Best exercise for weight loss

What is the best exercise for weight loss ? I can only tell you what worked (and didn’t work) for me.

Even the best exercise for weight loss needs to be regular

First though, to state the obvious, you need to make your chosen exercise a regular part of your routine and do it for an extended period of time before you can expect to notice results.

The two ways that exercise can help your weight loss

Over a period of time, exercise can help with two things that will support your weight loss.

Calories burned during exercise

The amount of calories your body burns when exercising. This is is influenced by your body weight, workout intensity, conditioning level and metabolism.

Calories burned at rest

The amount of calories your body burns at rest. The number of calories burned at rest is called the basal metabolic rate. It’s a measure of how much energy your body uses just to keep all bodily functions up and running. I.E. your body temperature regulated, your heart beating, your brain humming, and so on. To affect this one you need to increase muscle as muscles continue to burn calories when at rest.

Add the two together and you’ve got a magic formula for weight loss from exercise.

What I’ve found to be the best exercise for weight loss

I’m getting on a bit and so my staple exercise (that really works for me) is brisk regular walking – uphill whenever I can. I’ve even done a full marathon! And I walk a lot every day. I also do Kettlebells and pilates with a little bit of HIT thrown in for the rest on a weekly basis.

And it seems the science backs up what I’ve learnt through practice!

Where exercise appears to matter most is for preventing weight gain, or for keeping off pounds once you’ve lost weight, says Cris Slentz, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at Duke University. “Exercise seems to work best for body weight control,” he says. The National Weight Control Registry, which since 1994 has tracked more than 10,000 people who shed an average of 66 pounds and kept it off for at least five years, agree. Ninety percent of successful weight loss maintainers exercise for about an hour a day and their activity of choice is cardio, simply walking.