If you were to take all the diet pills, weight loss pills and fat burners sitting on store shelves right now, the resulting pile would be big enough to sink a battleship. Add to that stack all the diet products, diet patches, diet food, prescription diet pills and other weight loss drugs and pretty soon you’re talking about a virtual mountain of weight loss products designed to help you lose weight fast. If you really wanted to get carried away, you could then add to that heap all the weight loss programs, diet plans and diet programs that have issued a book within the last year. Can you imagine how big that mountain is now?
The resulting accumulation of ‘stuff’ is what the average American finds when they first seek a weight loss plan. Once you decide to drop those extra pounds and really get in shape, you’re confronted with a staggering array of fast weight loss diets, diet drugs and diet recipes that all promise fast weight loss with little to no effort.
Unfortunately, few of these quick weight loss programs actually work. Most people looking for easy weight loss try at least a few diets. According to Julie Garden-Robinson, extension food and nutrition specialist at NDSU, “About 95 percent of fad diets fail. Put another way, only about 5 percent of dieters are able to maintain a significant weight loss, which means a drop in weight equaling 10 percent, or more, of what they weighed before they began dieting.”
Many weight loss supplements and diet supplements don’t work either. According to Marketdata Enterprises, the annual revenue for the diet industry was over $30 billion dollars in 1990. A 2005 report by Stanford University documents that the consumer diet industry is now approximately $44 billion and growing. Much of this total is due to sales of weight loss diet pills and other weight loss drugs.
How can the diet industry keep making more and more money, year after year? After all, $44 billion dollars is a lot of cash! The answer to that question is simple: repeat business. “98% of today’s dieters gain the weight back in 5 years. 90% of those individuals end up gaining back more than they lost originally, due to the body’s panic and efforts to stabilize metabolic rates over the long term” (source: Stanford University).
People are confused about how to achieve healthy weight loss that’s permanent. That’s why we’ve created this list of the Top 10 Exercise Tips For Rapid Weight Loss. The best weight loss program absolutely must include regular exercise, so with that premise in place let’s take a look at some real, honest and accurate weight loss information.
1. Our first exercise tip is to ignore some of the weight control advice from the experts. For at least the last year, there’s been a big push by several authorities (including the Surgeon General of the United States) to get people walking. Many people have been encouraged to walk 10,000 steps per day to maintain fitness, and “10,000 Clubs” have cropped up all over the country. Unfortunately, just walking won’t lead to much in the way of fat loss. Research done in Canada found that people who perform a moderate intensity activity (like walking) lose a lot less fat than those who exercise intensely. The primary reasons are that walking doesn’t get you into the target heart rate zone and doesn’t increase your metabolism very much following exercise. Because walking doesn’t burn much muscle glycogen, the body won’t metabolize much fat after a walking workout. A much better approach is to exercise intensely (above 65% of maximum effort).
2. To solve your weight issue once and for all, it’s vital to incorporate some type of weight lifting into your exercise plan. Scientists at the University of Colorado (Denver) discovered that resistance training for seventy minutes burned as many calories as running at seventy percent of maximum capacity for fifty minutes (source: Med Sci Sports Exerc; 34: 1793-1800, 2002). When you consider all the other benefits imparted by resistance training (stronger bones, ligaments, muscles, etc.) it becomes clear that incorporating weight training into your workout regiment is one weight loss tip that works.
3. Our third exercise tip is quite simple: just do it! Exercise is simply the best, fastest and most efficient way to reach your ideal weight and lose fat for good. Dieting doesn’t even compare. When you rely on dieting alone to help you achieve your fitness goals you will always be disappointed. As reported in ‘Fitness Rx’ in August of 2004, dieting without exercise is a sure recipe for disaster because when you diet without exercising up to 1/2 of the weight loss we experience will be from muscle loss. See, if you dramatically lower your caloric intake and you’re not exercising, your body will lose muscle. Since muscle is the ‘fat burning furnace’ of the body, the absolute last thing you want to do on a weight management program is give it up voluntarily. Consistent exercise, and particularly a weight lifting program, will preserve muscle and burn more fat.
4. This next exercise tip may seem like common sense, but it still bears repeating. If you want to reach your ideal body weight faster, then you must participate in weight loss exercise more often. It was back in 1996 that the Surgeon General began encouraging Americans to work out in 30-minute increments. Working independently, the United States National Academy of Sciences and the World Health Organization later reported that people wanting to lose weight faster should exercise up to sixty minutes per day. Research done at the University of Minnesota has proven that you can boost your weight loss results by up to forty percent by simply doubling your exercise time (source: Am J Clin Nutr; 78: 684-689, 2003). Will 30-minutes of exercise still work? Of course! But to really burn fat quickly, consider upping the ante to sixty minutes per day.
5. As if you weren’t convinced already, our next exercise tip also encourages you to add a weight lifting routine to your workout strategy. The reason is that only resistance training (commonly referred to as weight lifting) has the ability to add muscle to your body. Aerobic exercise won’t do it, and dieting certainly won’t either. Only regular weight lifting workouts will add the muscle you need to burn fat and keep it off forever. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue, burning calories 24/7. As a matter of fact, one single pound of muscle burns about fifty calories more per day than a pound of fat. So it stands to reason that the more muscle you have, the more calories you’ll burn around the clock (yes, even while you’re sleeping). So get started on that weight lifting program today.
6. You’ve probably heard that you should find a workout buddy to help you get to the gym. That’s good advice, but a better idea is to find a ‘challenger’. A ‘challenger’ is someone that gets in your face and challenges you to do better. He or she makes you uncomfortable by making you accountable. Sometimes the best thing someone can do for us is to make us mad, embarrassed or uneasy! This prompts us into action, and that action is for our own benefit. Do you have a ‘challenger’ in your life? Get one, and get one today! Maybe it can be your friend from work, or perhaps someone from church. How about a sibling? A ‘challenger’ is someone who knows you well enough to push when you need to be pushed, who will not let you make excuses. A good ‘challenger’ will call you at home and question why you’re not at the gym today. A good ‘challenger’ will stop by your desk at work to see what you’re eating today. A good ‘challenger’ will not let you fail.
7. The next exercise tip is that, in addition to a ‘challenger’, you need to find an ‘encourager’ to help you with your diet and exercise program. An ‘encourager’ helps you without accusing. An ‘encourager’ supports, believes in, and bolsters you at all times. Do you have an ‘encourager’ for your battle against fat? You should get one. Everyone needs an ‘encourager’ just as much as they need a ‘challenger’, perhaps more. Whereas a ‘challenger’ will demand that you get to the health club today, an ‘encourager’ will pick you up on their way to the gym and make it fun enough that you’re glad you went too.
8. This exercise tip is to seek expert advice so you get everything you can out of your workout sessions. Let’s face it, nobody can possibly be proficient in all areas. There are times in our lives when we need to get some expert assistance. When the car is broken, you get help from a mechanic. When you have legal trouble, you get help from an attorney. When the refrigerator breaks down you call a specialist. When you’re about to fight the world heavyweight champion, you seek help from an experienced trainer. And when you’re trying to write your own weight loss success story, you get assistance from an expert. If you’re serious about this fight against fat, then you need to find an expert. Ask a personal trainer or gym staff member how they can help you jump-start your fitness program and start making serious progress. Nobody has to fight this fight alone, and a fitness expert can help you exercise to lose weight permanently.
9. If you don’t have time to complete a full exercise session, at least do SOMETHING physical. If you simply don’t have time to get into the fitness center at all it’s better to make sure you get at least some level of activity. You could, for example, walk up the stairs during your lunch hour and burn 100 calories in a ten-minute climb. The bottom line is that every activity burns at least a few calories (even watching television burns 75 calories per hour!), so even if you skipped your workout today you can still get active.
10. The final exercise tip in this list is to work out where you’ll find the most weight loss support and weight loss motivation to encourage you. Even the best weight loss system in the world is without value if you don’t follow it, and the most advanced weight machine won’t do you a bit of good if you don’t use it (that’s why there’s exercise equipment sold at almost every yard sale). Many people find the support and motivation they need at a health club. Together with others who are ‘in the same boat’, you’re much more likely to stick with your healthy diet and exercise program.
If you’re ready to lower your body fat percentage once and for all, try these top ten exercise tips for rapid weight loss. The only thing you have to lose is the weight!