Maintaining a healthy weight is important for overall health, but losing weight can be hard. Whether you look online, talk to friends and family, or read self-help books, there’s no shortage of advice out there about how to lose weight and keep it off.
For the most part, the two key components of any weight loss plan involve eating a healthy diet and exercising – but can you lose weight just by exercising? Is there a way to eat whatever you want and exercise enough to keep the excess pounds from piling up?
Looking at the Science
To answer this question, you first need to consider the basic science of weight gain and loss. Your body takes in calories through food and burns calories through movement. If you take in more calories than you burn, you gain weight. If you burn more calories than you take in, you lose weight.
Unfortunately, there are other factors here that complicate what looks like a simple equation. For example, your metabolic rate, or how quickly your body processes calories and energy, can affect how quickly you lose weight by exercising. Also, certain health conditions can affect the speed at which exercise alone will burn calories, and therefore, fat.
Not All Exercises Are Created Equal
The type of exercise you do can also play a role in losing weight just from exercise. For example, lifting weights can burn more fat than walking because it requires a larger load on your body in a short amount of time. Other exercises for weight loss include running, swimming, and cycling. All of these exercises for weight loss push your body into a heart rate zone where fat tends to be converted into caloric output to create energy.
Your Weight Over Time
While it can be possible to lose weight just from exercise alone, eating a healthy diet is going to make things go much faster. Also, the amount of weight you lose in a specific amount of time changes as you lose weight. When you’re heavier, your body requires more energy to do simple exercises, but as you get into better shape, these same exercises burn fewer calories because they require less energy.
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