What Is The Best Exercise For Weight Loss?

What is the best exercise for weight loss?

This is a question that gets asked many times and in a nutshell  you don’t have to exercise in the “fat burning zone” for weight loss. You just need to burn up lots of calories doing some activity.

The “fat burning zone” I am talking about is where people do an aerobic type activity such as walking or slow jogging, trying to keep their intensity at a level where fat is the main source of energy being used for the exercise.

 I am sure nearly every person reading this will have seen an Olympic track sprinter without his shirt on or the women with a body hugging running outfit. Those men and women are extremely lean and would do next to no “fat burning zone” exercise. They do sprinting and strength training.

You might like to think of it as just like putting on weight but in reverse. When you put on weight it is the excess calories not the excess fat that you eat that puts the weight on.

 You can do strength training, some vigorous hill walking, circuit training, interval training in the pool, on a bike or treadmill or in park. All of these would put you out of the “fat burning zone” and  burn up calories for your weight loss with an added bonus of making you stronger also.The added bonus of becoming stronger means you will maintain or increase your muscle mass which then means you can burn more calories per hour per day. Loss of muscle mass is one of the main reasons why men & women over 50 put on weight each year and strength training will prevent this  loss of muscle.

 Muscle burns calories even when you are asleep which is great for weight loss. Muscle is like a car and fat is the caravan hitched on the back along for the ride. The car burns fuel but the caravan of fat burns nothing. Imagine having a bigger car which then burns more fuel just like having bigger muscles burn more calories.

This is the main reason why men need to eat more food than women ( with all other things being equal) and that is they have bigger muscles than women.

Now just about everyone can do walking or jogging which are traditional “fat burning” exercises but strength training, circuit training and interval training are modes of exercise that most “walkers and joggers” are not familiar with. This is where a couple of sessions with an experienced personal trainer would be worthwhile to learn which exercises are suitable for you and also how to perform then effectively and safely.

So for men & women over 50, to burn more calories for weight loss you need to get out of your “fat burning zone” and do exercise that is higher in intensity than walking or jogging.

At Everybody Personal Fitness we specialise in training men and women who are in their 40s, 50s and 60s, and understand how to get results for those in the prime of their lives.