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How Exercise is Crucial to Weight Loss

While there are countless diet programs that help to produce weight loss, few people understand how damaging it can be to diet through calorie-restriction without exercising regularly. Please read this information carefully, so that you don’t fall victim to improper weight loss. And, by the way, be aware that a lot of dieticians and nutritionists only understand calories and not how the human body works in every aspect.

Why Just Staving Yourself is Dangerous in the Long Run

Loss of Bone Density

Have you seen pictures or video of how the NASA astronauts must exercise every day in space on the shuttle? This is because being in space without gravity causing their muscles to weaken and diminish in capacity. And even with this exercise when they return to earth, they’re unable to deal with the sudden exertion of gravity. So they are put in giant wheelchairs, because just walking in their space suits is impossibly strenuous until their bodies recover and regain their normal strength. It’s a similar process with dieting without exercise. Our bodies require muscle exertion to maintain strong bones (See Dangers of Dieting Without Exercise: Calorie Restriction Weight Loss Without Exercise Leads to Bone Loss).  

Loss of Lean Muscle

When you diet and exercise, your metabolism speeds up and burns away fat. When you don’t exercise, the low calorie intake causes your body to burn up the easiest source of bodyweight to burn – lean muscle! (It’s medically called catabolism.) So while you do lose weight, you’re losing muscle mass, which weakens your strength, stamina (and eventually your bones) and what’s left over is jiggling body fat. Also, toned muscles are firmer and more compact (leaner) than body fat; and that’s the type of body shape that’s going to make you look more attractive. It takes a lot of effort to develop lean muscle, why lose it?

Avoid Gaining Weight Back, Retain Muscle and Higher Metabolism

Remember, the fatter you are when start losing weight, the more muscle mass is hidden under that fat. (It takes a lot of muscle to move around a body of 200 or 250 pounds.) If you exercise and maintain your muscle mass and bone density while your body fat is diminishing, then after you’ve stopped dieting you preserve your higher metabolism to maintain that slimmer body weight. (This is why people who don’t exercise gain back the weight they lost dieting.)

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Sources: Bone Mineral Density Response to Caloric Restriction-induced Weight Loss or Exercise-induced Weight Loss: a randomized controlled trial Archives of Internal Medicine 2006 Dec 11-25;166(22):2502-10 The Effects of Either High-intensity Resistance or Endurance Training on Resting Metabolic Rate American Journal of Clinical Nutrition Vol 55, 802-810Contributions of Working Muscle to Whole Body Lipid Metabolism are Altered by Exercise Intensity and Training American Journal of Physiology Endocrinology and Metabolism 2007 Jan;292(1):E107-16. Epub 2006 Aug 8

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