GUEST POST: Did you know that our total energy expenditure (TEE), or the amount of calories we burn each day, is not really about how much we move? It’s mainly down to the basic processes essential for life – basal metabolic rate (BMR) – which makes up around 60-80% of energy use. Then we burn some calories in digesting and absorbing the food we eat (10%) leaving only around 20% of the energy we burn during the day down to the activity we do. So exercising is actually a smaller component of controlling our weight than everything else.
That’s why healthy nutrition is so important and why that old saying is true – “you can’t out run a bad diet.” If our activity only accounts for a small proportion of our total calorie burn then we can’t rely on exercise alone for weight loss – a fact borne out by many scientific studies. But combining dietary improvements with exercise means you can harness the powers of exercise to boost your nutritional improvements …. as well as your health.
We can achieve this by ensuring we build muscle with resistance exercises as much as doing cardio – because muscle burns more energy than fat. That means we can lose weight even when sitting on the sofa afterwards – which has got to be good! And exercising in the cold seems to boost brown fat, which burns rather than stores energy. But beware – it is possible to overdo exercise and hitting a weight-loss plateau isn’t necessarily a reason to exercise more. Too much can leave us tired and hungry and at risk of undoing all our good work on the weight-loss front by tucking into extra food later.
So, losing weight well is a balancing act. Getting the nutrients right will help you exercise and exercise in return will increase motivation and well-being through the endorphins or ‘happy chemicals’ it can release. Whereas fad, nutrient-poor diets and excessive exercise regimes are unsustainable, leaving you tired and demotivated. Remember, weight loss is a marathon, not a sprint. Take small steps that you can keep up for good and build on them, rather than going full pelt and running out of steam within a week or two.
Feature courtesy of Dr Sally Norton. NHS Weight Loss Consultant Surgeon. Health Expert & Writer. www.vavistalife.com