Does Exercise Help You To Lose Weight?

Exercise, according to Wikipedia, is any bodily activity that enhances or maintains physical fitness and overall health and fitness. It involves engaging in physical activity and increasing the heart rate beyond resting level.

Exercise is performed for many reasons, it might be to aid growth or to improve strength, to prevent some signs of aging, to develop muscles or the entire cardiovascular system, to improve health, hone athletic skills, for weight loss or weight maintenance, and some people definitely do it for enjoyment. It is an important part of preserving physical and mental health.

You can either choose to exercise outside where you can congregate in groups or socialize and enhance well-being or choose to exercise in the gym (personal or public) where you can meditate while at it.

When talking about the health benefit of exercise, you should understand that the amount of recommended exercise depends on your goal, the type of exercise, and your age. No matter how small the intensity of the exercise is, it is very much better than doing none.

Whether you engage in light exercises, such as going for a walk or high-intensity activities, for example, uphill cycling or weight training, regular exercise provides a huge benefit for the body and mind. Physical exercise is important for maintaining physical fitness and can also contribute to maintaining a healthy weight. Taking part in the exercise of any intensity every day is essential for preventing a range of diseases and other health issues.

Classification Of Exercise

Aerobic Exercise: this refers to any physical activity that uses large muscle groups and causes the body to use more oxygen than it would have used while resting, thus, it aims to improve how the body uses oxygen. This type of exercise is always engaged in to increase cardiovascular endurance and uses large muscles and some of the examples of such are; running, cycling, walking, skipping rope, playing tennis, swimming, dancing, continuous training, running long distance, rowing and hiking among others.

Most aerobic exercise takes place at an average level of intensity over longer periods.  Anaerobic exercise session involves warming up, exercising for at least 20 minutes, and then cooling down.

Benefits OF Aerobic Exercise

• Aerobic exercise improves muscle strength in the lungs, heart, and whole body
• It lowers blood pressure
• It improves circulation and blood flow in the muscles
• It increases the red blood cell count to enhance oxygen transportation
• It also reduces the risk of diabetes, stroke, and cardiovascular disease (CVD)
• It improves life expectancy and symptoms for people with coronary artery diseases.
• It improves sleep hygiene
• It stimulates bone growth and reduces the risk of osteoporosis when at high intensity to store energy molecules, such as fats and carbohydrates, within the muscle.
• It also enhances stamina by increasing the body ability

Anaerobic Exercise:

This classification includes strength and resistance training and can firm, strengthen, and increase muscle mass, as well as improve bone density, balance, and coordination. Examples of strength exercise push-ups, pull-ups, squats, bench press, lunges. Anaerobic exercise also includes weight training or weightlifting, intensive and fast skipping with a rope, eccentric training, interval training, isometrics, sprinting, and high-intensity interval training which increase short-term muscle strength. These activities are high-intensity activities that should last no longer than around 2 minutes.

Although all exercises are beneficial to the heart and lungs, anaerobic exercise provides fewer benefits for cardiovascular health than aerobic exercise and uses fewer calories. However, it is more effective than aerobic exercise for building muscle and improving strength. Increasing body mass can cause the body to burn more fat, even while resting. Muscle is the most efficient tissue for burning fat in the body.

Agility Exercise:

Agility training aims to improve your ability to maintain control while speeding up, slowing down, and changing direction. While playing tennis, for example, agility training helps the players to maintain control over their court positioning through good recovery after each shot.
People who are involved and take part in sports that heavily rely on positioning, coordination, speed, and balance need to engage in agility training regularly. Examples of sports that require agility are tennis, American football, hockey, boxing, basketball, soccer, volleyball, wrestling, badminton, and martial arts.

Stretching and Flexibility Exercise:

They stretch and lengthen muscles. These activities combine stretching, muscle conditioning, and balance training. Activities such as stretching help to improve joint flexibility and keep muscle limber. The goal is to improve the range of motion which can reduce the chance of injury. A popular and effective example is yoga.

Yoga movements improve balance, flexibility, posture, and circulation. The practice started in India thousands of years ago and aims to unify the mind, body, and spirit. Today’s yoga uses a combination of meditation, posture, and breathing exercises to achieve the same goals.

Pilates is another stretching option that promotes flexibility and core strength. Tai chi is also an effective option for exercise that promotes calm stretching rather than intensity.

Benefits Stretching and Flexibility Exercise

• If you are looking to manage arthritis, you might need gentle stretches to improve mobility and function.
• Someone with depression, on the other hand, may need more emphasis on the relaxation and deep breathing elements of yoga.

Types Of Exercise

• Dynamic Exercise: these are the exercise that involves movement, it has to do with you leaving a certain position to another. This type of exercise improves flexibility and speed among others. It includes activities such as steady running, which tend to produce a lowering of the diastolic blood pressure during exercise, due to the improved blood flow.
• Static Exercise: exercise such as weight lifting can cause the systolic pressure to rise significantly, albeit transiently, during the performance of the exercise.

Benefits Of Exercise

• It is important for maintaining physical fitness
• It can contribute to maintaining a healthy weight
• It helps to regulate the digestive system
• It can also help to build and maintain healthy bone density
• It helps with muscle strength and joint mobility
• Exercise can reduce surgical risk
• It strengthens the immune system
• Moderate levels of exercise can prevent aging by reducing inflammatory potentials.

Risks Of Not Exercising

A sedentary lifestyle can increase the risk of some health problems, health problems such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer, osteoporosis, and some other ones that may get worse if the patient chooses to resolve to an immobile or sedentary lifestyle. A lack of physical activity causes approximately 6% of the burden of disease from coronary heart disease, 7% of type 2 diabetes, 10% of breast cancer, and 10% of colon cancer worldwide.

It can also be a factor in the increase of premature death from all causes including the complications of being overweight and obese. A survey actually reveals that around 1 in 13 adults have extreme obesity and face an increased risk of severe health complications. Overall, lack of physical activities causes 9% of premature mortality worldwide.

Tips For Starting Your Exercise Routine

It is not always easy to maintain an exercise routine for a lot of people. You can use the following tips to achieve long-term success:

• Have a clear goal: Whether for health reasons or otherwise, try to always keep in mind the reason you started increasing your exercise levels.
• Work At Your Own Pace: Doing too much too quickly can increase the risk of injury and the chance to develop a stable routine. Set targets based on the goals you established at the start of the regimen and celebrate small wins to boost confidence.
• Enjoy Yourself: A regimen is more sustainable if a person enjoys the physical activities that it involves.
• Join A Club With A Friend: If you join a fitness club with a friend, or exercise with a friend, you may enjoy the sessions more. Some people prefer not to have the stress of someone else around. This depends on you.
• Trainers And Tutors Can Be Helpful: People just starting a regimen or looking to step up their routine may benefit from a personal trainer or teacher. They can provide motivation and guidance, helping people track their goals and stay dedicated
• Vary Your Exercises: Change your exercise program every few weeks. Mixing it up can help a person work on different muscle groups and increase the range of benefits. If you enjoy one particular exercise, such as running, try changing the speed and distance of a run, or follow a different route with more hills.
• Make It A Habit: After a few weeks of regularity, an exercise routine starts to become a habit, even if you find it difficult or boring at first. So maintain your endurance till then.

Here are some tips for fitting physical activity into a busy schedule

• See which car journeys you can replace with walking or cycling. Is driving to work necessary? If so, try parking half a mile away from the office and walking the final bit.
• People who commute to work by public transport could try getting off their bus or train a few stops early and walking the rest of the way.
• Consider walking up and down the stairs at your office instead of taking elevators or escalators.
• Try to think about the amount of time spent watching television and avoid binge-watching TV shows. While watching television for extended periods, light exercises, such as stomach crunches or jumping jacks, can help a person include more physical activity in their day.
• If a person enjoys video games, they could consider playing games that encourage physical activity, such as exercise routines on a Nintendo Wii.
• Vigorous housework, gardening, and going up and down the stairs while doing chores also qualify as physical activity and can help people meet the guidelines productively.

People will likely gain the most benefit from exercises they enjoy that fit their lifestyle.
Conclusion

Combining exercise with a healthy diet is a more effective way to lose weight than depending on calorie restriction alone. Exercise can prevent or even reverse the effect of certain diseases. Exercise also lowers blood pressure and cholesterol and this may prevent a heart attack.

Exercise can improve your health and help you lose weight, but eating a healthy diet is absolutely crucial as well. You can not outrun a bad diet.