Per the Centers for Disease Control, 50% of American adults attempt to lose weight every year. Aside from dieting and fad dieting, exercising is one of the most common methods used by those trying to shred extra pounds. Exercise burns calories, which plays a crucial role in weight loss and has been linked to many other benefits. Those benefits include improved moods and improved anxiety symptoms, improvement in depression symptoms, as well as stronger bones, which leads to less osteoporosis in women, and a reduced risk of many chronic diseases like obesity, hypertension, diabetes type II and hyperlipidemia.
Sure, weight loss can be achieved by diet alone, but did you know if you reduce your calorie intake without exercising, you will probably lose muscle as well as fat? In fact, a quarter of the weight you lose through diet alone is muscle weight as your body finds other means to burn off proteins. So, including an exercise schedule to your weight-loss plan will help you reduce muscle loss and help combat the drop in metabolic rates that occurs when you lose weight, which also makes it harder to lose weight and keep it off. So that being said, even if you don’t manage to lose weight, you may still be losing fat and building muscle mass instead.
Recent studies showed that cardio five days a week, in the forms of swimming, walking, jogging, running, cycling and the elliptical, without reducing calories reduced test subject total body fat between 4.3-5.7 percent.
Lifting weights will help you burn more calories — even when at rest or sleeping — by slowing the drop in metabolism you incur when you have an inactive lifestyle. A weightlifting program will help you to maintain muscle mass, metabolic rate and strength, even though you lose weight.
Studies have also shown that appetite is suppressed after intense exercise like weight training, but your appetite will return after 30 minutes. So, the amounts you eat are not directly correlated to the amount of exercise you’re getting or how heavy you may be lifting. Therefore, both appetite and food intake after heavy resistance type exercise can vary between people.
It must also be noted that people who exercise but don’t diet tend to only maintain their current weight, or they even gain weight/muscle weight. So, while changing your diet tends to be the more effective choice for weight loss than just exercise alone, the most effective strategy involves both diet and exercise.
We recommend about 150 to 250 minutes of moderate to intense physical activity weekly with a controlled diet to produce moderate weight loss. That’s only 22 to 35 minutes of exercise per day just to lose weight. Thirty-five minutes or more of exercise will produce even greater weight loss results. Americans today spend that much time on the couch watching TV every day, when they could be losing weight and becoming healthier instead.
In America, nearly half of all deaths from heart disease, stroke and diabetes and their underlying foe, hypertension, hyperlipidemia and obesity are caused by poor, suboptimal diet. These exercise goals, combined with a low-fat, low-carb, heart-healthy diet and the cutting out of processed foods and sugars, can reverse the effects of chronic diseases in six to eight months in some folks but could take up to three years in severe cases. So, the earlier you get a start on working toward your weight loss and health goals, the better.
Don’t be afraid to speak with or even pay for a consultation with a nutritionist if you don’t know where to start with your diet. This also applies to paying for a few sessions with a personal trainer at your local gym if exercising is foreign to you. Of course, always consult with your goal-directed primary care physician first to set up a personal goal for your health that he or she will follow you through to that endpoint, resulting in a better, healthier you.
Here are Vitality Care’s top eight recommended methods for exercise-induced weight loss to mix in with your diet: walking, running, cycling, interval training, swimming, yoga, Pilates and, of course, Clarke and David’s favorite, weight training.
From Clarke and David here at Vitality Care Center, we look forward to helping you reach your goals, beat chronic illnesses and following along with you to a better, healthier you! QCBN
By David Zelman MA, PTR
David Zelman MA, PTR, is the Practice Manager and Co-Owner of Vitality Care Center. He is a Nationally Certified Medical Assistant / Practical Radiology Tech and Medical Assistant Externship Educator. For more information, call our office at 928-515-0804. Visit our Facebook page @vitalitycareprescott or email david@vitalitycareprescott.com or clakre@vitalitycareprescott.com
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