Rethinking Exercises for Fat Loss: 7 Reasons Why Exercise is a Bad Way to Lose Holiday Pounds

Nov. 24, 2010 - PRLog -- Exercises for fat loss. There is no shortage of fat-loss workouts on the internet and in print media.  It is a common belief that exercises for fat loss are the most important part of a weight loss program.  However, given that Americans continue to gain weight every year, there is clearly a problem with the common notion that exercise alone will help us lose weight.

It is not just a matter of people "knowing what to do" and not doing it.  It is a matter of misinformation and misperceptions about the effectiveness of exercise to burn calories and contribute directly to weight loss.  While exercise is essential to good health, it is an inefficient, sometimes expensive, and often unsustainable way to lose weight  when used solely as a vehicle for weight loss.

Certified Health Coach Belinda Kan says, "The fact that people hit the gym in droves in January and abandon their quest by March points to the need to reconsider the role of exercise in weight loss."  Belinda offers 7 reasons why exercise is a bad way to try to lose weight:

1. Exercise does not burn enough calories to produce significant weight loss.  
The average person burns 350 calories during a hard gym workout (exercise machines and personal trainers are being very generous when they give a higher number). A person needs to burn 3500 calories in order to lose one pound of fat.  This means 10 hours in the gym before losing a single pound, and that's assuming that calorie intake does not increase.  

2. After working out, most people are hungry.  
It turns out that most people DO increase their calorie intake if they're exercising to lose weight.  Why? Because they feel that because they worked out hard and "deserve" to go to Starbucks and replace those 350 calories they just exercised off with a 400 calorie, high-sugar beverage.

3. Exercise takes time that few people have.  
There is travel time involved in going to the gym, as well as the time required to pack the gym bag with items necessary for a pre- or post-workday workout.  This can amount to an extra two hours or more a day just to get in a one hour workout, and waking up at 5am gets old after a while, especially if those extra hours are not producing significant changes on the scale.

4. Too much exercise causes the body to hold onto fat.  
While not enough exercise produces little to no results, so does TOO much exercise.  If the body receives significantly fewer calories than it needs to sustain a healthy metabolism, either through not eating enough nutritious calories or working out too much, it will hold on to its fat reserves because it thinks it is starving.  This is a vital protective mechanism leftover from caveman days, when the caveman didn't know when he would get his next meal.  Biologically, we are not much different today than we were 10,000 years ago, which is why our bodies are excellent fat storage machines.

5. Exercise can be expensive.  
Gyms are packed in the beginning of the year, and by March most people have stopped their new routine (because they've seen little results) even though they've already paid for it.  With the economy the way it is, many people have told themselves that they can't afford to exercise.  Given what we have already learned about the inefficiency of exercises for fat loss, people would lose more weight if they saved that gym money and used the money that they currently spend on food to make healthier food choices, which is what really contributes to weight loss.

6. Exercise can cause injury.  
For people who are overweight, hitting the gym in an effort to lose weight can cause serious injury to the back, knees, and ankles.  Even people who aren't overweight often hurt themselves in the gym.  The result is that they have to take a break from exercising, which then causes them to gain weight.  This is sadly ironic since the whole reason they may have joined the gym was to lose weight.

7.  Exercise is not fun if done solely for the purpose of weight loss.  
Given all the reasons above for why exercise for fat loss is a losing (or not losing, in this case) battle, exercise turns into a chore, a burden, and something people feel guilty for not doing.  This is also why it is one of the first things that people eliminate from their schedules when time or money becomes and issue. At its best, exercise is a lifelong habit of good health, not just something you do when you want to lose weight after the holidays.

"What you eat is always the number one factor in successful weight loss. The ONLY time exercises for fat loss work is when they are combined with a nutritional eating plan designed specifically for weight loss as opposed to weight maintenance," says Belinda. "By achieving a healthy weight through proper nutrition, people actually WANT to move their bodies because they feel healthier.  That's when exercise becomes a fun, sustainable habit of health year-round."

If you want to learn more about how to incorporate easy, affordable ways to eat for weight loss, you can download a free guide called "How to Eat Healthier with Limited Time and Money" on Belinda's website, http://www.HealthyAffordableWeightLoss.com.  There you will get information on healthy weight loss and weight maintenance strategies, as well as information on complementary exercises for fat loss that can be done from the comfort of your home.

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Healthy Affordable Weight Loss is a website and blog whose mission is the cut through the confusion of diets and exercise and make the goal of losing weight for health reasons easy and accessible to people of every social class and of every lifestyle.