If you look up weight loss you will find two common themes: Diet and exercise.
Exercise is touted as a great enhancer of weight loss. It seems like it’s required. But what does physical activity have to do with losing body fat? Why does exercise speed up weight loss?
Free Report: 6 of the Best Exercises for Fat LossSpeed Up Weight Loss with Exercise
Exercise will always speed up weight loss compared to a sedentary lifestyle. Add in a healthy diet and you’re on your way to shedding those unwanted pounds and health gains.
Increased Calorie Deficit
One of the keys to weight loss is burning more calories than you eat in a day.
Part of the reason people gain weight is overeating which causes a calorie surplus. More energy is consumed than is burned leaving some extra. Often people exercise to add a greater calorie burn to their day.
You also see people using fitness tracking bands to track steps. This allows them to get a visual idea of the number of calories they are burning each day. What it all comes down to is being more active in a day than you usually are to create a greater calorie deficit from any type of purposeful activity.
The bottom line – exercise is a great way to make your calorie deficit larger. This equals faster weight loss.
Diet & Exercise: A One-Two Punch
The greatest weapon against the battle of the bulge is the combination of diet and exercise.
When a healthy diet is followed, and exercise is added the calorie deficit is increased. More energy is burned than is consumed and this generally equals weight loss. There is great debate as to what combination of exercise and diet needs to be followed for weight loss success.
The truth is anything will do.
Play soccer, do yoga, take short walks, or go for a jog. Strength training and building muscle mass can even increase your resting metabolic rate. This means that a person with increased muscle mass from strength training may burn more calories at rest than an untrained person.
Exercise But Not Diet?
There is a saying; “You can’t out-train a bad diet.”
There is some truth to this. Exercise alone with poor eating habits makes weight loss difficult. This is because if you are making unhealthy food choices you may reduce or even eliminate your calorie deficit. This means that although you’re doing your cardio or lifting weights you still may have a calorie surplus.
This means eating more calories than you burn off in a day or time period. A calorie surplus leads to weight gain. Exercise alone does have health benefits such as a decrease in blood pressure, a decrease in heart rate, stress reduction, and more.
Options For Success
Eat nutrient-dense foods. A nutrient-dense food is a type of healthy food that you can eat a large volume of without consuming many calories, or any unfavorable macronutrients. Some nutrient-dense foods include grapes, blueberries, and green vegetables or salad. It takes a large quantity of these foods to overeat.
This makes nutrient-dense food very ‘diet-friendly’. Non-nutrient-dense foods include fast foods. Cleaning up your diet minimally using nutrient-dense foods combined with exercise can lead to increased weight loss and improved health.
Free Download: 6 Best Exercises For Fat Loss
When you exercise there are two factors that will affect the number of calories you burn. There is the intensity, or the rate at which you exercise, and the type of exercise itself. High-intensity exercises will help you burn more calories, lose weight and increase your fitness level.
It’s important that you research the proper way to complete these exercises to ensure you are performing them correctly to avoid injury and to gain the most satisfaction from your hard work. To learn more about high-intensity training, download my free report 6 Best Exercises for Fat Loss, and discover more about this powerful and effective workout method.
With these exercises, along with a healthy diet, you’ll be losing weight in no time. You will notice improved energy levels, improved moods, weight loss, a healthier heart, and an increase in muscle mass and strength.
