Weight gain in the early stages of exercise weight loss

Nowadays, losing weight has become a hot topic. It seems that everyone, young or old, regardless of gender, feels the need to maintain a good figure. If a person has too much fat on his body, he may not only be considered greedy, but also may be considered to lack self-control. There are many ways to lose weight, but the most important one must be exercise. So, can you lose weight successfully through exercise?

At noon, I had lunch with a friend whom I hadn’t seen for two months. She told me about her “failed” weight loss experience in a distressed manner. It turned out that she started exercising to lose weight in February, exercising for an hour every day. Although she did not reduce her diet, she did not increase it either. She also tried to use light and low-fat cooking methods in her daily life. She told me in frustration that she said goodbye to her favorite fried foods and desserts, and urged herself to complete the day's exercise before going to bed. However, after more than a month, not only did her weight not decrease, but she gained three kilograms. Her friend who lost weight with her adopted the diet method and skipped dinner every day. Although she did not exercise for a single day, she easily lost five kilograms in more than a month. This contrast made her even more depressed.

I looked at her carefully and found that her complexion was better than two months ago, her facial skin had become tighter, and even her belly was flatter. I said, "But it's obvious that you have lost weight." She responded, "Yes, everyone says that I have lost weight. I also feel that the fat on my belly and waist has obviously decreased a lot, but when I stepped on the scale, I found that I had gained weight, which made me even more depressed."

This reminds me of my previous experience as a nutrition consultant in a weight loss camp. At that time, there were students with similar situations to her. They exercised frequently, controlled their diet, and became slimmer, but their weight increased instead of decreased. The reason is that they do not have enough muscle mass in their bodies, so the muscle weight gained after exercising is greater than the fat content reduced, which causes their weight to increase instead of decrease.

I find that many of my friends equate losing weight with losing weight, but in my opinion, losing weight is not completely the same as losing weight. Because what I understand as losing weight is losing fat, not just reducing the number on the scale.

You know, fat is not easy to lose. If you want to lose one pound of pure fat, you need to consume 4500 calories. A woman of average build only burns 350 calories by jogging for an hour a day. In other words, a woman of medium build needs to run for 13 days to burn one pound of pure fat. However, for people with poor physical fitness and insufficient muscle content, persisting in exercising for a period of time will lead to an increase in intramuscular protein content. Protein needs to be combined with water in the body. One kilogram of muscle protein will combine with three and a half kilograms of water. So if you work hard to burn a pound of fat while gaining a pound of muscle protein, the weight you gain will naturally be greater than the weight you lose.

Of course, this will not be a lasting state. As the exercise time accumulates and the dieter's metabolic rate returns to a high level, the weight will slowly and lastingly decrease.

Although this process takes longer than dieting, during the process of exercise, you will find that your figure is gradually getting better, and it is not easy to have a big rebound after stopping weight loss.

However, this is not the case with dieting. In the early stages of dieting, the amount of fat reduced is minimal, and what is reduced is basically muscle protein and water. As we said before, one pound of muscle protein combines with three and a half pounds of water, so those who are dieting will be delighted to find that their weight will drop rapidly after just a short period of time. However, this method will harm our health. You must know that muscle content will directly affect our physical fitness. If you do not have enough muscle mass, it will not only weaken your physical fitness, but also lead to a decrease in metabolic rate. Once you stop dieting, your weight will definitely rebound, and you may even be fatter than before you lost weight.

Moreover, because dieting mainly reduces muscle protein and water, it will also lead to an increase in body fat percentage. Although people who diet to lose weight do lose weight, their figures do not become better. On the contrary, due to the lower metabolic rate, they are prone to develop a physique that is "easy to gain weight and difficult to lose weight", which is not good for their health in the long run.

Although the effect of exercise weight loss is much slower than that of dieting, it is healthy and sustainable. No one really cares what number you put on the scale; everyone just looks at your body shape. So, I suggest that people who are trying to lose weight should not be overly obsessed with the number on the scale. As long as their figure is getting better day by day, that’s enough, isn’t it?

After listening to my explanation, my friend decided not to follow his friend’s diet and continue to exercise to lose weight, which made me very happy.

I have always believed that methods that can enable people to achieve very obvious results in a short period of time mostly have side effects. There are not so many shortcuts in life.

If you really want to accomplish something well, the most practical and reliable method is long-term and slow accumulation. As the accumulated amount gradually increases, the quantitative change will eventually lead to qualitative change, and finally a rich harvest will be harvested.