The Benefit of Exercise on Weight Loss

When people want to lose weight they often think that the best way to do so is to exercise. They thus begin to run at the gym, or do some light weight lifting, and hope that the increased activity will cause the pounds to magically slide off their bodies. However, if they are novices to exercise and are starting with low levels of fitness, they might be disappointed to learn that doing so will not significantly increase the amount of weight they are losing, and become discouraged and quit. What is going on here? Should exercise be a part of your diet plan, or should you only focus on the nutrition? In today’s article we’re going to try to untangle the knot that is weight vs. fat loss, exercise vs. nutrition, and help you make the right decision.

First, let’s distinguish between weight loss and fat loss. If you step on the scale in the bathroom and see that you have lost five pounds, you might be inclined to celebrate. But five pounds of what? Have you lost fat, water, or lean body mass? Nobody wants to lose muscle, but the scale doesn’t tell you if that is what you are losing. Or maybe you are losing fat and muscle together. That is where the difference between weight loss and fat loss becomes important.

Exercise will help you burn calories, but how many? Your average novice will burn about 5 to 10 calories per minute, and only be able to exercise for some thirty minutes a day, so that they burn at most 300 calories. If you exercise three times a week, it will take you a month to burn a pound of fat which contains 3,500 calories. So is exercise worth it?

The answer is yes. Because when you lose weight, you don’t know if you are losing fat or muscle. If you simple diet, then you are liable to lose both, which will result in your growing weaker as well as thinner. That is where exercise comes in. Depending on the kind of exercise and if you are eating enough protein you will tend to lose more fat than muscle if you are exercising while dieting. Thus if you do plenty of weight lifting and eat plenty of protein while dieting, you will lose more fat than muscle, and look good and not just skinnier.  Thus you need to exercise, but not just for weight loss.

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