Exercise for weight loss: principles and program selection

Exercise for weight loss

The development of modern technology and the increase in the degree of mechanization and automation in operations have improved people's living and working conditions, freeing them from heavy physical labor.

However, due to the reduction in physical labor and the convenience of life, people have fewer and fewer opportunities to participate in sports, leading to various "diseases of civilization".

These "diseases of civilization" are actually diseases caused by lack of exercise or reduced physical activity, resulting from a sedentary lifestyle and a diet rich in food. Obesity is one of them.

There are many causes of obesity, but fundamentally, apart from disease factors, lack of exercise is the main cause.

Exercise-based weight loss methods involve using physical activity to reduce obesity and lose weight.

Currently, the main measures for treating obesity both domestically and internationally are to control diet and increase physical exercise to achieve energy balance, metabolize and consume excess fat, reduce weight, and prevent secondary diseases.

Among the treatments for obesity, physical exercise is second only to dietary control in importance.

Strengthening exercise can generally be used as an adjunct to dietary therapy, but for patients who are mildly obese and unwilling to accept strict dietary control, it can be used as the main treatment prescription.

Moreover, for obese children and adolescents who are still developing, simple dietary control, if not properly managed, can affect their normal physical development. Therefore, exercise is the preferred treatment for them.

It should be recognized that dietary control is passive; only by actively engaging in physical exercise to improve the body's metabolic function can the true goal of weight loss be achieved: strengthening the body, increasing muscle mass, shaping a healthy body, and enjoying a wonderful life.

Physical exercise is a sport suitable for men, women, young and old. By appropriately arranging activities according to one's own physical condition and conditions, it is something that everyone can do. It does not have a great economic burden, is not limited by sports venues or time, and is flexible and worth popularizing and promoting.

I. How does exercise help with weight loss?

1. Exercise can help with weight loss because it requires a lot of energy to be burned during exercise, and the amount of energy burned depends on the duration and intensity of the exercise.

In other words, the more endurance the exercise or the greater the intensity (load) of the exercise, the more energy is consumed through metabolism.

If the energy consumed consistently exceeds the energy intake, the body will utilize stored fat to generate heat to meet the needs of exercise; therefore, long-term, scientific physical exercise can reduce fat reserves and reduce weight.

2. 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 blood is replenished from fat cells, resulting in faster consumption of body fat and weight loss.

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

4. Physical exercise can act on the nervous and endocrine systems, increasing their excitability.

Increased levels of adrenaline and noradrenaline can enhance lipoprotein lipase activity, promote fat breakdown and utilization, increase free fatty acids, and reduce cholesterol, triglycerides, and other lipids, thus reducing their deposition in other solid organs. During exercise, insulin secretion decreases, reducing the conversion of sugar into fat and glycogen, promoting fat breakdown, and reducing fat formation.

5. Exercise helps improve myocardial function, strengthen respiratory ventilation, and promote gastrointestinal function, thus improving the overall physical condition of obese patients.

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, thus 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, accelerate gas exchange, and facilitate the oxidation and burning of excess fat.

6. Exercise regulates the activity of the cerebral cortex, resulting in a more energetic state, improved sleep efficiency and shorter sleep duration, increased metabolism in various bodily systems, and a higher basal metabolic rate.

An increased basal metabolic rate leads to increased energy expenditure and fat consumption, thereby reducing fat storage.

II. Selection of Sports

All exercise consumes energy, and as long as you control the amount of exercise (intensity and duration), you can achieve good weight loss results.

The choice of exercise should vary depending on the obese person's age, gender, and health condition.

Children and teenagers can choose activities that are fast-paced and more intense, such as long-distance running, ball sports, aerobics, rope skipping, and swimming.

Middle-aged and elderly people should choose slow-paced, low-intensity whole-body exercises, such as jogging, walking, middle-aged and elderly disco dancing, health exercises, and gateball.

Middle-aged and elderly obese patients with cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases should engage in appropriate physical activities under the guidance of a doctor, and should avoid participating in highly competitive or strenuous sports.

For obese teenagers, the time spent on warm-up and cool-down activities before and after exercise can be slightly shorter, while for middle-aged and elderly people, it is advisable to extend the time appropriately.

III. Choosing the optimal amount of exercise

1. Understand your own health condition: Before starting any weight loss exercise, obese individuals should undergo a comprehensive medical examination to understand whether the functions of their internal organs are normal. In particular, the physical examination of middle-aged and elderly people must be given high priority.

Physical examination is an effective measure for early detection, prevention and treatment of diseases. It is also an important means to guide obese people to exercise and improve their physical and mental health. It includes three aspects: general items, main examination items and auxiliary examinations.

General items include height, weight, obesity level, pulse, and blood pressure.

Main examination items: general internal medicine examination.

Ancillary examinations: These include examinations of the patient's physical condition, such as electrocardiogram, lung function, liver function, blood sugar, and blood lipids.

Through physical examinations, doctors can assess the health of obese individuals, identify any obesity-related complications such as hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, and other conditions that make exercise unsuitable. Based on the examination results, doctors can develop a reasonable weight loss exercise prescription for each individual.

2. Aerobic exercise: Foreign scholars have proposed that "aerobic exercise" is one of the most effective weight loss strategies.

Simply put, "aerobic exercise" is a stable and continuous exercise that ensures that the oxygen demand of the muscles does not exceed the supply that the heart and blood can provide. The metabolism of energy substances in the muscles takes place under aerobic conditions, resulting in thorough oxidation and sufficient energy supply.

This method is both strenuous and not overly strenuous, and it is better at adjusting muscle condition than other exercises, making it the most effective way to strengthen muscles and remove subcutaneous fat.

Aerobic exercise is not determined by the intensity of the exercise. Slow exercise is not necessarily aerobic exercise, and vigorous exercise is not necessarily aerobic exercise.

Slower-paced exercise typically doesn't require a large amount of energy and doesn't effectively utilize the body's fat for burning. However, strenuous exercise demands a lot of energy, and the body's aerobic breakdown of glucose cannot meet this need, necessitating anaerobic glycolysis. This anaerobic glycolysis is rapid and can produce a large amount of energy substances (ATP) in a short time. However, incomplete glucose oxidation produces a large amount of intermediate metabolites such as lactic acid. Lactic acid not only causes muscle soreness but also affects the breakdown of fat for energy. Incomplete fat burning and breakdown results in ketone bodies, some of which are excreted in urine.

After exercise, substances such as lactic acid and ketone bodies still participate in the synthesis and metabolism of sugar and fat, so not much fat is actually burned.

At the same time, during strenuous exercise, the energy requirement is large, and the body will also break down amino acids in the muscles. Protein is consumed, and more toxins are produced, which are harmful to the human body. The raw materials for protein synthesis are reduced, which will cause muscle atrophy. Therefore, strenuous exercise is not a simple weight loss exercise. Although exercise reduces weight, it is a kind of consumption exercise for the human body, which results in a decrease in physical strength and does not achieve the real weight loss effect.

Aerobic exercise can effectively ensure that fats and carbohydrates are fully broken down to produce heat and energy under aerobic conditions. Fat is burned completely and broken down thoroughly, which can effectively achieve the goal of weight loss and strengthening the body.

So, how can we ensure that the body's energy supply is carried out under aerobic conditions? In other words, what kind of exercise constitutes aerobic exercise?

It is generally believed that in order to ensure that the exercise intensity of dieters is not too strenuous, to maintain the oxygen supply from breathing to meet the needs of exercise, and to enable muscles to exercise and supply energy in an aerobic environment, the heart rate must be kept at a certain level during exercise.

Experiments have shown that when the human heart rate is 80% of its maximum, muscle movement and the breakdown of sugar and fat can be carried out under aerobic conditions. If it exceeds 80%, the oxygen supply is insufficient and anaerobic glycolysis occurs. Therefore, 80% of the maximum heart rate is a very important indicator, which some people call the "ideal exercise heart rate".

To achieve better weight loss results and effectively burn fat, sufficient exercise time should also be ensured.

Foreign scholars have proposed that the duration of aerobic exercise, that is, the time during which the ideal exercise heart rate is maintained, should be at least 12 minutes.

If you don't exercise continuously for at least 12 minutes without stopping, it can't be considered aerobic exercise.

If you exercise for 6 minutes each time, and do it twice, for a total of 12 minutes, will you achieve the effect of aerobic exercise? The answer is no.

In terms of metabolism, 6 minutes is not very meaningful because in the first few minutes of exercise, the heart rate will not reach the ideal heart rate for exercise. The time is too short, so less energy is consumed and the goal of burning fat is not achieved.

Therefore, in order to achieve the same effect as 12 minutes of exercise, the exercise time must be extended so that the aerobic metabolic time during exercise, that is, the time to maintain the ideal exercise heart rate, is long enough.

Therefore, the principle of aerobic exercise is to start exercising when your heart rate reaches the ideal exercise heart rate and continue exercising for 12 minutes.

The total exercise time should be the time from the start of exercise to the heart rate rising to the ideal exercise heart rate, the maintenance time of 12 minutes, and the ideal activity time. It is difficult to judge this time by oneself, so readers can refer to the provisions in Table 7-3.

Some might ask: After raising your heart rate to the ideal exercise heart rate, wouldn't it be even better to maintain that heart rate for 24 or 48 minutes of exercise? The answer is yes.

The longer the time, the better the effect.

However, in practice, the effect is less significant after 12 minutes. The effect of 12 minutes is similar to that of 24 minutes and 48 minutes. Therefore, for the average person, it is not advisable to reduce the number of exercise sessions and extend the exercise time.

One more thing to note: be sure to do some warm-up and cool-down activities before and after exercise to adjust your mental state.

Simply stretching your body and moving your limbs, performing the exercise at a very slow pace, is the warm-up and cool-down for this exercise. For most people, 3 minutes is usually enough.

Proper warm-up and cool-down activities can effectively improve adaptability to exercise, reduce fatigue and muscle strain during exercise, and prevent accidents.