It is widely assumed that exercise is a key part of weight control. However, there are many people who find that exercise alone has very little impact on their weight, while others seem to be able to exercise and lose weight easily. What’s going on? Well, everyone responds to exercise slightly differently due to age, gender, and genetics. However, despite any weight loss difficulties you may have inherited, there are different forms of exercise that can definitely help you lose weight. Different forms of exercise have different effects on weight loss. I look next:
- Cardiovascular exercise of easy/medium intensity – aerobics.
- High intensity hard cardiovascular exercise – anaerobic.
- Weight training and other resistance exercises.
1 aerobic exercise
What is aerobic exercise? Aerobic exercise is exercise that most people can sustain for hours if they are properly conditioned. The heart rate is usually 55 to 85% of the maximum heart rate. You inhale oxygen through your lungs at a rate that usually allows you to speak. Your heart then pumps blood containing oxygen to your muscle fibers. As muscle fibers contract to produce movement, they use up oxygen. The harder and faster you go, the more oxygen you need and, as a consequence, you breathe faster. As your effort increases, your muscle fibers burn more sugars and fats to produce the energy needed to contract. The result? You burn calories faster.
what is burning fat? Fat burning is a form of aerobic exercise that became popular in the 1990s. It is basically low intensity aerobic exercise. Heart rates are typically between 55 and 65% of maximum heart rate. Unfortunately, it is not the best way to remove excess fat. In fact, you burn more fat as you increase the effort. Although the fat burning zone burns a higher ratio of fat to sugar than the high effort zones, the high effort zones burn more fat and more sugar. The amount of sugar burned increases faster than the amount of fat as you increase your effort, so you could say you’re entering a sugar-burning zone the harder you work. However, along with sugar you will also be burning more fat. There are many studies that have looked at the weight loss effects of aerobic exercise. Most show a small positive benefit, but much less effective than changing dietary intake. These studies have been conducted primarily in sedentary or obese people and involve amounts of exercise typically 2 to 4 hours per week. The truth is, if you don’t intend to do more than 2-4 hours of aerobic exercise per week, it’s unlikely you’ll lose much weight as a result unless you significantly alter your diet as well. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. Most studies also show that physical and psychological health benefit significantly from this small amount of exercise compared to doing nothing. Greater amounts of more intense aerobic exercise are generally more effective in achieving weight loss. The effects of increased amounts of exercise on individuals vary. Some are responders and some are non-responders. Non-responders are thought to be people who reduce their daily activity levels when engaging in an exercise program to compensate. In other words, if you’re going to treat yourself to extra food or slump in front of the TV after introducing a new exercise routine, it may not have any effect on your weight. I have many clients who are responders, who eat healthier when they exercise a lot, and who treat themselves when they are taking a break from their hard exercise routines. It goes without saying that these clients are prone to developing a small belly when they take it easy, but find it easy to lose weight once they start their exercise routines once more.
2 High intensity – anaerobic exercise
The anaerobic threshold is defined as the point during a graded exercise test at which lactate in the blood begins to accumulate faster than it can be removed. A fit athlete can maintain an effort at the anaerobic threshold for about 1 hour, provided the blood lactate does not continue to rise. If the exercise intensity continues to increase from this point, as it would in a graded exercise test, then acidification occurs. This is due to the accumulation of hydrogen ions that are formed when lactic acid produced in the muscle is converted to lactate. Acidification soon leads to severe muscle fatigue and exercise intensity can no longer be maintained.
What is anaerobic exercise?
Your muscle fibers and most other cells in your body have two main routes for generating energy. The first is aerobic respiration in which sugar or fat is burned with oxygen in the mitochondria to produce energy. Think of mitochondria as power plants. The second is anaerobic respiration, in which sugar is converted to lactic acid without the need for oxygen for energy. This happens in the sarcoplasm of muscle cells. Anaerobic exercise occurs when you run out of oxygen. As you exercise more, your muscle fibers try to get more oxygen to the mitochondria to burn their fuel faster. As you cross your anaerobic threshold (see panel at left), your body is not providing enough oxygen for your mitochondria to produce all the energy it needs. So your muscle depends more and more on anaerobic respiration in the sarcoplasm. So at this point, the mitochondrial powerhouses are running at almost full capacity, and you’re breathing pretty hard as a result. Anaerobic respiration is interesting because it consumes sugar 15 times faster than mitochondria. How might this affect weight loss? Well, this form of respiration now burns calories 15 times faster than mitochondrial. The fact is that as you push yourself past the anaerobic threshold, you make more and more use of anaerobic respiration and therefore burn calories at an exponentially increasing rate. You reach a point where your breathing is maximum. This is called the VO2max. A fit athlete can maintain this breathing rate for up to 10 minutes. Your mitochondria are now working at full capacity and your anaerobic respiration in the sarcoplasm is working at its best. Anaerobic metabolism is building up lactic acid, resulting in increased acidosis in the muscles the longer and harder you work. The exhaustion becomes unbearable and soon slows down.
Will I lose weight?
Clearly you can burn calories quickly with intense exercise. However, you cannot sustain a high intensity for long, and therefore the total number of calories burned may be less than during a prolonged aerobic workout. However, your body will likely continue to function long after exercise is over, as it will need to repair itself from the muscle trauma that normally accompanies high-intensity exertion. Other bodily systems are also stressed, and they all need energy to fully repair themselves. Basically, anaerobic exercise is a useful weight management tool, but due to its intense nature, it must be used sensibly. It’s easy to exercise too much and end up injured, sick, or discouraged. It is important to recover from intense sessions, ideally you are fit enough to use easier exercise sessions as recovery between harder sessions. In this way, the metabolism remains high and calories continue to be burned faster than before.
3 Resistance exercise
Resistance exercise builds more muscle mass and a higher metabolic rate that burns more calories. This is because muscle tissue requires more calories at rest than fat-containing adipose tissue.
Will I lose weight?
There are a number of studies showing that resistance exercise is effective in producing weight loss. These exercises also increase the tone of your body. If you select a good variety of exercises, including bodyweight exercises and exercises that challenge your balance and agility, you should find many benefits that go beyond just losing weight and looking good. In particular, a stronger and more flexible body is less prone to injury. As a result, less time is spent injured and exercise regimens can be maintained for longer without interruption. Breaks that can easily lead to unwanted weight gain due to excess fat deposited throughout the body. It’s also worth remembering that the muscle strength and flexibility gained from resistance exercise can increase the efficiency of your movements and open up the possibility of new movements that can burn even more calories.
Won’t I get too muscular?
If you’re a woman and you’re worried that resistance exercise or weight training in particular will make you look too muscular and masculine, think again. There are many different ways to do weights, and many that build strength, agility, and balance without increasing muscle mass. Most bodyweight exercises won’t bulk you up, and neither will all the balance and agility exercises you can do. Plus, you’ll find that weight training will build strength, which will help you avoid injury. It will also tone the torso, arms and legs, reducing flaccidity, cellulite and bingo wings.
In summary
Exercise is very beneficial for psychological health and physical health. The confidence and satisfaction that comes from sticking to an exercise program increases self-esteem and very often has a positive impact on attempts to change diet. As explained above, the exercise itself is more likely to reduce your weight if you follow as many of the following as possible:
- Keep up the exercise program for at least 3 months or more.
- Increase your exercise program to at least 5 hours per week.
- Try to incorporate all types of exercise, steady aerobic efforts, short hard anaerobic efforts, and resistance training.
- Don’t stack up too fast. If you’re particularly sore or tired, wind down a bit with shorter sessions and/or less intense exercises.
- keep it nice This exercise lark only really works when you enjoy it. So make it an engaging exercise/sport. If not, the chances of giving up and gaining weight again are high.