You are taking a big risk if you are trying to lose weight rapidly via exercise--and often making a big mistake. It's also ineffective.
According to "The Well Adult," exercise by itself "does not produce a significant weight loss." In fact, the book says that exercising regularly helps people lose only about 0.3 lb. per week or only about 5 percent of lost weight.
In addition, rapid weight loss usually is not permanent because human beings "just don't burn fat very fast," reports Columbia University's Health Q&A Internet Service.
Calorie Math
Losing 1 lb. requires burning off 3,500 calories. This means that you have to play tennis for more than 8 hours or swim slowly for more than 11 hours to lose 1 lb., according to the "Calories Expended by Exercise" chart in "The Well Adult."
"Instead of focusing on quick weight loss, focus on ways to keep healthy and active in order to reach your long-term fitness and weight-management goals," reports Columbia's health service.
Death Possible
People who want to lose weight rapidly often try to do so via intense exercise, but the anecdotes about healthy people dropping dead during marathons are backed up by scientific data.
A study by Dr. Paul Thompson concluded that people were seven times more likely to die while jogging than while being sedentary. "Vigorous exercise both protects against and provokes sudden cardiac death," wrote Thompson, according to "Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease." Thompson's article was published in 1982 by the "Journal of the American Medical Association."
Other Risks
People who are trying to lose weight rapidly via intense exercise are taking risks even if medical checkups indicate that they have healthy hearts.
According to The Merck Manual of Medical Information, overexercising "makes joints, muscles, tendons, and bones ache, increases the risk of injury, and makes a person irritable." The encyclopedia adds that exercising intensely every day leads to problems with skeletal muscles.
Merck recommends not exercising the same way every day because muscles need a day of rest after exercise. If you don't feel good after exercising, you have exercised too much, reports Merck's.
Symptoms
You are exercising too much if you have one or more of the following symptoms, reports "The Well Adult."
* Ten minutes after you are done, you are still breathless.
* Five minutes after you are done, your heart rate is not that much lower than it was while you were exercising.
* You feel lightheaded and/or have tightness in the chest.
Moderate Exercise
You should exercise moderately to improve your fitness level and long-term weight goals rather than lose weight rapidly. Moderate exercise will "provide you with almost all of the health and longevity benefits without most of the risks of more intense exercise," writes Ornish.
"The Well Adult" has numerous tips for modest exercise. These tips include warming up for 5 to 10 minutes by doing stretches or sit-ups, exercising at a pulse rate that is 70 to 85 percent of your maximum (220 minus your age), stretching for 5 to 10 minutes after exercising rather than just stopping, and exercising 20 to 30 minutes per day, three to five times per week.
Exercise Math
You should consider the following exercises while you keep in mind that they will not help you achieve a rapid weight loss.
Moderate running (10 miles per hour) results in 900 calories lost per hour. Second on "The Well Adult" chart at 660 calories per hour is fast bicycling (13 miles per hour). Rounding out the top 10 is racquetball (600), moderate swimming (500), hill climbing (480), tennis (420), table tennis (360), volleyball and horseback riding (350) and fast walking and slow swimming (300).
However, Merck reports that swimming is not a good activity for losing weight because metabolism does not remain high if you move from water to land.
References
- "Dr. Dean Ornish's Program for Reversing Heart Disease," Dr. Dean Ornish, 1996
- "The Well Adult," Dr. Mike Samuels and Nancy Samuels, 1988
- The Merck Manual of Medical Information, 1997
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