Exercise for Weight Loss

Understand your Base Metabolic Rate (BMR):

Your Base Metabolic Rate is the amount of energy your body uses up at rest in one day. This can be established using the Mifflin St Jeor equation which is BMR (kJ) =  (10x mass in kg) + (6.25x height in cm) – (5 x age in yrs) + s. “s” is 5 for males and -161 for females. The average Australian burns between 5900 and 7100kJ at rest so if your number is close  to this mark you have calculated correctly. Your Metabolic Rate can be increased by simply moving more. This can be done by twitching, standing, walking and exercising. You can burn up to twice your BMR in a day by exercising intensely but even moderate exercise can increase your metabolic rate by a factor of 1.5.

Lean Body Mass is King:

A second equation to estimate BMR is the Katch-McArdle Equation. This equation is far more accurate for athletic body types but is a useful estimate for everyone as it shows the importance of a lean body mass to increase your BMR. The equation is BMR (kJ) = 370 + (21.6 x lean body mass in kg). This equation also disregards gender. You can obtain your lean body mass by measuring it on the Tanita Scales here at Regenesis. 

Don’t Confuse Weight Loss with Health: A healthy weight does not always equal a healthy body. Anyone can lose weight if they consume less kilojoules than they require. This means you can have a pure McDonalds or pure alcohol diet and still lose weight but this is certainly not a healthy practice. If you understand the first two points in this blog you will also understand that every kilojoule is valuable. You want to get as much nutrition as possible from your daily allowance of kilojoules so when you eat unhealthily this could be deemed as wasting your kilojoules. If the number of kilojoules you can consume before you gain weight is limited why waste them on needless foods like alcohol, soft drinks, excess fats and sugars? Stick to the most important nutrients and get them in first. Oh, and don’t forget water. Beautiful, clean, life-giving, zero-kilojoule water!

Exercise IS Important:

Exercise also works in your favour to lose weight the following ways:

• increased working metabolic rate
• increased lean body mass
• increased BMR due to lean body mass

This is not to mention that exercise is just plain healthy for you. Fitness benefits go well beyond weight loss. They range from psychological to physiological to biological to economical. 

The most successful weight loss clients I have trained were excellent at moving away from the emotional connect that system 1 of the brain has with seeing your weight regularly measured. They understood that there is a process behind that result and they trusted in the process. This allowed their system 2 to create effective plans, problem solve and rationally address each challenge as it presented itself. This allows someone to not only lose weight but take complete control. They are not at the mercy of the scales, they are in charge of the scales and their actions dictate the number they will see.