![Is it annoying or is it brilliant? [The “ineffectiveness” of exercise for weight loss]
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I’ve mentioned in these blogs before that the benefit of exercise, from a purely calorie usage perspective, if often over-rated.
Many FitPros will try and sell you their wares by promising an amount of calorie usage that just isn’t possible in that time frame.
Or, maybe just possible, if you work like an Olympic athlete during that session.
They’ll tell you that their workouts “turn you into a fat burning machine for 72 hours after” despite the research showing that you might use an extra calorie an hour, at most, after exercise.
A fairly high proportion of our daily energy expenditure comes from the automatic processes always going on in our bodies.
What’s called our BMR – Basal Metabolic Rate.
Energy expenditure are rest.
How much you’d use if you spent all day in bed.
Activity levels (general or exercise) might increase this by between 20 and 90%, depending on how active we are.
But, for most people, about two thirds of their energy use is fairly set.
Being generally active and exercising will, probably, increase how much we can consume by 50% or so.
I was explaining this to someone the other day.
“That’s annoying” they said.
“I was hoping it would make more difference”.
Which I get.
But there’s another way to see it.
If activity made up, let’s say 80%, of our energy expenditure then, on days we don’t really do anything active………………
We could only eat 20% of the food that we do on active days.
That would be rubbish, wouldn’t it?
If all our energy usage came from activity, there’s be days that we could barely eat at all.
The fact that our body naturally uses a fair amount of energy means we can always consume a reasonable amount before going into a surplus.
Which is much better, when you think about it.
Ultimately, it is what it is.
Whatever we may think about our “metabolism”, fat is an energy store.
If we’re using less energy than we’re consuming, it’s got to go somewhere.
If we’re consuming less than we’re using, it’s got to come from somewhere.
Whether it’s from our resting requirements or from physical activity, we just need to make that ‘balance’ work for us (it’s www.myrise.co.uk/apply for proven help in creating an overall balance in our lives that we’re happy to do but that takes us in the direction we want to go in).
Much love,
Jon ‘Annoying or brilliant?’ Hall
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RISE in Macclesfield was established in 2012 and specialise in Group Personal Training weight loss programmes for those that don’t like the gym and find diets boring and restrictive!
