Exercise for Weight Loss

If your 30 pounds or more overweight and have chosen exercise as your solution for losing weight and keeping it off your chances are only 1 percent. That is if you believe a study called the National Weight Control Registry, headed by James Hill PhD., and Rena Wing PhD. The study which consisted of 784 participants who had lost at least 30 pounds and had kept it off, for more than a year were tracked for similar behaviors. James Hill, one of the founders of the study was quoted saying, "We could identify few commonly shared features of how these people lost weight. The only common characteristic was, 89% of registry participants used both diet and exercise, only 10% used diet alone, and 1% used exercise alone." This supports numerous studies which show exercise alone is a poor solution for long term effective weight loss, however combined with proper diet is the only thing that seems to work. It like having the Yin, without the Yang, the two go together to have balance and make it work.

If you try to separate diet from exercise, it can negatively impact your health, even if you lose weight. Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis lead by Dennis Villareal found that individuals who lost weight from diet, without exercise were more likely to lose bone mass. This study points out the importance of both diet and exercise for effective weight loss. It was theorized by the researches that the bone loss came from lack of sufficient nutrients to maintain strong bones and lack of physical stimulation to promote bone growth. Villarel was quoted saying, "Calorie restriction is beneficial, but if you don't combine it with exercise you lose bone, This can be extremely harmful, especially as we age, because the bone loss comes in areas the elderly are at highest risk of fracture; like upper leg, the spine and hips."

The evidence is hard to dispute exercise must be combined with balanced nutrition for effective weight loss. The question becomes, what type of exercise and for how long? The simple answer, the right type of exercise is the one you stay with. Most studies would support the most effective is cross training, one that combines resistance training and aerobic training. Surprisingly, it's not because cross-training offers greater weight loss results, than doing aerobic's alone. It's because cross-training offers a better type of weight loss ( without the loss of muscle) and broader range of health benefits, and minimizes more of the health risks, during the weight loss process. Of special interest, the longer into the weight loss process, more time should be allocated to resistance training than aerobic, which prevents or slows down the weight loss plateau. Most experts agree 30-60 minutes of exercise, and 3-5 times per week will get the job done