training and weight lifting
Any kind of physical activity can help you burn calories. Resistance training, such as weight lifting, has extra benefits. Resistance training increases strength, muscle tone, and muscle mass.
One study of 141 obese older people examined the effect of cardio, resistance training, or both on body composition throughout a weight loss period. According to the findings of this study, persons who did no exercise or simply cardio lost more fat, muscle, and bone mass than those who did resistance training.
Thus, resistance training appears to protect both muscle and bone during low-calorie periods.
Increased muscle mass also increases your metabolism, allowing you to burn more calories all day, even when you’re asleep. This is because muscle is more metabolically active than fat and hence requires more energy.
As a result, engaging in some form of resistance training is a necessary component of a long-term weight loss plan. It makes maintaining weight loss easier, which is far more difficult than losing it in the first place.
Weight training and high-intensity interval exercise
High-intensity interval training (HIIT) is a type of exercise that consists of quick bursts of intense activity followed by a brief rest before continuing the cycle. For the best benefit, HIIT activities blend aerobic and resistance training.
Most HIIT workouts take 10-20 minutes and have significant weight reduction advantages.
A 2017 meta-analysis of 13 high-quality research found that HIIT and aerobic exercise provided equivalent effects for people who were overweight or obese, specifically reduced body fat and waist circumference.
HIIT exercise, on the other hand, offered the same benefits as cardio while taking 40% less time. Because HIIT is so challenging, you should consult with a healthcare practitioner before starting a new HIIT routine.
Eating and training
You’ve probably heard that exercise makes you hungry, and you’ve also noticed that you eat more than usual after a strenuous workout.
However, a large body of research shows that exercise has an appetite-suppressing impact.
One research of 20 active, healthy persons discovered that they ate more food before a workout than after — and that participants ate less food on exercise days than on non-exercise days.
Another study found that short high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workouts effectively lowered appetite in 26 obese women on low-calorie diets.
Morning exercise appears to be more helpful to energy balance and calorie consumption than evening exercise, lending credence to the notion that exercise may suppress hunger.
In any event, further research is needed, because exercise-induced hunger is likely to vary greatly. If you’re trying to lose weight but find yourself eating more than usual after a long or difficult workout, try shorter durations (like HIIT) or less intensive activity.
Other benefits of exercise
Exercise is good for your health in a variety of ways, not just weight loss. Regular physical activity can aid in blood sugar regulation and may reduce your risk of chronic diseases such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and some cancers.
Exercise also helps with muscle mass preservation and growth, bone strength and thickness maintenance, and the avoidance of disorders such as osteoporosis, which is characterised by bone brittleness.
Exercise can also help with your mental wellness. It appears to be protective against brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s. It can help you reduce tension and manage stress more effectively.
Keep these advantages in mind when you assess the impact of exercise. Even if it has little effect on weight loss, it has other, equally (if not more) vital benefits.
The advantages of exercise and diet complement each other
Exercise in conjunction with a healthy diet is a more successful weight-loss method than calorie restriction alone. Certain diseases can be prevented or even reversed with exercise. Exercise reduces blood pressure and cholesterol, which may aid in the prevention of a heart attack.
Exercise also reduces your chances of developing specific cancers, such as colon and breast cancer. Exercise has also been shown to boost confidence and well-being while potentially reducing anxiety and depression.
Exercise aids in both weight loss and weight maintenance. Exercise can boost your metabolism or the number of calories you burn every day. It can also assist you in maintaining and increasing lean body mass.
Dietary modifications
Dietary adjustment, according to experts, is a more effective and time-efficient technique for attaining significant weight loss and long-term weight maintenance. Let’s face it: it’s difficult to find time to exercise during the week.
Changing your clothing, going to the gym, exercising for an hour, showering, and returning to work or home for the day take time and discipline. It is tough not only to achieve this once but also to maintain this habit five to seven days a week for several weeks to months.
Exercising requires a lot of effort to burn an extra 400 to 600 calories, especially if you then undo all of your hard work by overindulging in your next meal. What happened?
Day-to-day routines
One reason why exercise may not effectively lower body weight is that people frequently engage in other activities when they are not exercising, jeopardising their weight loss aim.
Some people overeat after exercise, either because they are hungry or as part of a behavioural reward system. A snack or spend on dessert, for example, is likely to be preceded by the internal monologue “I’ve earned this.” This behaviour effectively offsets any extra calories burned during the individual’s well-deserved trip to the gym.
People are less active throughout the day after indulging in physical activity, according to studies. Again, because a person may consume less energy throughout the remaining hours of the day, this type of behaviour may lessen the likelihood of a daily calorie deficit. They actually burn fewer calories than if they had not exercised at all.
In order to make exercising more effective you should:
- Stay active all-day not just during the time of exercise but also after it and all-day
- Control your calorie intake, exercise and junk food don’t go in the same sentence
- Stop procrastinating, consistency is the key
- Follow a daily routine
- Don’t overeat, it jeopardises the weight loss aim
- Consult a dietitian for a better diet plan
Suggestions
Regardless of your weight goals, exercise should be a part of your routine because it provides numerous health benefits. Indeed, the majority of successful weight loss maintainers documented in the National Weight Control Registry who have lost at least 30 pounds (14 kg) and kept it off for at least a year report getting at least one hour of activity every day.
The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans specify how much activity people of all ages should do to improve their health. For adults, they are as follows:
- Aerobic exercise (cardio): 150-300 minutes of moderate-intensity per week or 75-150 minutes of high intensity per week
- Resistance (muscle-strengthening) exercise should be done at least twice a week.
However, if your goal is to lose weight, you should prioritise eating over exercise because it will have a much higher impact. If you don’t have a lot of time, try weight training (rather than cardio) to keep your muscle mass and metabolic rate up, or HIIT to burn the same amount of calories as cardio in less time.
Also, don’t only rely on the scale to monitor your progress. If you’re growing muscle while losing fat, your weight may not change as quickly as you’d like, but you’ll be healthier for it. Take your own measurements and note how your clothes fit. These are significantly more accurate than weight alone in predicting fat reduction.
To summarise
Exercise is beneficial to overall health, and different types of exercise may have varying weight loss advantages.
If you’re trying to lose weight, you might be interested in resistance training, which can help you maintain fat-free muscle and increase your resting calories burned, and high-intensity interval training (HIIT), which offers the same benefits as cardio but takes less time.
However, keep in mind that in order to lose weight permanently, you must also follow a calorie-restricted diet rich in whole foods.