Correct Weight Loss Blog

TIME Magazine in its August 2009 issue had an article that reinforced the fact that exercise does not make you thin. The article entitled “The Myth of Exercise” quoted a select few studies which found that exercise does not help very much in weight loss. I have to admit that this has cast a lot of confusion over this issue.

A lot of people out there are looking for the justification provided in the TIME magazine article. Exercise is a major pain point for people trying to lose weight. People would rather starve themselves than undergo an exercise regime.

The only thing that will help achieve weight loss is a caloric deficit.  That is the golden rule. Certain exercises provide a smaller caloric deficit and others provide bigger ones. The key to success in weight loss is to choose exercises that will give a metabolic boost even after the exercises are finished. Off course one, must not forget about the importance of correct nutrition habits. Doing any amount of exercise while eating unhealthily is not going to offer any amount of weight loss.

As I had mentioned before, any weight loss initiative that is too centered around steady state cardiovascular exercises such as jogging/cycling/swimming is going to be tough. This has been addressed in great detail in my earlier articles entitled “How to make jogging work for  weight loss”, “Why jogging is a losing battle for weight loss”, “Swimming – Another losing battle for weight loss”

There is no doubt that jogging, swimming or any cardio exercises have a tremendous benefit on one’s cardiovascular system and health in general but these are the wrong exercises to achieve long term weight loss.

The most effective exercises for weight loss are interval training and weight resistance exercises. Interval training involves high intensity cardio interspersed by very short periods of rest. As an example, each cycle of  interval training involves running or cycling at your maximum ability for say 1 minute followed by 1 to 2 minutes of walking slowly. This is repeated for 4 to 10 cycles depending on your fitness. Fitness usually increases very rapidly with this type of training.

A meager 8 cycles of interval training is probably all you need to do. Believe me, you probably won’t be able to get past 8 cycles.

A study conducted by Tremblay entitled Impact of Exercise Intensity on Body fatness and Skeletal Muscles Metabolism compared the difference in fat burning in one group that did steady state endurance training such as jogging against another group that did interval training. The results showed that the interval training group had nine times greater loss in subcutaneous fat  than the steady state cardio exercise group. Subcutaneous fat is the fatty layer stored under the skin.

The only downside to interval training is that it could be very demanding on the unfit person. Someone who is just starting an exercise program should refrain from doing interval training until they have exercised for at least 6 months. They could instead do weight resistance training which is the topic of discussion of part 2 of this article.

I could quote a dozen other studies and references which state that steady state cardio exercises do not provide sustained weight loss. Interval training on the other hand is like a blow torch that will melt body fat away. Interval training is the tool for Correct Weight Loss.

As I had mentioned earlier, its all based on the assumption that someone is eating healthy. No amount of interval training or resistance training will yield weight loss if one is consuming too many calories.

In Part 2, we will explore why weight resistance training is so effective for weight loss and how this may have been overlooked in the TIME magazine article.

Tags: correct weight loss, cycling, exercise does not make you thin, impact of exercise intensity on body fatness, jogging, steady state cardio, swimming, the myth of exercise, TIME Magazine, TIME Magazine article on exercise, TIME magazine article on weight loss, weight loss, Tremblay, interval training