It is a common expectation that to lose weight you only need to Eat Less and Exercise More. This is based on the idea that if you consume less calories than what your body burns up in energy then the weight will come off.
Most people are now aware this simplistic equation does not work.
What Exercise Can Do for Your Health and Well-being
It’s valuable to have clear expectations and guidelines for exercise:
*To delay ageing, strength loss, bone loss, mobility loss and frailty the human body needs physical activity.
*To maintain metabolic health the human body needs physical activity.
*Physical activity helps maintain mental health. It also helps maintain good circadian rhythm, which is essential for restorative sleep, which is essential for hormonal balance, health, and weight control.
*With our modern world made up of labour-saving devices (dishwasher, washing machine, electric windows in cars, remote controls etc) our bodies get increasingly less physical activity.
*Planned physical activity is the ideal antidote to our increasingly non-physical world.
What Exercise Can’t Do for Weight Loss
As all exercise requires the expenditure of energy (calories) it’s natural to assume that exercise will help you lose weight. However, this does not factor in the Exercise Compensation Effect (ECE). This works in two ways:
*Exercise may stimulate your appetite causing you to eat more.
*Exercise may prompt you to move less or do less incidental exercise like using the lift instead of the stairs.
And so, studies prove that increasing exercise, alone, without simultaneously making effective dietary change, does not lead to weight loss.
Exercise Helps Prevent Weight Regain
The challenge with many “diets” is the excessive loss of lean tissue (muscle) with the fat loss. As muscles are metabolically active you want to preserve them. There are two things you need to do:
*Insure you have optimal protein intake every meal and snack. This provides the nutrition that muscles need to stay strong.
*Include a structured resistance training program. This provides the adaptive stimulus to your muscles to stay strong.
Resistance exercise gives your body the best stimulus to stay strong. No! You will not grow big muscles. This requires plenty of the male-dominant hormone testosterone, which even males over 40 have less of.
Resistance training can be done in a number of ways:
*A resistance training circuit. Be aware that you work with effort on each exercise. The results come from the effort.
*A resistance training class, done in the centre or at home (via our app).
*Training with weights or doing body weight exercises.
It’s best to do resistance training 2 to 3 times per week for best results.
What About Walking?
There’s a huge number of physical, mental, and social reasons to walk every day.
The best idea is to create a daily walking schedule. Here are some ideas:
- To reset your circadian rhythm, try to get out in the sunshine every morning. This also helps your sleep.
- After most meals, go to your front door. Walk outside in any direction for 5 minutes and then walk back. The benefits of this simple strategy will amaze you.
- Book a regular walk with a friend, rain, hail or shine.
- If you have a dog, take your dog for a daily and nightly walk.
- Keep your walking shoes at the front door.
- If walking alone, use this time to listen to an educational podcast or music that brings you alive.
Regular exercisers live better and live longer than non-exercisers so find an activity or activities that you enjoy doing. Mix up your activities by doing a mix of resistance and huff and puff activities.
If you are looking to lose some weight, then the single biggest contributor to weight loss is what goes in your mouth.
We can help you with our 8 week online low carb eating program that will turn your body into a fat burner. Click on the Lose Weight Now button at the top of the page to get started.