Exercising to Lose Weight

When trying to lose weight we all know it’s important to exercise, relying on diet alone usually means poor results. By not exercising the body misses out on many of the physiological benefits such as a boosted metabolism, improved fitness and increased energy levels. Regular exercise not only helps reduce fat stores it also helps to regulate the appetite, thus it can be easier to control energy intake.

The main concern for many dieters when exercising to lose weight is which exercise is the best to choose?

Not all exercises have the same effect on the body. The chosen exercise will depend on what suits the individual body type and what each person wants from exercising; burning fat, losing weight or gaining fitness. Anaerobic exercises tend to burn carbs rather than fat because they naturally require more effort. The greater intensity of anaerobic exercises often contributes to slight gains in muscle weight, especially during the initial period of starting a new exercise. This type can also encourage muscles to store more glycogen (carb stores in muscles); every time glycogen is stored it causes the body to take on three times more water and again results in a slight weight gain. Intense anaerobic exercise reduces the muscle glycogen stores quickly so our body tends to store more in-between workouts to make sure we have more energy the next time the exercise is performed. Also, if muscles start to store more carbs then it gives cells the opportunity to use its preferred fuel rather than using fat stores.

Although, gaining muscle is not a bad thing, it will benefit most healthy people with a higher metabolism. However, for those more interested in losing weight and especially those who haven’t exercised for some time, it may be best to perform aerobic type exercises.

Anaerobic exercises include...

• Weight training

• Sprinting

• Football

• Tennis

Probably the best exercise to begin losing weight is walking. Many overweight people can manage a walk with ease so it maybe a good starting point - although you must seek your doctors approval before starting any exercise.

Aerobic exercise can be anything that maintains a steady heart rate at 50-70 percent of the hearts maximum rate. This means the exercise should feel easy, and in fact, it should feel easy in order to burn a higher percentage of fat. The human energy system works a bit like gears, and at a slow pace it’s much easier to shift into fat burning gear. The downside to working out at low levels of exertion is that the actual calories burned are fairly minimal thus, it will take longer to reach weight loss goal. However, for beginners or people very overweight it is essential that exercise is slow to allow the body to switch into that fat burning gear!


To lose weight, any exercise chosen should be started slowly and the goal should be to gradually build up the intensity level over the course of a few months. This helps build up fitness levels and enables the body to work at a higher degree of effort and still burn fat!

( Source : weightlossforall.com )