Losing weight requires regular changes in working out!

A lot of people take great pains on regular working out and cutting caloric value of meals. For some time their body mass declines but later a pace of losing weight decrease or stops doing wrong.

Everyone with overweight caused by bad nutrition and sedentary lifestyle, after going on a diet and undertaking any physical activity, will start losing weight. Even walking in a medium pace 3-4 times per week and slight deficit of calories in a menu are a change big enough for organism to derive energy from fat tissue.

For first weeks or even months, weight declines, and after that - stops. It happens because of a couple of reasons. The first is that organism gets used to exertion, and when it will get used to - it starts to use less energy for that exertion, and burns less calories. The second reason is that calories burning during exertion and during everyday activities decreases with the reduction of the body mass - the less you weigh the less calories you burn. The third reason is loss of calories deficit as an effect of a diet - it also decreases with the reduction of the body mass.

The result of these mechanisms is that after some time and after body mass reduction you no longer burn same calories during day and workout as you did on the beginning of the slimming process.

Below you’ll find a comparison of energy requirements and burning calories for two people with a different body mass.

Woman, 30 years old, body mass: 90 kilograms
Energy requirement: 1670 kcal
45 minutes walk in a medium pace: 255 kcal

Woman, 30 years old, body mass: 65 kilograms
Energy requirement: 1430 kcal
45 minutes walk in a medium pace: 184 kcal

The difference is: 240 kcal in energy requirements and 71 kcal in calories burning during a walk, a total difference of more than 300 kcal. That means that a woman with a body mass of 65 kilograms, to keep the beginning pace of slimming, every day should walk two times longer!

What to do to keep the pace of losing weight?

There’re two ways to achieve that. The first is by cutting calories. But the problem is when your diet has already been low in calories - in that case you can’t cut more calories because your organism will enter into energy saving mode and will slow down your metabolism.

The second way is about regular modifications of physical activity. You should either extend the time dedicated to work out or stay with previous time but increase the intensity of exercises.

Speeding up from 4,8 km/h (medium pace of marching) to 7,2 km/h (very fast march) lets a woman with body mass of 65 kg, burn 307 kcal in 45 minutes, so 123 kcal more than in a medium pace march. To achieve that result marching for a longer time, she should be walking in a medium pace for 1 hour and 15 minutes, so extend the time of exertion by 30 minutes.

You can also increase the number of training days in every week what will increase calories burned weekly. 

But not everyone can dedicate more and more time for training, that’s why for those who count every minute, increasing training intensity is a better solution. You don’t have to wait weeks for implementing these changes.

Intensity of exertion or its time can be increased (only gradually!) from week to week as organism gets easily used to such tasks - condition improvement happens exactly from week to week, especially in the first weeks of training.

The perfect slimming work out program is not only composed of cardio training or aerobic (walk, run, riding a bike etc.) but also of exercises sustaining the body. That second type of exertion also needs modifications. That means you have to work out with bigger resistance on weight machines, add dumbbells or elastic tapes in those exercises you haven’t used extra resistance yet.

You can also increase series of exercises - for example from 2 to 3 or start working out 3 times a week instead of 2 times. But never put more resistance and at the same time increase number of exercises and training days in a week. Implement changes one at a time and do that every 4-6 weeks.

Summary

To lose weight successfully for a longer time it’s necessary to modify exercises:

• from week to week extend time for cardio training, also called a circuit training, or increase its intensity,
• every 4-6 weeks use bigger resistance in weight training.

Remember that as far as in keeping a constant body mass - less intense, rare exertion is fine, when you want to mobilize your organism to lose overweight you need to give more effort - you need to raise your standards higher and higher. You can also reduce the caloric value of your diet, but only if it wasn’t already drastically reduced.

*This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. The information contained herein is not a substitute for and should never be relied upon for professional medical advice. Always talk to your doctor about the risks and benefits of any treatment.