Aerobic exercise, also known as "cardio," plays an important role in helping keep your weight under control as well as maintaining your overall health. In fact, cardio can help reduce your risks for several diseases, many of which are also weight-related. By following the recommended 150 minutes of aerobic exercise every week, you can take one of the first major steps towards losing weight.
Muscles
Cardio works for weight loss by increasing the amount of energy being used by the muscles of your body. The amount of energy used is reliant on how intense the exercise is that you're performing. For example, walking may still contribute to weight loss, but running places greater stress on the muscles, using up more energy and creating a greater need for energy replacement through burning calories.
Calorie Burn
When energy is expended by the muscles during cardio, the body has two main places to turn to in order to replace it -- recently consumed foods or fat storage in your adipose tissue. Weight loss occurs when the amount of calories you burn through exercise and regular body function is greater than the amount of calories you take in from your diet. This forces your body to turn to breaking down fat storage to create energy through a process called lipolysis.
Lipolysis
When your brain senses that available calories are low, it activates the production of hormones, such as epinephrine and norepinephrine. These hormones activate lipases, which are capable of breaking fat storage in the adipose tissue down into smaller parts called glycerol and fatty acids, which the body can "burn" in order to release the calories of energy contained within.
Oxygen Availability
With any cardio exercise, you will notice an increase in both your heart rate and respiratory rate. This occurs in order to supply the oxygen needed for the "burning" of calories through aerobic respiration. The increase in your breathing rate increases the supply of oxygen to your bloodstream, while the increased heart rate speeds up how fast the oxygenated blood is able to reach the needy muscles to create energy. As the oxygen is exposed to the broken-down fat, aerobic respiration occurs, creating usable energy for the cells.
Where the Fat Goes
Once energy is created, the majority of substance left from the original fat is byproducts, primarily water, heat and carbon dioxide. The water is transported out of your body through both your sweat and urine. Carbon dioxide is transported back into the bloodstream, where the veins take it to the lungs to be exhaled out of the body. The remaining heat is used to maintain your internal body temperature. As these products exit your body, you will see a noticeable change on a weight scale.
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