Want To Lose Weight? Then DO NOT Exercise


So, you just want to lose weight. Great!

A big slice of the fitness industry does not want you to know this, but studies on health, weight loss and exercise show that exercise won’t help you all that much.

Not in isolation.

It just won’t really work for you.

Here’s why.

Controlling Calorie Intake Is Far Easier Than Controlling Calorie Burn

As you know, on a basic level, we lose weight when we use up more calories than we eat.

Eating 500 calories less than you need every day for a week is the equivalent of jogging for between 5 and 7 hours (depending on your body composition).

It just doesn’t make sense to put all that exercise effort in – nearly a whole working day’s worth of exercise every week – when you can cut out some calories instead.

What you need to do is adjust your diet. Get the basics right first.

Exercise is secondary to diet when your primary goal is losing weight.

Go to our calorie calculator, see what you should be eating and make the deductions from there.

When you know how many calories you need to eat to maintain your existing body weight, you can eat less and start to lose weight.

Lose A Stone In Three Months

Generally speaking, eating 500 calories less than you need will result in weight loss of one pound every week. That’s a stone in three months. Without exercising.

That 500 calorie a day deficit is a rough figure, as everybody is different. It could be anything between 300 and 550 calories a day that you need to remove to lose a pound  each week. We’re all different.

It also depends on what phase of weight loss you’re in.

Phase I Weight Loss

This phase starts as soon as calorie intake is reduced and it lasts between 5 and 25 days. In phase I, weight loss is rapid and is a result of the body’s initial response to a lower energy intake. We shed water as our glycogen stores are depleted.

Water weight is easy come, easy go. Truly incinerating the fat requires sticking to your plan for a while, taking advantage of fat burning mode over time. This is phase II weight loss.

Phase II Weight Loss

As the body begins to adjust to a negative energy balance, the rate of weight loss slows. Enter Phase II. This can last from 100 days in lean individuals to 300 days in obese individuals and you’ll see a lot more weight come off in phase II, as your body eats into its fat stores.

You do not want to go past Phase II weight loss, as your body begins to slow your metabolic rate right down to conserve energy and affects your wellbeing.

So, if it’s all about the weight loss. Save yourself between 4 months and a year of exercise time and make dietary adjustments instead. Honestly, it’s the best route forward.

It’ll also be far cheaper and will save you a lot of time.

The Real Importance Of Exercise

Exercise is a way to lose weight, it’s just not the best way, you need to fix your diet first.

However, if you realise that you want to tone up as well as lose weight, that’s where exercise will play a part.

Exercise will make you healthy in other ways too.

Also, if you’re already doing the right things with your diet, then exercise will help speed along the process. But exercise is not an excuse to eat badly. You’re just wasting your time if you do that.

And your time is a finite resource, don’t waste it.

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