Exercise and Fat Loss....
Today's post: Tuesday, 2-10-2009
Yesterday we posted the wonderful news that even one minute a day of really vigorous exercise has blood sugar lowering and other health benefits.
There is also evidence that vigorous exercise whether in a competitive sport such as playing soccer or basketball or in progressive strength training or in interval cardio or in faster dancing or in martial arts training done fast, all tend to help you lose fat best. This is because they boost your metabolism after you stop actually doing them, sometimes for several hours. Also, most of them, particularly progressive strength training, add to your muscle mass and how many more calories that muscle burns than fat. So, in both ways, such vigorous exercises are extra effective in helping you lose excess fat or prevent you from gaining it.
However, Weight Watchers and other experts in fat loss have found that to lose weight and keep it off, simply doing more total exercise each week is also important They found that it tends to take a lot more exercise to be effective in helping you lose fat than most people think. Exercise can help enormously in losing fat. And almost all the people who succeeded in losing fat and keeping it off exercised while they lost the fat and still exercise now. But for best results you do need a lot of exercise.
For example, today, Reuters online health news had a story titled:
“Thirty minutes a day of exercise? Better think 50”
They quote these two “updated guidelines issued by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM).”
1. “…..evidence published after 1999 indicates that between 150 and 250 minutes per week of moderate intensity physical activity is effective in preventing weight gain greater than 3% in most adults but will provide "only modest" weight loss.”
2. “Greater amounts of weekly physical activity -- in the order of 250 minutes or more per week -- have been associated with "significant" weight loss, the ACSM notes. Overweight and obese adults will most likely lose more weight and keep it off with at least 250 minutes per week of exercise.”
And, the story adds this from those guidelines also.:
“The ACSM also recommends strength training as part of a health and fitness regimen. "Resistance training does not enhance weight loss but may increase fat-free mass and increase loss of fat ...and is associated with reductions in health risk," the writing committee notes.”
I find a more flexible guideline to be the number of calories directly burned by an exercise.
Walking is a “moderate intensity physical activity” at a 20 minute per mile pace which burns about 100 calories in that time. So, 150 to 250 minutes of walking per week translates into 750 to 1250 calories of exercise per week. That’s 7.5 to 12.5 miles of walking a week.
And, more than 250 minutes of walking is more than 1250 calories a week. That’s more than 12.5 miles a week of walking.
This correlates nicely with the research done years ago which found that the healthiest people were those who got 2,000 to 3500 calories a week of exercise. And, that even as little as 500 calories a week of exercise produces 40 % of the health benefits of doing 2,000 to 3500 calories a week of exercise.
In addition, many writers and fat loss experts have recommended about 3500 calories a week of exercise as ideal for the best results in losing fat and keeping it off.
You can get 3500 calories a week by walking 5 miles once a day. One person who was successful in losing well over 100 pounds did that or something very like it. Another person who lost over 100 pound to this day walks something like 3 miles a day for 2100 calories a week and does about 700 calories of strength training and 700 calories of interval training each week also. So his total is also about 3500 calories a week of exercise.
The second person is much stronger and more aerobically fit than the first one. But both were successful at losing over 100 pounds of fat. And, both have maintained that fat loss in part because they still eat right and in part because they still get 3500 calories a week of exercise.
(Note that while more exercise than 3500 calories a week does burn more calories, it also begins to be enough to produce overuse injuries and can overtire you or simply take too much of your time each week. So while something like 3850 calories a week of exercise may work well and be sustainable, 5600 calories of exercise a week may not be sustainable. That’s important since if you have much fat to lose, you need to plan on continuing to exercise both to do it long enough to lose all the fat and to keep off the fat you’ve lost after that.)
Today's post: Tuesday, 2-10-2009
Yesterday we posted the wonderful news that even one minute a day of really vigorous exercise has blood sugar lowering and other health benefits.
There is also evidence that vigorous exercise whether in a competitive sport such as playing soccer or basketball or in progressive strength training or in interval cardio or in faster dancing or in martial arts training done fast, all tend to help you lose fat best. This is because they boost your metabolism after you stop actually doing them, sometimes for several hours. Also, most of them, particularly progressive strength training, add to your muscle mass and how many more calories that muscle burns than fat. So, in both ways, such vigorous exercises are extra effective in helping you lose excess fat or prevent you from gaining it.
However, Weight Watchers and other experts in fat loss have found that to lose weight and keep it off, simply doing more total exercise each week is also important They found that it tends to take a lot more exercise to be effective in helping you lose fat than most people think. Exercise can help enormously in losing fat. And almost all the people who succeeded in losing fat and keeping it off exercised while they lost the fat and still exercise now. But for best results you do need a lot of exercise.
For example, today, Reuters online health news had a story titled:
“Thirty minutes a day of exercise? Better think 50”
They quote these two “updated guidelines issued by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM).”
1. “…..evidence published after 1999 indicates that between 150 and 250 minutes per week of moderate intensity physical activity is effective in preventing weight gain greater than 3% in most adults but will provide "only modest" weight loss.”
2. “Greater amounts of weekly physical activity -- in the order of 250 minutes or more per week -- have been associated with "significant" weight loss, the ACSM notes. Overweight and obese adults will most likely lose more weight and keep it off with at least 250 minutes per week of exercise.”
And, the story adds this from those guidelines also.:
“The ACSM also recommends strength training as part of a health and fitness regimen. "Resistance training does not enhance weight loss but may increase fat-free mass and increase loss of fat ...and is associated with reductions in health risk," the writing committee notes.”
I find a more flexible guideline to be the number of calories directly burned by an exercise.
Walking is a “moderate intensity physical activity” at a 20 minute per mile pace which burns about 100 calories in that time. So, 150 to 250 minutes of walking per week translates into 750 to 1250 calories of exercise per week. That’s 7.5 to 12.5 miles of walking a week.
And, more than 250 minutes of walking is more than 1250 calories a week. That’s more than 12.5 miles a week of walking.
This correlates nicely with the research done years ago which found that the healthiest people were those who got 2,000 to 3500 calories a week of exercise. And, that even as little as 500 calories a week of exercise produces 40 % of the health benefits of doing 2,000 to 3500 calories a week of exercise.
In addition, many writers and fat loss experts have recommended about 3500 calories a week of exercise as ideal for the best results in losing fat and keeping it off.
You can get 3500 calories a week by walking 5 miles once a day. One person who was successful in losing well over 100 pounds did that or something very like it. Another person who lost over 100 pound to this day walks something like 3 miles a day for 2100 calories a week and does about 700 calories of strength training and 700 calories of interval training each week also. So his total is also about 3500 calories a week of exercise.
The second person is much stronger and more aerobically fit than the first one. But both were successful at losing over 100 pounds of fat. And, both have maintained that fat loss in part because they still eat right and in part because they still get 3500 calories a week of exercise.
(Note that while more exercise than 3500 calories a week does burn more calories, it also begins to be enough to produce overuse injuries and can overtire you or simply take too much of your time each week. So while something like 3850 calories a week of exercise may work well and be sustainable, 5600 calories of exercise a week may not be sustainable. That’s important since if you have much fat to lose, you need to plan on continuing to exercise both to do it long enough to lose all the fat and to keep off the fat you’ve lost after that.)
Labels: effective weight loss, exercise and fat loss, health information resources; permanent fat loss, permanent weight loss, successful weight loss
posted by David at 1:59 PM
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