Will I Lose Weight If I Only Do Aerobic Exercise?
If you’re trying to shed some excess weight and keep it off, aerobic exercise can be a fantastic option. Aerobic exercise includes activities such as biking, walking, or swimming and is helpful because of how many calories it causes your body to burn. But is aerobic exercise enough or are there other factors that you should be considering? Let’s take a closer look and find out.
Is Aerobic Exercise Enough To Lose Weight?
While most may hope that doing aerobic exercise is all that is needed to help keep the pounds off, it is important to keep in mind that you must also be filling your body with nutritious foods while on a caloric deficit. These healthy foods can include options such as grass fed whey, whole grains, Greek yogurt, and fruit. Options like whole grain food can help you to fit in more complex carbs into your diet to give you energy, and whey is essential to help keep you get a healthy amount of protein into your diet each day.
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So what’s the deal with needing to have a caloric deficit? Most likely you have heard the phrase “Calories In, Calories Out.” This simply means that you need to burn off more calories that you end up taking in. That is the biggest “secret” to weight loss. And if you’ve been exercising like crazy but still haven’t lost any weight, you most likely haven’t adjusted your caloric intake each day.
According to a study back in 1998 that was published by Oxford Journals, various groups were studied who practiced aerobic exercise throughout the week. At the end of the study, those who performed aerobic exercise in combination with a caloric reduction lost the most amount of body fat.
What’s The Difference between Aerobic and Anaerobic Exercise aka Weight Loss Weight Training?
Anaerobic simply means “living without air.” These types of exercises are very short but are packed with high intensity. Basically, by the time you are done, your body needs more oxygen that there is available in your body. However, this type of exercise is not reliant on oxygen in order for you to thrive when performing it. Instead, anaerobic exercise utilizes energy storage that is located within the muscles of your body.
As said, anaerobic exercise is much more intense and includes activities such as weight loss weight training, plyometrics, and sprinting.
Combine Aerobic and Anaerobic Exercises to Change Your Body aka Weight Loss Weight Training!
Although LiveStrong says that aerobic exercises can cause you to burn more calories than you would by performing things like weight lifting, both anaerobic and aerobic exercises are needed to produce the best body composition changes.
Keep in mind that while aerobic exercise helps your body to burn calories, it does almost nothing to help pack on new muscle. According to a post by Columbia Health, your metabolic rate starts to drop if you continue to practice aerobic exercise only, as muscle growth slows down. Because of this, weight gain can soon occur.
To lose more weight while building muscle, Columbia Health recommends combining a strict regimen of both aerobic and anaerobic exercises. For instance, you may choose to do some weight loss weight training and also jog for a few miles throughout the week. However, it is recommended that these exercises should not be performed on the same day.
Columbia Health noted that a study performed by Irv Rubenstein, an exercise physiologist, found that the people packed on the most muscle mass when they lifted weights one day and performed their cardio on another day. If you only have time to perform your exercises in one day, be sure to lift weights first, as you’ll have the most amount of energy at that time. Afterwards, you can do your cardio routine.
Switch up Your Routine for Maximum Results
Just as you may be getting bored with your exercise routine week after week, your body gets bored as well! As Muscle & Strength says, once your body adapts to the stress of a new workout, it will stop growing.
Switching up your routine can help “shock” your body into constantly growing and never getting too used to a workout routine. Muscle & Fitness recommends things like:
- Switching up the days you perform certain exercises
- Adding higher intensity
- Switch around exercise order
- Pre-Exhaustion techniques in the gym to burst through plateaus
So there you have it. To maximize your fat loss and change your body composition, always be sure to perform both aerobic and anaerobic exercises in combination with a caloric deficit and healthy diet. Practice these things on a weekly basis and you should see some amazing changes to your current physique.
