Weight Loss with Exercise

Whenever you think about being on a diet, you think of “what am I going to eat” and how much you’ll be starving yourself in order to lose a few pounds on the scale. With such a focus on food being at the root of a diet, very few people give enough consideration to exercise. In order to lose weight, with or without the use of diet pills, exercise is critical for increasing your metabolic rate so that your body become efficient at burning body fat.

Getting regular exercise is a critical component for any weight loss program.

The basic issue with exercise is that the vast majority of people don’t like to do it. They don’t want to feel short of breath, nor do they want to sweat. Also, finding time for exercise between work and relaxation can be quite a challenge for those that lack the motivation. And yet exercise is one of the best direct paths to weight loss. The trick is to find exercises you like and to build up those exercises to increasing levels of intensity as you get leaner and more in shape.

There are two basic types of exercise, anaerobic exercise and aerobic exercise. People who want to lose weight should engage in both types of exercise. With anaerobic exercise, you strengthen your muscles through the use of muscle building and toning exercises, such as lifting weights, Pilates, yoga and weight machines. Your heart rate increases a little bit and you generally don’t get short of breath. Anaerobic exercise is designed to strengthen your muscles. More muscle means you burn more calories per pound of body weight. This increase in metabolism due to more muscle works 24 hours a day, so is critical if you want to lose weight. Depending on your beginning strength level, you can start with some simple Pilates to tone your muscles or work with machines with ever increasing levels of weights so that you can build some muscle mass. Toning muscle makes you feel better and look better right away.

Aerobic exercises help you build your cardiovascular strength. Your heart rate increases, your respiratory rate increases and you strengthen muscles to some degree, although not as much as with anaerobic exercise. There are virtually hundreds of activities to choose from in aerobic exercise. Commonly used exercises include walking, running, biking or swimming, although you can include more esoteric exercises like golf, rowing, skateboarding and skiing. All of these activities get your heart pumping and are excellent in preventing heart disease. They enhance your lung capacity and burn calories both during the exercises and for a few hours afterwards.

As you can see, a healthy diet includes both dietary and exercise components. There are different tips of advice as to how much you should exercise but a minimum of three times per week for a duration of at least 50 minutes each time is recommended. Some experts recommend up to seven days a week, alternating between aerobic and anaerobic exercises every other day. For example, you could run or bicycle three days a week and alternate that with weight lifting or Pilates in between those days. It sometimes helps to change it up a bit and do biking one week, running the next and swimming the next. Have exercise be a part of your life by bicycling to the grocery store or walking instead of riding in the car. Get your family involved in a more active lifestyle. It is good for the family and healthy for you as well.