Benefits of Exercise for Weight Loss

We all know the health benefits of regular exercise and most people know the importance of increasing exercise activities to promote weight loss, but did you realise just how beneficial it can be?

The Top 10 Benefits Of Exercise For Weight Loss

1.   If you lose weight without exercising,  you lose lean mass as well as fat mass
By including exercise in your weight loss plan you can prevent the burn of muscle tissue as well as fat tissue.  By learning the correct way to exercise for maximum weight loss benefits you can make sure your body is burning fat as fuel and nothing else. We definitely want to hang on to all the muscle tissue we can, you’ll find out why in benefit #2.

2.   Exercising builds muscle.
Muscle burns 3 times more calories per lb, per day than fat does AND it takes up significantly less space, so for maximum weight loss benefits we want to retain and build muscle whilst burning fat.

3.   It improves body shape.
Because exercising builds muscle it improves your natural body shape, so even if the scales don’t show huge number drops, your measurements will reduce and you are much more likely to see noticeable results a lot sooner than with healthy nutrition alone. PLUS your wobbly bits will get less wobbly a lot quicker!

4.   It releases endorphin’s and boosts your mood.
Tests have proved that happy people have more will power! So there becomes a really beneficial knock on effect between exercising and eating healthily.  The more healthily you eat, the more energy and motivation you have to exercise, and the more you exercise the more motivated you are to eat healthily. Win Win!

5.   It improves strength and stability.
When your exercise plan is a structured balance of cardiovascular and strengthening activities there can be a real improvement in skeletal problems, like back aches, joint pain and stiffness that can have a serious effect on your daily mobility.  Make sure to consult a professional prior to embarking on a new exercise plan if you suffer from any underlying health or pain issues.

6.   It cleanses and purify’s body cells of toxins. Your body literally gets a good clear out helping you to feel energized and ‘cleansed’.  In addition, the extra demand you make on your body enables it to strengthen itself against illness and infection, when coupled with the right nutrition of course.  If you try to exercise too much without providing your body with the right balance of healthy food it needs to sustain that level of exercise, then the reverse can happen and you can weaken your body’s immune system and become more susceptible to illness and injury.

7.   Energy creates Energy.
Literally at a physiological cell level when you make a demand for energy, your body will create more energy to meet that demand.  The reverse is also true, when you spend long periods sitting or laying, your body slows everything down, making less energy available.  Have you ever wondered why ‘fidgety’ people tend to be slender?

8.   It combats stress which reduces cortisol levels.  Exercise is a proven stress buster! When we are stressed our bodies release the hormone Cortisol to prepare us for dealing with ‘the stressor’.  This is an automated physiological response, our body systems are unaware that many of today’s ‘stressors’ are emotional, or intellectual as opposed to physical (such as Sabre Tooth Tigers!) and because of this, there is no big expenditure of energy in fighting these stressors which would naturally balance out these hormones (unless of course you happen to bump into a Sabre Tooth Tiger?) Elevated cortisol levels can be a major barrier to weight loss, so without the energy burn of regular exercise, these levels can remain high in our systems continually preventing successful weight loss

9.   It helps prevent stress eating.  Many people reach for food when stressed, part of the reason for this is once again hormone related.  When stressed the body prepares to expend energy, by way of releasing the aforementioned hormones.  In order to create and sustain that ‘imagined’ energy requirement, it needs the fastest fuel providing foods, which is why most ‘stress’ eating is centered around carbs, and usually the unhealthy sugary ones!

10.                Exercising takes up time.  The busier you are, the less likely you are to be thinking about food.  Less time for snacking , less time for boredom eating, less time for mindless picking.

If Those Aren’t Some Significantly Beneficial Reasons
For Adding Exercise Into Your Weight Loss Plan

Find Your Best Exercise Option Here

Do  you struggle to find time?
Your best option could be to exercise at home.  Workout DVD’s, Dance DVD’s, Bodyweight Training, Tabata Routines and High Intensity Interval Training can all be done in the comfort of your own home, with little or no equipment, at a time to suit you.  If you are not sure what to do or how to do it, enlist the help of  a knowledgeable professional to get you started.  Check out this guy, Nick Cameron at Cameronfit who offers personal training via Skype Workouts, what a great idea! No need to worry what exercises to do, if you’re doing them right, if you’re doing the best exercises for you personally AND someone to keep you accountable with that booked appointment! Check out his website HERE. He even offers a FREE Taster Session.

Do you struggle to stay motivated?
Join up with a friend or family member to make your exercising more fun and keep you accountable to turning up! Research proves that when people are exercising with a friend, they are far less likely to cry off.  Ideal activities could be walking, jogging, swimming, cycling, racquet sports such as tennis, badminton or squash, Zumba classes or perhaps joining a gym together.

Are you always too tired to exercise after work? Are you eating enough of the right foods at the right times? The correct nutrition at the correct times of day can make a massive difference to your energy levels, check your diet with a professional to make sure you are on the right track with it.  It’s also worth remembering that the less you exercise the less you feel like exercising, remember benefit #7 above, when you make a demand for energy on your body, it responds by creating more energy for you, so even if you could agree with yourself you’ll just do something for 15 minutes, the chances are you will end up doing more once you get going.  Alternatively is there any option for a quick exercise session in your lunch break? Could you squeeze in daily brisk walks/jogs with a work colleague maybe?

Have you tried to take up regular exercise in the past and failed? Set realistic goals to prevent feeling negative about yourself if you don’t reach them.  So if you’re not used to exercising regularly, don’t set yourself a target to exercise 7 days a week, because the first time you miss it you are going to feel like you’ve failed already and this kind of negative mindset can knock you down quite considerably.  Start off with perhaps 3 or 4 days a week, at least then you can choose the days you are most likely to stick with it, and you also give yourself some leeway if your days go a bit tit’s up on occasion, and you end up missing your exercise session, you can just bump it onto another day.

Do you feel self-conscious about how you look? Avoid busy times of the day at the gym or out walking / jogging when you’re first starting out, or begin exercising at home.  Exercise with a friend so you feel more relaxed and comfortable in your surroundings. Stay focused the whole time on how you are going to feel in the future when you have reached your target weight, imagine what you will feel like doing those same exercises after having achieved your weight loss, will you move differently? Push yourself a bit harder? Have a bit more of a bounce in your step? Walk a bit taller? Do all those things now, they will help work more muscles which in turn will get you where you want to be a lot quicker than if you only put in half the effort.

And Remember…

You Are The One Out There Doing Something About Getting What You Want,
Making The Effort, Making The Commitment and Getting Out There and Doing it!

Be Proud, Be Very Proud Of Yourself