I Exercise & Exercise But I’m Still Fat!

The best way to achieve your goal is to focus on aerobic exercises, resistance training and a balanced diet. Good aerobic activities include brisk walking, jogging, cycling (including the stationary bicycle), running, swimming and dancing.

The most important thing about the aerobic activities is to get your heart rate and breathing up for a sustained period of time to help you metabolise fat to provide energy to perform the activity. You also need to engage many of your major muscle groups to perform the activities and increase your metabolism to reduce the excess fat and weight.

A balanced diet will provide you with the ideal amount of nutrients needed for health, energy for daily activities and exercise routine, so there should be no excess that could add to your weight. Greater weightloss is achieved by combining your diet with aerobic exercises. If you were to use your diet only at the expense of exercise, you will retain and eventually gain weight over time.

Maintain muscle mass

The kinds of exercises or physical activities you do are critical to losing, gaining or maintaining weight. The correct exercise prescription will help you to maintain your muscle mass and reduce your fat mass. The combination of aerobic activities and strength training or resistance exercises work best to effect weight loss because of the intensity and duration at which these activities are performed. So, more calories are utilised which translates into weight loss.

Strength training is crucial

Strength training or resistance exercises are critical in raising the muscle component and basal metabolic rate of the body at the expense of fat tissue.

The role of exercise in achieving a negative balance by burning additional calories is significant in weight loss and maintenance. If high caloric intake is not accompanied by a strength-training or resistance exercise programme, the increase in your weight will be in the form of fat not muscle tissue.

A 45-minute workout

In order to lose weight you will need to exercise at least 45 minutes, five to six times each week. Do not try to do too much too soon. Unconditioned beginners should start with about 15 minutes of aerobic exercises three times each week and gradually increase the duration by approximately five minutes each week and the frequency by one day each week, for the first three to four weeks. If the activities are not performed long enough, the fat will always remain in storage and influence our weight.