Exercise for Weight Loss: Tips and Truths

The NY Times has a great feature about the reality of exercise for weight loss. The information comes from Ralph La Forge (Duke University Medical Center) who "compiled a detailed analysis of the various factors that influence the effect of exercise on weight loss".

Here is a summary of the main points concerning exercise and weight loss:

# Calories burned charts do not take into account the calories you would have burned just by sitting. In other words, if you walked for half an hour and burned 200 calories, but by sitting you would have burned 50 - then the net result is actually only an extra 150 calories burned.

# If you walk or run on a treadmill, the aid of the machine diminishes the number of calories your body uses by about 10 to 15 percent of what the machine says you are burning.

# When you diet without exercising, you lose both muscle and fat, which is counterproductive because muscle loss significantly lowers your basic metabolic rate, the number of calories your body uses at rest.

# The more muscle groups involved in your activities, the more calories you are likely to burn. That is why working out against gravity uses more calories than non-weight-bearing activities.

# If you engage in resistance exercises — working out with weights or on machines that strengthen various muscle groups — you may gain several pounds of muscle that partly offset the loss of body fat.

# With greater muscle mass, your basic metabolic rate will rise and you will burn more calories all day and night.

# Those less skilled make unnecessary movements or have to work harder at the activity, using more calories an hour than those who perform it efficiently.

# Both aerobic and resistance exercises raise energy expenditure over the next 12 to 24 hours, but the range is great — from 10 to 150 calories, depending on the type of activity and how long and vigorously it was done.

# People who are overweight or obese burn more calories proportionately doing the same activity, for the same duration and at the same intensity, than those of normal weight.

# Some people compensate for the calories burned by eating more or doing less.

# People are born with metabolic differences. Some have a higher resting metabolic rate or produce more fat-burning enzymes than others. People with a low percentage of slow-twitch muscle fibers seem less able to burn fat in skeletal muscles and thus may have a harder time losing weight through exercise.

# Women tend to burn more fat under the skin but have a harder time getting rid of abdominal fat than men do.