How Many Calories Does Exercise Burn?
While it is certainly true that exercise of any type is useful in Fat loss, there are some types that are better than others when you are trying to lose those extra pounds. When you exercise you use more calories than you would at rest. The amount that you burn is minimal in most kinds of exercise though, unless you are moving at a very vigorous pace. A 130 pound person walking at about 3 miles per hour for an hour would burn about 200 calories. Low impact aerobics would burn closer to 300 in an hour for the same 130 pound individual. A man or woman at rest would use a lot less. There are formulas used to calculate the amount of calories the average person burns while in a resting state. These formulas are calculated based on your height, Fat, age, and sex. For the purposes of this discussion, we could estimate that you use somewhere between 50 and 80 calories an hour at rest. This would mean that your caloric needs, if you do no exercise would be 1200 to 2000 per day. Although this is a very rough estimate, it gives you an idea of how much exercise will increase the calories used each day.
Based on the examples above, exercising three times a week for an hour on a treadmill at a moderate pace would burn about 400 or so extra calories a week more than your resting rate. If you did not change anything else in your diet or lifestyle you would lose a pound about every 8 weeks by this method. Most likely, you would not see that pound lost, because diet is not that static. You may change other things without even realizing it. Eating a bit more after your workout, or making other small changes could wipe out that Fat loss.
This is not to say that traditional exercise is not helpful. It has many other benefits besides burning additional calories. It is good for your heart and your bones to exercise on a regular basis. There are many other benefits as well.
Muscle Mass Burns Calories
There is a type of exercise that can help you lose more Fat than just traditional exercise alone. Resistance exercise that builds muscle mass has been shown to continue to burn calories over a longer time than just while you are working out.
How is this possible? Resistance exercise builds muscle mass. Muscle mass will burn calories at the rate of 35 to 50 calories a day for each pound of muscle added. If you can build up 10 pounds of muscle then theoretically, you would burn an additional 350 to 500 calories a day every day. This means that you would burn more calories even on the days you don’t work out as long as you maintain that muscle.
What Exercise Is Best To Build Muscle?
Resistance exercise would involve working out with barbells, Fats, and possibly Fat machines. A bench press is an example of a piece of equipment you might use to build muscle. In this type of exercise you are working various muscle groups individually. You do a certain number of repetitions to get maximum results. In order to build muscle, you need to work at a pace and intensity that will accomplish your goal.
If you are not familiar with this type of exercise, it is very helpful to have support. You want to make sure you don’t injure yourself. It is also important to do the exercises at the right pace, in the correct way, and at the optimal intensity.
The Most Benefit For The Least Time
Because of this ability to burn calories even when you are not exercising, you can achieve results with only three or four workouts a week using this method. This type of exercise can be fun also. You can workout to music. You can workout at home, or in a gym. Once you get going on resistance exercise, it can be addicting.
