how much effect does exersise have on weightloss?

Question

did u start losing when u started exersiseing or was it predominatly the diet?

Answer 1

Exercise is half of the fitness equation, and all of the "toning" side. Here are some ideas describing how to optimize both sides of the equation.


On Yahoo!Answers I find certain questions being asked repeatedly which is simply a reflection of new people participating. A couple of common questions amount to "How do I lose weight," or more specifically, "How do I lose abdominal fat?" I have gotten very positive responses from my answers when I paused to reply (and now beginning to get "It works!" emails that are very gratifying. I like helping people)... so have recently decided to put a good solid answer on my Yahoo!360 Blog (September 10) that I can point people to. These are my thoughts as a physician and athlete.

Don't target losing more than about 2 lbs per week. If you try to lose faster, your body will go into "starvation mode" and get very stingy about burning calories while at the same time very efficient about storing any calories that you do provide. And it will make you feel awful.

There is no site specific way of losing fat... the old myth about working your abs to burn belly fat isn't true. To get rid of love handles, you need to lose overall fat. That happens with exercise and watching your diet. More on that below.

The most effective way to lose fat is aerobic exercise in the "moderate" fat-burning range, ideally first thing in the morning before you eat. When you wake your body is ready to burn fat and your levels of growth hormone are highest at that time. Later in the day it can take up to 30 minutes just to put your body into a fat-burning mode.

Another overlooked way to burn fat is by lifting weights. Skeletal muscle has very high caloric needs... almost twice that of adipose (fat) tissue. Put on a little muscle and you will burn calories all day even at rest. Be aware that skeletal muscle weighs more, so with this approach you may see your weight increasing while your body fat is melting away. Not realizing this often stresses folks who think they should be losing weight as a measure of fitness. Forget the scale, look in the mirror and you will be happy.

To lose a pound of fat, you need to eliminate about 3500 calories. You can do this by burning more with exercise or by modifying your diet to reduce intake. If you do a Google search on say, "swimming calories" you will quickly find a website with tables of calories burned for a given exercise. You can use such lists to estimate how many calories you are burning up with your routine.

For diet, keep a diary for a couple of weeks counting calories, grams of protein, and grams of fat intake. It is easy with online sources of nutritional information (type the name of the food and calories into the Google search engine) and packaging labels. That will let you quickly figure out where the fat is coming from in your diet.

Fat gives you 9 calories per gram. So take the number of grams of fat, multiply by 9, then calculate what percentage the fat calories are of your total daily calories. Restricting the calories from fat to about 20% of your total intake is ideal for a maintenance diet... that isn't overly restrictive. Of note, you need some fat in your diet. For instance, the body uses fat to produce hormones. Once you have a picture of how to modify your diet, you can drop the diary and just go back to it occasionally if you are wanting to tweek things further.

There is a subset of questions that goes further and asks about "How to get a six-pack?" The answer is the same. Six-packs are 20% abdominal exercise and 80% diet. There is one caveat... abdominal muscles will form in the position that you work them, so be certain to pull them tightly toward your spine while doing crunches, etc. Also, during most lifting, the "core is active" which means that you should be stabilizing with contracted abs then too. Fail to do this and the abs will form, but bulging outward and the result is not attractive.

If you are trying to build muscle as a way to lose fat, then you may need to increase total calories and specifically your protein intake. I target about 0.8 g of protein per pound of body weight each day when actively building. That is far more protein than most people need in their diets.


Aloha

Answer 2

firstly, in order to see results you must reduce the number of calorie intake in comparison to amount of calories you are burning eg. if u want to burn 4000 calories you shouldn't end up eating an entire meal with more than that.

when it comes to exercise, the cardiovascular exercises are the best to melt the pounds- whatever that gets ur heart pumping and pounding. this should be done atleast 5 days a week with around 2-3 days of strength/resistance training (weights and stuff).
it also depends on the look u want. if u want muscle, then strength training is the way to go (for those 2-3 days). if you want a long, lean and flexible look then you shud try yoga, pilates and even aerobics.
normally people who want to reduce their weight but still eat the same amount don't see much results- this only maintains the weight that they are at. if u want to get rid of a certain amount of weight then u have to reduce ur meals/meal sizes/how often u eat.

there are easy and extremely effective ways of cutting down on ur daily calorie intake:

1. don't drink that glass of juice in the morning! its equivalent to 10 oranges with a LOT of sugar

2. if u take sugar with ur coffee/tea then start to reduce it half a teaspoon at a time. i use to drink 3 teaspoons and now i only drink 1/2 teaspoon on tea.

3. drink green tea atleast once a day to clean ur system

4. make sure u are "regular".

5. drink non-fat milk - milk is the best!

believe me, if u make up ur mind u can do it!!

Answer 3

Get your book group to slip on sneaks and chat on the move.

Answer 4

Skip waiting bedrooms. When you have an appointment, check in and then setting off for a walk until this receptionist phones you.

Answer 5

you can achieve a lean, tone body on eating properly alone. however, exercise will kick a healthy diet into overdrive. best way is to eat right and do some type of resistance training

Answer 6

Exercise is 1/2 the effort, if not more. Exercise raises your metabolism, hence facilitating weight loss.

Answer 7

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Answer 8

I exercised and dieted. I would say they both played 50 percent. Exercising really accelerates your loss because you also tone muscle.

Answer 9

Skip waiting areas. When you have an appointment, check in and then go out for a walk until the receptionist phones you.

Answer 10

I think it is both equally...You have to have a caloric defecit daily to loose weight. However, there are so many benefits to working out. Sleeping better, less stress, physically fit, toned muscles, increased self esteem, better sex drive, and overall better health.