Gaining weight is easy. You simply eat and do nothing. Once your body uses the calories in the food that you eat for its functions, it stores the excess calories as fat to use for future needs. Exercise is one of the most effective tools in any weight-loss toolkit because to reverse weight gain, you must eat less and expend more energy. This leaves your body with no extra calories to store and forces it to burn some of the ones already in its reserves every day.
Energy Usage and Physical Activity
Sleeping, eating and watching TV all use energy, but not enough to affect the calories your body stores when you do not use them deliberately with physical activity. The more you weigh, the greater the energy expenditure for daily activities and for exercise. A 150-lb. person uses approximately 80 percent of the calories that a 200-lb. person does for the same physical activity. As you lose weight, you will need to expend more energy than you did at your original weight to burn the calories you consume.
Diet Facts
Losing a pound of stored fat requires a net loss of 3,500 calories, by either reducing your calorie intake, increasing your energy expenditure or both. Decreasing your daily calorie intake below 1,200 for women and 1,500 for men is not safe without medical supervision. Diets that contain too few calories often lack enough proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and micronutrients for normal body functions.
Exercise Recommendations
It is difficult to meet weight-loss objectives without exercise. One to two hours of exercise daily are recommended. In one week, this creates a calorie deficit that equals 1 lb. If you also reduce your calories from food, you will lose more than a pound without sacrificing nutritional balance.
Exercise Calorie Usage
A 160-lb. person burns 500 calories or more an hour running, jumping rope, using a stair treadmill, jogging or playing football, basketball and tennis, according to MayoClinic.com. A person who weighs 200 lbs. burns more than 1,000 calories running; 910 jumping rope; 819 on a stair treadmill and 728 jogging. Walking, an exercise suitable for any age and fitness level, helps you burn 277 calories per hour if you weigh 160 lbs. or 346 calories at 200 lbs. Bowling, dancing and weightlifting produce similar results.
When you choose an exercise that burns fewer calories per hour, increase your exercise time to reach the target calories that you must burn. Strength and resistance training increase your resting metabolism and burn calories. Include some muscle-building exercise in your regimen two or three times a week to get the additional benefit.
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