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Exercise Myths and Facts about Losing Weight

Exercise should be accompanied with a low calorie balanced diet to lose weight

Why should you exercise?

Exercise alone has a limited effect on weight loss. With exercise, you have greater loss of body fat than the muscle mass. The benefits of exercise include following:

Increased metabolism to burn calories.

Decreased Insulin Resistance

Lower Triglycerides

Increase in good cholesterol (HDL)

Reduction of waist- to-hip ratio (Smaller waist)

Lower risk of heart disease

Burn calories while exercising

Do I need to exercise to lose weight?

Exercise is not necessary to lose weight. Exercise is needed to keep from regaining weight by increasing metabolic rate.

What is the best time to exercise?

When to exercise for weight loss?

The most appropriate time to exercise is on empty stomach, especially for persons with Insulin Resistance (Diabetics and women with PCOS). After exercise, one should wait about 30 to 45 minutes to intake food.

Myths and Facts

# 1. Myth: Muscles turn into fat after one stops to exercise.
Fact: These are two different types of tissues. Most likely, during dieting, you have lost some muscle mass, and you stopped dieting you have gained some fat. So it may seem that muscle has has turned into fat.

# 2. Myth: Exercise burns away fat.
Fact: After puberty, the number of fat cells remain constant in your body for the rest of your life. These fat cells are stored in adipose tissue. Higher the unspent calories, larger the adipose tissue becomes, and vice versa. Fat cells can only be removed via physical surgery such as liposuction.

# 3. Myth Exercise stops effects of aging.
Fact: When a person stops using muscles, it causes 'disuse atrophy'. Exercise prevents disuse atrophy, impacting some effects of aging. Exercise does not slow down the aging process.

# 4. Myth: Exercise burns a lot of calories.
If you weigh 160 pounds and run for one mile, you will burn about 100 calories. You will burn about same number calories within two hours just for being awake and sitting in your chair at the computer depending on your basal metabolism. You can save 70 calories by no eating either one hard-boiled egg or one slice of bread. Practically, exercise does not burn a lot of calories.

#5. Myth: Putting weights on legs and arms help burning more calories.
Fact: Putting weights may slow down to reach desired aerobic activity level defeating the goal.

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