Is it really worth exercising to lose weight?
After running on a treadmill for 20 gruelling minutes I looked down at the readout and it stated that I had burned off 250 calories – Jesus, all that discomfort for 250 calories!Luckily I don’t have a weight problem and I do enjoy running sessions, but it got me thinking about other people who struggle to lose weight, including those who don’t like exercise. After building up enough motivation to drag themselves to the gym and sweat it out on some crazy machine, all to burn a measly 250 calories. To go through that horrible and sometimes painful feeling just to burn off the same calories as in a small chocolate bar!
To workout at this pace EVERY DAY would require a tremendous amount of effort. He/she would also need to develop some serious motivation because at 250 calories per day it would take TWO WEEKS just to lose one pound!
So again I asked myself is it really worth working out 3 or 4 times each week?
HANG ON A MINUTE!!
Then I realised I had a brief loss of knowledge, I simply got caught up in the whole calorie “numbers game”. I had missed the big picture, which was unusual because I’ve been a personal trainer for over ten years!
I remembered why it’s worth exercising to lose weight. It’s not just about the number of calories we burn during exercise but also about the many other benefits we gain after exercise.
What Benefits?
After any workout the metabolism becomes elevated so we continue to burn a greater number of calories at rest. It does this because exercise is stress to the muscles and cardiovascular system. The body needs to recover from this stress, and recovery costs lots more energy even at rest. How long the increase metabolism lasts will depend on several factors such as the type of exercise and the individual in question. However, if the metabolism is raised by 50% for 2 hours, which is a realistic estimation, you could burn up to 100 extra calories on top of the calories burned during the exercise. So now instead of only burning 250 calories during my run, I probably burned about 350 calories!
This is not the only benefit either; we also develop a training effect to exercise. This is where the body adapts after recovery has taken place. Once our muscles recover to the original state before the exercise, they often overcompensate by depositing extra proteins within the cells. This makes the structure of the muscle stronger, and helps the muscle to cope with that same level of stress in the near future. The by-product of greater protein deposition within muscle cells is a raised metabolism. Now if we increased our metabolism by ten percent within a month or two of consistent workouts it could equal an extra 250 calories per day, every day!
This is a huge difference because these could be classed as “free” excess calories burned. In other words you have not done anything extra to burn this off. This is when weight loss results boost.
So it’s not just the number of calories we burn off during the exercise that’s really important, that’s only a small part of the big picture. For these great benefits exercise really is worth the effort!
To workout at this pace EVERY DAY would require a tremendous amount of effort. He/she would also need to develop some serious motivation because at 250 calories per day it would take TWO WEEKS just to lose one pound!
So again I asked myself is it really worth working out 3 or 4 times each week?
HANG ON A MINUTE!!
Then I realised I had a brief loss of knowledge, I simply got caught up in the whole calorie “numbers game”. I had missed the big picture, which was unusual because I’ve been a personal trainer for over ten years!
I remembered why it’s worth exercising to lose weight. It’s not just about the number of calories we burn during exercise but also about the many other benefits we gain after exercise.
What Benefits?
After any workout the metabolism becomes elevated so we continue to burn a greater number of calories at rest. It does this because exercise is stress to the muscles and cardiovascular system. The body needs to recover from this stress, and recovery costs lots more energy even at rest. How long the increase metabolism lasts will depend on several factors such as the type of exercise and the individual in question. However, if the metabolism is raised by 50% for 2 hours, which is a realistic estimation, you could burn up to 100 extra calories on top of the calories burned during the exercise. So now instead of only burning 250 calories during my run, I probably burned about 350 calories!
This is not the only benefit either; we also develop a training effect to exercise. This is where the body adapts after recovery has taken place. Once our muscles recover to the original state before the exercise, they often overcompensate by depositing extra proteins within the cells. This makes the structure of the muscle stronger, and helps the muscle to cope with that same level of stress in the near future. The by-product of greater protein deposition within muscle cells is a raised metabolism. Now if we increased our metabolism by ten percent within a month or two of consistent workouts it could equal an extra 250 calories per day, every day!
This is a huge difference because these could be classed as “free” excess calories burned. In other words you have not done anything extra to burn this off. This is when weight loss results boost.
So it’s not just the number of calories we burn off during the exercise that’s really important, that’s only a small part of the big picture. For these great benefits exercise really is worth the effort!
posted by Weight Loss helper @ 4:17 PM
