Article 43: How to Exercise Without Gaining Weight and Whether Exercise Alone Can Help You Lose Weight

Exercise can help you lose weight, and it's also suitable for preventing weight gain. However, many young people who want to prevent weight gain don't stop exercising because they think: some people's arms and legs get thicker after exercising, making them look "fat" even though they weren't fat to begin with; others lose weight through exercise but become fatter after stopping, so they think it's better not to exercise at all.

The "looking fatter" after exercise is due to increased muscle volume, resulting in a thicker physique. This is because exercisers often overlook two principles: whether aiming to prevent weight gain or lose weight, bodybuilding requires moderate-intensity, prolonged exercise. As the saying goes, "slow and steady wins the race," and bodybuilding is a meticulous process; being too hasty will backfire.

Excessive exercise can strongly stimulate a specific area, leading to a sudden increase in muscle volume. Practice has shown that moderate-intensity exercise can eliminate fat without building muscle. This can be controlled by heart rate; aim for a heart rate below 150 beats per minute during exercise, with an average heart rate of 130 beats per minute.

It has also been confirmed that the body only begins to use fat for energy after 20 minutes of exercise, so each exercise session should last at least 30 minutes. If you are exercising to lose weight, you should exercise for more than 60 minutes a day, 5 days a week; if you are only trying to control your weight, you can exercise every other day.

The reason why some people gain weight again after exercising is that after exercising for a period of time, they see that their weight is under control or that they have lost weight, so they think they have "achieved their goal" and are unwilling to exercise anymore. However, even though the amount of exercise has decreased, the amount of food consumed has not, which allows fat cells to "breathe" and replenish themselves, causing them to "reignite" from their dead state.

To avoid gaining weight after exercising, the best way is not to stop exercising abruptly. You can try this method: appropriately reduce the amount and frequency of exercise. For example, exercise only 2-3 times a week, for about 60 minutes each time. You can use light weight exercises such as isometric muscle training.

Dietary control can be achieved through an interval method, alternating between two weeks of normal eating and two weeks of dieting. During the dieting weeks, only general dietary control is needed, primarily reducing the intake of sugars and fats. This method is also effective for maintaining a normal weight after losing weight through exercise.

Exercise is arguably the best way to lose weight, but it's important to note that this isn't just a short-term workout; it's about engaging in every activity your body does every day. To lose weight, you need to increase the amount of exercise to burn calories. At the same time, you must be careful not to increase your food intake. You need to combine exercise with a proper diet; exercise alone will not lead to weight loss.

The more you exercise, the more calories you burn. Therefore, you should take full advantage of opportunities to exercise. For example, stand instead of sitting, walk instead of taking a car, and don't take the elevator home. These are simple things to do, but they have significant effects. You can also increase your exercise by participating in various activities you enjoy, such as dancing, swimming, skiing, and other recreational sports.

If you take a walk for 20-30 minutes every day, you can lose 4.5 kilograms in a year. This shows that exercise is the best way to lose weight. While exercise burns calories, relying solely on exercise for weight loss is not very effective.

Even if you play tennis for hours every day, just one or two cans of soda or a few pieces of pastry can wipe out all your hard-earned weight loss results. Therefore, to achieve lasting weight loss, in addition to exercise, you should also make reasonable adjustments to your diet.

Compared to physical exercise, dietary therapy each has its advantages and disadvantages. Dietary therapy forces the body to consume a large amount of energy, resulting in rapid and significant weight loss. However, it inevitably depletes the body's protein and water reserves, and weight is difficult to control after stopping the diet, often resulting in a rebound effect. This is its main drawback. Weakness and fatigue are common symptoms during dietary control, often causing distress for those trying to lose weight.

Physical exercise for weight loss, especially physical activities suitable for middle-aged and elderly patients, generally does not consume much energy and results in a small weight loss. However, it promotes the breakdown of fat, conserves amino acids, and also promotes the synthesis of protein in muscles. Often, fat tissue decreases while muscle protein increases. Thus, even if the weight change is not significant, the treatment of obesity is very successful, achieving both weight loss and fitness effects, which is highly advisable.

In practical application, the two should be combined well, allowing diet control to play the main role while supplementing it with appropriate physical exercise to consolidate the weight loss effect.

Obese individuals who engage in moderate physical activity can significantly reduce their risk of developing pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer death in the United States, and research findings from the Harvard School of Public Health offer greater hope for obese individuals to avoid this disease.

Compared to people of normal weight, obese individuals are 72% more likely to develop pancreatic cancer. A study from the Harvard School of Public Health found that obese individuals improved their glucose levels through exercise; however, glucose levels were often abnormal in people who rarely exercised.

If we think in reverse, we can easily conclude that exercise reduces the incidence of diabetes. Previous studies have already shown that diabetic patients are a high-risk group for pancreatic cancer.

Diabetic patients have very little or no insulin secretion from their pancreas. Over time, they develop insulin resistance, which greatly increases their risk of pancreatic cancer.

Obese individuals who consistently engage in 30 minutes to an hour of exercise per week, such as brisk walking or cycling, can reduce their risk of pancreatic cancer by 50%. However, research has also found that this theory only applies to obese individuals.

Maintaining a normal and stable weight over the long term depends on a balance between energy expenditure and intake. Exercise offers several health benefits for obese individuals, including:

Exercise helps with weight loss because it burns a significant amount of energy, the amount of which depends on the duration and intensity of the exercise. Increased muscle activity during exercise requires a large amount of energy to sustain itself, thus helping to burn off excess calories consumed.

Generally, even light physical activity can increase the body's energy expenditure by 10% to 20%. The average daily energy expenditure for adults is 8786 to 11297 kilojoules, and exercise can further increase this expenditure. The amount of energy expenditure varies depending on the type of aerobic exercise.

Exercise reduces body fat, but lean body mass remains unchanged. American research reports that walking for 30-60 minutes daily, a low-intensity physical activity, can significantly increase calorie expenditure. Other studies suggest that 20 minutes of exercise at least three times a week can burn 1255 kilojoules of energy per session, reducing body fat. Japanese researchers observed obese individuals for one month using aerobic exercise primarily consisting of walking and swimming, finding that while fat decreased, lean body mass (excluding fat) did not.

Obese individuals often experience a decrease in appetite after engaging in appropriate-intensity exercise. This is because exercise increases serotonin levels, thereby suppressing appetite and reducing calorie intake. Exercise can also improve the activity of abdominal organs, enhance gastrointestinal motility, and reduce common digestive symptoms such as bloating and constipation.

Muscle exercise can increase the utilization rate of glucose in the blood, prevent excess sugar from being converted into fat, and reduce fat formation. At the same time, exercising muscles enhances the uptake and utilization of free fatty acids in the blood, and the free fatty acids in the blood are replenished from fat cells. As a result, the body fat is consumed more quickly, body fat is reduced, and weight is decreased.

Exercise can enhance the metabolism of proteins in muscle tissue, increase the activity of enzymes in muscles, enhance the metabolic capacity of muscle cells, increase the energy consumed, promote the consumption of sugars and fats, increase muscle fibers, and reduce fat storage.

The reason why a normal person's weight can remain constant is mainly because the neuroendocrine system regulates metabolism properly. However, in obese people, this regulatory function is disordered, which leads to obesity.

Exercise can effectively regulate the activity of the cerebral cortex, restore the normal regulation of metabolism by the neuroendocrine system, promote fat breakdown, and reduce obesity. Studies have found that the body's basal metabolic rate remains higher than before exercise even after exercise has stopped; for example, oxygen consumption 15 minutes after a football match is still 25% higher than before exercise.

Exercise helps improve myocardial function, enhance respiratory ventilation, and promote gastrointestinal function, thus improving the overall physical condition of obese individuals. Long-term exercise can improve myocardial metabolism, enhance myocardial contractility, reduce fat deposition in the myocardium, reduce cardiac load, increase vascular elasticity, and enhance the cardiovascular system's adaptability to physical activity, thereby improving overall cardiovascular function. Exercise can also enhance respiratory muscle contractility, increase the activity of the chest and diaphragm, deepen breathing, increase lung capacity, improve respiratory function, and accelerate gas exchange, which is beneficial for oxidizing and burning excess fat.

Exercise can regulate the activity of the cerebral cortex, making people feel energetic, improving sleep efficiency, shortening sleep time, and boosting metabolism in various bodily systems, thereby increasing the basal metabolic rate. A higher basal metabolic rate leads to increased energy expenditure and fat burning, thus reducing fat storage.