It has been drilled in to us that in order to lose weight we need to exercise hard and follow a restrictive diet. I’m sure many of us, including myself, have done something like this.
By over exercising, I did manage to lose weight, 10kg in fact. However, within a year, I had gained the weight back plus a few extra kilos. I’m sure this sounds like a familiar story.
The hard truth is, over exercising prevents weight loss.
What went wrong? How could I gain it all back after working so hard? In this article I explain, from my own experience, how an extreme exercise regime can prevent you from losing weight. So Let’s dive in!
Read more: Why Over Exercising Prevents Weight loss And Makes You Gain Weight!
Table of Contents
Why Do We Exercise?
Exercise is not just used to lose weight. It has many physical benefits. It can improve strength, endurance, stamina, mobility and visceral health. Harvard Health Publishing highlights that exercising regularly whilst young can help slow down the ageing process and allow people to live healthier, happier and longer lives.
Exercise also has many mental benefits. This article, suggests that exercise can help reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. By releasing endorphins and serotonin, it can help improve mood, self esteem and cognitive function.
Is Exercise Important To Lose Weight?
To lose weight, our expenditure needs to be higher than our input. This is fancy way of saying we need to be in a calorie deficit.
To put it simply, we need to consume slightly less energy than we burn during the day.
So do we need to exercise to lose weight? Exercising is the easiest way to increase our energy expenditure; however, you still need to reduce your calorie intake to ensure you’re in a calorie deficit.
Harvard Health Publishing recognises that the body will burn energy whilst on ‘idle’ and not only through exercising. Activities like breathing, standing and itching your leg all use energy. This is know as BMR (Basic Metabolic Rate). It is the amount of energy used to maintain basic bodily functions.
Exercise is a great way of increasing our energy expenditure and with the added health benefits, why wouldn’t you. But flogging yourself in the gym everyday defiantly isn’t going to lead to weight loss.
What Happens When You Over Exercise?
So you’ve decided to shed some extra kilo’s and you’ve signed up to a gym and sweated your heart out. Fuelled by the endorphins, you’ve gone hard for first 2 weeks.
It’s week 3 and the 7 days a week in the gym and the calorie deficit is starting to catch up with you. You not only feel physical exhausted but mentally as well.
You decide to add a rest day, which then becomes 3 and before you know it you’ve missed a whole week of exercising. The guilt makes you feel terrible and your so hungry from dieting and exercising, you binge on your favourite foods. Next week you go hard in the gym again but the week after you feel to tired to train and instead eat takeaways for dinner.
What i’m describing is known as burnout. If you go too hard for too long, your mind and your muscles will have nothing left to give. Your body will look for comfort and will increase your cravings and before you know it you’ve binged on 1000’s of calories worth of food, normally more then you would eat.
I managed to lose weight but when the burnout caught up to me, I gained it back and got heavier. Because my body was so exhausted it was demanding i have more food to help replenish my energy. I ended up with in incurable appetite and was eating more food then I ever normally would!
How Much Exercise Do I Need To Do To Lose Weight?
There’s no short game when it comes to weight loss. If you want results that will last in the future you have to play the long game.
Losing weight is all about balance and consistency.
You are not going to be able to work out 7 days a week for the rest of your life, instead aim for an amount of days that you know you will show up for. The amount of workouts through out the week should also give your body enough time to recover.
It is recommended that 30-60 minutes of moderate intensity exercise 3-5 days a week is all that is necessary.
Nutrition plays an equally as important role. Eating too little can result in vitamin deficients, fatigue and other health complications. It is important that the body is correctly fuelled.
A TDEE calculator is a great way of figuring out how many calories you need to be eating based on your goals.
Quality vs Quantity
I truely believe that in order to reach you goals you need to find a routine that will work for you in the long run.
For me; exercising for 2 hours a day, 7 days a week was not maintainable. The quality of my workouts sucked, as I was not able to put in anywhere near enough effort.
30-60 minutes workouts, 3-4 days a week works the best for me.
I mix up my workouts and incorporate things I actually enjoy. This includes going to the gym, running, boxing, at home workouts, ocean swims and hiking.
The quality of your workouts and the enjoyment you get from them is far more important than the quantity. You will not maintain something that is not enjoyable or attainable.
It has taken me 4 years to reverse the damage I did with over exercising. I have finally found a balance and I now understand why over exercising prevents weight loss.
I Hope this article helps you on your weight loss journey, I wish I had known all this before I started!
