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Exercise and Body Fat

Before you get down to losing weight, it is better if you understand why body fat is important in weight loss and health. There is now a sufficient body of information that shows a direct link between lack of physical activity and body fat. This means that if you lead a sedentary life, you are bound to put on weight.

To reduce your body weight, increase the amount of exercise you do rather than reducing your food intake. If you are more active, you automatically lose more calories and so reduce weight. While at home, climb the stairs instead of taking the elevator, move around the house instead of sitting in one place, sit up instead of lying down and be active, not still.

It is very important for you to lose all that extra body weight you’re carrying around, especially on health grounds. You could be prone to a number of diseases and serious health problems. These days, as more light is being thrown on this subject, we learn that an excess of calories means an excess of saturated fat.

If you diet but do not exercise, you get fatter in time, though you may lose some while dieting. This weight loss, however, usually comprises water and muscle, but when the weight returns, it does so as fat. To avoid such a situation, increase your metabolism by exercising regularly.

Which exercises help: To burn body fat, walk as much as you can as this not only strengthens your bones but controls your weight and tones your leg muscles. Walk longer, not faster as this could otherwise make you feel sore and put you out of action for a while. Do high intensity walks on alternate days.

Other ways of losing body fat:

Do resistance training: Get onto a resistance training program which will help you lose calories and fat. Do exercises like bicep curl or shoulder press, push-ups, resistance bands, medicine balls, or training in water.

Compound training: You will become stronger with this very soon, but remember not to rest between sets of reps. So, do a set of bicep curls immediately followed by leg curls, for example. Don’t exceed 20 minutes on these exercises.

Cardiovascular exercises: These exercises help burn fat, for which the body needs oxygen for energy. Do a 40-minute workout of varied aerobic exercises three times a week. If you can’t give 40 minutes in one stretch, break up the time into smaller sessions. Do high intensity aerobic exercises to burn more calories run and walk alternately.

Change your routine so that you begin using more energy or calories than usual. Don’t take the car for small errands, instead walk. Take the stairs rather than the elevator and walk in the park instead of sitting in a café or restaurant.

Go in for small meals as this increases your metabolism and produces heat and energy to burn more calories faster. Have a cup of green tea before you set off for a jog as this burns more of fat by increasing the absorption of free fatty acids.

There is a lot of merit in exercising and everyone needs to exercise-whether thin or fat. More so if you are fat-so why remain unhealthy if health is just a little away from you?