Exercise for Weight Loss: Is It Really Necessary?
If losing weight is a straightforward equation of the difference between the number of calories you consume and the amount of calories you expend, why can’t you simply eat less and lose weight? Well, to start, it simply isn’t easy to avoid food cravings. You may feel it’s easy to give up certain foods and lower your caloric intake, but try giving up those foods over the long-term and you will feel the burden. We don’t always eat because we are hungry. People have an emotional attachment to food and it is a social activity.
Giving up food may sound easy, but in practice it will be really difficult to avoid your dietary desires. And when you slip, you need to burn off those excess calories. This is why exercise for weight loss is important. Making exercise a part of your healthy lifestyle is crucial because not only do you expend more calories, but you also gain muscle. Compared to fat, which is fairly inactive, muscles are active. They need energy to maintain themselves, which is why when you exercise and gain muscle, you increase your metabolic rate. Basically, this means you can burn calories even without being involved in any physical activity, just to maintain your muscle mass.
Research has established that when a person is on a diet, they lose fat, but also muscle. Your body’s ability to expend calories decreases as you lose muscle while dieting. An effective countermeasure is to include exercise in your weight loss program. A big part of a weight loss regime is your mental wellbeing. Any weight loss program will mean you have to give up some of your favorite foods. When you are continuously avoiding food and limiting yourself, you will feel the need for something positive as well. Exercise for weight loss will give you a positive upswing. And for those suffering from mental illnesses, the added benefit of exercise is it is a proven antidepressant without any of the side effects of prescription drugs.
The ultimate objective of a weight loss plan is to keep off the weight you do lose, rather than swing back and forth on the weight scale, like a yoyo. Exercise should be a gradual process; work up to more reps, sets, or time. No one wakes up and wins a triathlon; they practice increasing distance in shorter time and so on. It’s definitely going to be easier to keep off those pounds if exercise is part of your weight loss plan. When you want to go on a weight loss plan, don’t forget exercise for weight loss is a critical element in any plan and must be incorporated in your daily life if you want to be successful.
