How To Exercise to Lose Weight

Do you really need to exercise to lose weight?

Yes, you do!

But there are ways to do it and ways not to do it.

If you've been stuggling through lengthy workout sessions without seeing your bulges budge it's probably because you've been doing the wrong kind of exercise for weight loss.

Why Standard Workouts Don’t Work

If you are like most people you’ve probably been following the standard recommendation of doing 30-60 minutes of moderately intense exercise a day.

This recommendation comes from the observation that the body burns the most fat when it is working at a moderate intensity.

So, the thinking is that, to lose weight, you should work out for as long as possible at a moderate level of intensity.

But, while it is true that your body burns more fat at a moderately intense level of exercise while you are exercising, your body doesn’t actually change during exercise.

It changes after you exercise as it adapts to prepare for the next time you will stress it in the same fashion.

And long-duration, moderately intense exercise actually encourages your body to store fat.

Here’s why...

Your Body Doesn’t Know Anything About Weight Loss.

It only knows about survival. When you burn fat during exercise you are telling your body that, to survive, it needs to maintain its fat stores so it will have enough to burn during the next exercise session.

In this way, moderately intense endurance exercise actually encourages fat synthesis!

In fact, this adaptive mechanism is so strong that, when presented with frequent bouts of lengthy moderately intense exercise your body will actually use its muscle for fuel so it can preserve fat!

Fortunately, there is a much more effective way to exercise to lose weight than to work out for long periods of time at moderate intensity. That is to work out at high intensity for short periods of time. In other words, to do “interval” training.

The Best Fat Burning Exercise

To understand why a short high-intensity workout is a better way to exercise to lose weight than a lengthier moderate-intensity workout, you need to understand that your body stores energy in two different forms: fat and glycogen.

Glycogen is stored in the liver and in muscle tissue and is readily converted to glucose or blood sugar, whereas fat takes a while to be broken down and utilized for energy.

As a result, when you exercise intensely, but only for a brief period of time, glycogen is the fuel source that is used rather than fat.

Just as using fat for fuel during exercise sends a message to your body to conserve fat for its next exercise session, using glycogen to fuel your exercise session sends a signal to your body to store more of its energy as glycogen.

As a result, short duration high intensity exercise encourages your body to burn its fat stores.

Interval Training - The Best Exercise to Lose Weight

Several scientific studies have supported the idea that interval training is the best way to exercise to lose weight.

One such study conducted at Colorado State University found that people who exercised 20 minutes in sets of 2-minute intervals with a minute of rest in between increased their resting metabolic rate by 4% and their resting fat oxidation - a measure of how much fat is being “burned” - by a whopping 62%!

And these people were still burning fat 16 hours after their actual exercise session ended!

In another study comparing long-duration exercise with short-duration interval training, researchers at the University of Quebec found that, while the long-duration exercisers burned more calories, those who engaged in short-duration interval training lost more fat.

In fact, for every calorie burned, the interval training group lost nine times more fat!

And, for those of us who aren’t into marathon exercise sessions, here’s the really good news: it takes very little time to get the fat burning effect of interval training. A study at Stanford University showed that a mere 10 minutes of exercise was enough to do the trick!

Your Heart on Interval Training

In case you’re thinking you still need those lengthy “cardio” workouts for heart health, you should know that studies have shown that short-duration high-intensity interval training is actually better for your heart and improves cardiovascular endurance more rapidly than long-duration exercise.

In one study, for example, college-aged men and women were asked to perform interval training consisting of 30 second sprints interspersed with 4 minutes of rest.

After just two weeks, 75% of the participants had doubled their endurance. This effect on endurance was particularly impressive because the participants were young and already quite fit.

And in a study conducted at Harvard University, people who performed high-intensity exercise had a lower risk of death than those who performed low-intensity exercise.

In other words, when you exercise to lose weight you are also exercising to improve your heart health!

How To Do Interval Training

For a detailed progressive interval training plan I highly recommend The Doctor’s Heart Cure written by Dr Al Sears.

As the name suggests, this book is also full of useful advice for improving your cardiovascular health.

I also recommend visiting the website MaxWorkouts.com for some specific - and very good -- weight loss workouts.

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