In combination with dietary control, physical exercise is a proven way to lose excess weight and maintain a healthy body weight. However, the scheduling of your exercise regimen plays a significant part in determining the success of your weight control efforts. Exercising every day instead of every other day may affect your weight in one of several ways. Consult your doctor if unexplained weight gain concerns you or before starting any new exercise plan.
Increased Muscle
By volume, muscle tissue is more dense, and therefore heavier, than body fat. The Mayo Clinic reports that your body will burn more calories if a higher proportion of your body weight is made up of muscle rather than fat. If you have been working out daily and building a significant amount of muscle, your weight may increase although your body size may actually decrease. Lean, muscular athletes are often heavier, although slimmer and fitter, than their less muscular contemporaries.
Lack of Motivation
Exercising every single day may become boring, especially if you always perform the same form of exercise. If you are bored, your motivation to exercise will decrease, and you may find that you are exercising at a low intensity, skipping workouts or shortening the time you spend working out. If you are unmotivated in your exercise sessions, you may burn fewer calories through exercise than you expect, and therefore can gain weight by burning fewer calories than you consume. In order to increase and maintain your motivation, vary the types of exercise you do. For example, you might swim twice a week, jog three times weekly and play hockey two days a week. Varying the type of exercise you do also works out different muscle groups.
Importance of Rest Days
Whether you are exercising purely for weight control or training for an athletic event such as a duathlon, triathlon marathon or 5K race, it is important to include regular rest days in your exercise schedule. According to an article published in the March 1997 issue of the "Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness," training too much can actually reduce your athletic performance. Exercising without rest days can also increase your fatigue, worsen your mood and make you more susceptible to infections. Over-training can lead to more frequent injuries and strains, and increase the time needed to recover from such injuries. Additionally, your performance will be slower overall if you are tired from training excessively every day.
Overeating
It is possible that by increasing the frequency of your exercise to daily rather than every other day, you are increasing your potential for overeating. It is natural and healthy to reward yourself after a good workout. However, if your reward for a 30-minute jog is a calorie-laden sweetened latte and a large muffin, you likely will have consumed more extra calories from your post-jog snack than you burned during your run. If you overcompensate daily for calories burned through exercise, this regular overeating will cause your excess calories to be stored as fat, leading to overall weight gain.
References
- Mayo Clinic: Weight Loss: 6 Strategies for Success
- Mayo Clinic: Metabolism and Weight Loss
- Mayo Clinic: Barriers to Weight Loss
- "Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness"; Training and Overtraining; M. Lehmann et al.; March 1997
- Medical News Today: After Overeating, We Don't Compensate by Eating Less
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