why workouts aren’t great for losing weight, but useful for maintaining a healthy weight

The basic rule of weight loss is simple: if you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight. However, in practice it is usually not that easy and simple.

In addition to counting calories or eating smaller portions, many people try to add exercise to the equation lose weight help tip the scales. However, research shows that exercise can only do so moderate effect on weight loss.

Before you ditch your workouts, however, it’s important to remember that exercise still plays a very important role when it comes to your health – perhaps especially in keeping the pounds off once you’ve reached your goal weight.

There are several processes that help explain why exercise doesn’t always result in massive weight loss.

Exercise can stimulate your appetite, which leads to increased food intake. People can too subconsciously move less for the rest of the day after training, which means exercise may have less of an impact on your overall caloric deficit.

Over time, the body also becomes more efficient – it burns fewer calories while performing the same activity. This process is sometimes called “metabolic adaptation”reflects the body’s tendency to defend against weight loss.

From an evolutionary perspective, it is likely to conserve energy during periods of intense physical activity protected our ancestors from hunger. But in today’s world, metabolic adaptation does one of many factors which may make it difficult to lose weight.

The importance of exercise

While exercise may not be the primary factor in weight loss, it does appear to play a role maintaining weight loss.

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A study of over 1,100 people found that physical activity had little effect on initial weight loss. However, increasing activity levels after weight loss were strongly associated maintaining weight loss.

Notably, exercise was also associated with measurable health improvements – including better cholesterol, lower inflammation, better blood sugar control and insulin sensitivity, all of which are associated with a lower risk of health problems such as heart disease AND type 2 diabetes.

These many health benefits show how important exercise is for both losing weight and maintaining it.

Evidence also suggests that combining exercise with weight-loss medications (such as Saxenda) may help people maintain weight loss better than using the medication alone.

Why exercises work

It may seem confusing that exercise isn’t particularly effective at losing weight, but it can help prevent weight gain. The causes of this paradox are not fully understood, but several mechanisms may offer an explanation.

The first concerns our resting energy expenditure (the amount of calories our body burns when we do nothing).

When we lose weight, our resting energy expenditure decreases by more than would be expected from the weight loss. This is believed to contribute to weight regain. However, exercise increases your total daily energy expenditure, which may help offset some of this.

The second factor concerns muscle mass.

Weight loss usually works loss of both fat and muscle. Losing muscle reduces resting energy expenditure, which may contribute to weight regain.

But exercise, especially resistance training (like Pilates or weightlifting), can help keep or even rebuild muscle mass. This can speed up our metabolism, which can help maintain weight in the long term.

Physical activity also helps our body maintain its ability to burn fat. After losing weight, the body often becomes less efficient using fat as an energy source.

But intense exercise can improve fat burning AND metabolic flexibility – ability to switch between carbohydrate and fat burning depending on what is available. This helps the body continue to burn fat even with low calorie intake or weight loss.

Exercises improves insulin sensitivity also. This reduces the amount of insulin needed to regulate blood sugar levels. This is beneficial because higher insulin levels can promote fat storage AND reduce fat breakdown.

Exercise has many indirect effects on us that can help us maintain weight. For example, exercise can improve sleep, mood and reduce stress level. They all reduce levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which can lower stress levels amount of fat the body stores.

Regular activity may also be helpful regulate appetite and blood glucose levels, which can help reduce appetite and reduce overeating.

It’s important to acknowledge that everyone is different. That means all of us answer differently exercise in terms of how many calories we burn or whether the workout makes us feel hungry later in the day.

Different types of workouts also have benefits when it comes to maintaining your health and weight.

Aerobic exercise (such as brisk walking, cycling or running) burns calories and, at higher intensity, can also increase the body’s ability to burn fat as fuel.

On the other hand, resistance training helps build and maintain muscle mass. It supports it higher resting energy expenditurehelping you maintain your weight long-term.

Exercise may not be the most powerful weight loss tool, but it can help you maintain your hard-earned weight loss. Perhaps most importantly, it offers many physical and mental health benefits that go well beyond the numbers on the scale.