PHYSIOLOGICA: IS THE ANSWER TO FAT LOSS, IN THE FRIDGE, OR ON THE TREADMILL?
Are you focussing all your effort in the gym for weight loss? If so, you might be setting yourself up for failure
Are you relying on going to the gym to lose weight? If so, it might be time to rethink your strategy. Workouts are incredibly valuable for improving general health; muscle strength, bone and joint health, cardiovascular health and of course mental well-being. However, for many people these are extra side effects for the main goal which is weight loss.
This may not be the most effective method; even a very strenuous high intensity workout might burn 500 calories, but most people, especially if you’re a beginner will burn way less than this, maybe more like 300 calories. To lose a 0.5 - 1kg per week using exercise, you need to be burning an extra 500-600 cals per day! That’s a very tough workout routine which even a competitive athlete might find difficult.
Let me describe a common scenario: Jane is 45, she wants to lose weight (i.e. lose fat) but she’s not exercised before and is just starting out, she wants to lose 6kg (just under a stone) in weight. So, she joins a gym, trains there three times per week. When she’s there, she works out on the recumbent exercise bike, does some sit ups and walks on the treadmill for a total of 45 minutes exercise, then she has a swim for 15 minutes. After she’s got changed and because she feels she’s deserved it, she has a coffee and a healthy organic blueberry muffin in the gym cafe.
What’s wrong with this? Well, unfortunately it’s very unlikely to result in her hitting her goal of losing weight, or more accurately losing body fat.
Why? Well a gym beginner will often stick with simple cardio exercises such as cycling, walking too fast on an incline on the treadmill (pointless, and my pet hate) and some kind of abdominal exercise in the mistaken but commonly held belief that you can burn fat from an area by exercising it. This may sound harsh, but to walk into a gym and just start exercising is a bit like taking your car motor apart yourself when it needs a service, you don’t have a clue what your doing, so you need an expert.
Jane’s workout above may, if she’s lucky burn 250 - 300 calories. In her trip to the cafe, she had a latte, which may be 250 calories, and an organic blueberry muffin is about 350 calories. So Jane’s burnt a net MINUS 300-350 calories from her visit to the gym.
This may sound simplistic but I assure you, I’ve seen this scenario occur first hand many, many times over the 30 years I’ve been in the fitness industry. People join gyms, see little or no results (because of situations similar to the above) continue for a few months, and then get disappointed and give up, arriving at the incorrect assumption that the gym didn’t work for them.
So what IS the right way?
According to a 2012 report by Health Club Management magazine, only 51.9 per cent of members retain membership for at least 12 months, and only 10.4 per cent are members for 48 months. So many people don’t see the value of exercise, and then cancel their membership. To achieve success in this particular goal, you need a combination of reduced calories AND an increased calorie burn.
To reduce calories, you first need to track your calories so you know how many calories you’re currently consuming. You also need a calorie goal based on your current weight, age, sex and activity level. This is called a TDEE or Total Daily Energy Expenditure, and it’s different for everyone.
Then, to put you into what’s called a caloric deficit, (fat loss) you need to subtract 300-500 calories off your TDEE. This then becomes your daily calorie target. You can find an online TDEE calculator on www.TDEE.com.
Once you have this daily calorie target, you can use an online calorie tracker app such as My Fitness Pal on your phone, to track what you eat and drink. These tracker apps are great for helping you stick to this daily calorie target.
If you do stick to this target, then you can expect to lose weight at a regular rate, safely and healthily. Maintaining regular activity and exercise is essential too, this will help maintain muscle mass as you drop body fat. This method is quite time consuming initially, but it gets easier and it works! Try it, give it a few weeks to get started and then see for yourself.
Good luck!
Lee