Exercise and Weight Loss

Does exercise help one lose weight? Yes and no. One of the most common questions ia about exercise and weight loss.  Someone starts exercising is for a desire to lose weight. Yet, if we truly look at how and why our body stores fat, you see that exercise is not an efficient way to burn a lot of calories to lose weight.

Simply put, the problem of weight loss has less to do with storing fat than it does with having a food abundance. In fact, our ability to efficiently store and use the fuel we take in for extending periods of time is a major reason why the human race still exists.  We store excess body fat as a survival mechanism, our body doesn’t realize it’s not going to face a famine in the near future.

Firstly, if you want to lose weight, get stronger. As we age our body begins to lose muscle mass, and we tend to have less active lifestyles. While muscle mass is more dense than fat, muscle is much more costly tissue for the body to maintain, so you are burning more calories daily basis simply by having more muscle. If you lose 5 lbs of muscle, you will burn 250 calories less over 24 hours. If you continue to eat the same amount as you age, you can potentially gain 10 lbs over 20 weeks! Strength training two to three times per week can help rebuild the loss of muscle.

Another part in decreasing how much body fat we store is to literally decrease what you take in. Practicing portion size control and eating multiple smaller meals per day can make a significant impact in the total amount of calories we put into our bodies.

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