Running hard but still can’t lose weight? Three iron doctors crack 1 key + 3 suggestions

Everyone has heard the saying "more exercise will make you lose weight", but in real life, many people wonder "Why can't I lose weight even though I run diligently every day?" In fact, the answer is very simple and profound: the concept of weight loss through exercise is wrong!

The key reason why you can’t lose weight no matter how hard you exercise is: lack of weight training!

When it comes to losing weight, most people choose sports such as walking, running, cycling/flywheel and swimming. At the beginning, they are very enthusiastic and work out very hard every day, but after a few days, many people see that the numbers on the scale remain unchanged and give up their exercise plans in frustration. Another group of people who can see weight loss effects in the early stages of exercise often reach a bottleneck after persisting for a period of time. No matter how hard they try, their weight still cannot continue to decrease, and they become very discouraged.

Why is this happening? Wang Lukai, chief physician of the Department of Family Medicine at Changhua Christian Hospital, is a triathlon enthusiast. He believes that the biggest problem is "lack of weight training!"

Why is it necessary to exercise muscle strength when losing weight?

Generally speaking, although aerobic exercise consumes calories, the result of one hour of continuous exercise is a reduction of 500 to 800 calories at most. If you can combine weight training to increase muscle mass, the basal metabolic rate will increase, and the fat-burning effect of exercise will last until 36 hours after the end of exercise, helping to burn more calories. If you lose 10 calories every hour, that means you've lost 360 calories after 36 hours.

In addition, there are two big problems with losing weight only through aerobic exercises such as running, pedaling or swimming. First of all, the main function of aerobic exercise is to exercise cardiopulmonary function. If you maintain the same exercise pattern all the time, the body will easily adapt automatically, resulting in diminishing weight loss effects or even stagnation.

Furthermore, if you want to increase calorie consumption by extending the time of aerobic exercise, you may not have enough physical strength. Secondly, the aerobic exercise time will be too long (more than 1 hour), which will cause increased cortisol secretion and decreased testosterone concentration, leading to rapid muscle loss and lower ability to metabolize fat. Testosterone is an important hormone for increasing muscle mass during weight training, and too low a concentration will affect muscle synthesis.

3 tips for improving weight loss through exercise

From this we can see that if you want to overcome obesity and change your body size from XL to S, you must combine aerobic exercise and weight training. However, how to match it? Dr. Wang Lukai provides 3 suggestions:

1. Establish a combination model: It is recommended to base it on a cumulative exercise time of 2 hours in 2 days. You can only do aerobic exercise for 1 hour today and weight training for 1 hour tomorrow; or you can do the same for 2 days, doing half an hour of aerobic exercise and then half an hour of weight training every day.

2. Make the types of exercise more active: Avoid making the types and processes of exercise too monotonous, so as to prevent the body from adapting and leading to weight loss stagnation. It is recommended not to rely solely on running when doing aerobic exercise, but to alternate it with skipping rope, cycling or swimming, which will have a better weight loss effect. Alternatively, you can make some changes in the same exercise. For example, when running, you can adopt the mode of "running 200 meters quickly, then walking 100 meters"; when pedaling a flywheel, you can use the method of changing the resistance to adopt the uphill mode and the downhill mode. This intermittent intensity exercise mode has an effect similar to weight training and can also help improve the weight loss effect.

3. Exercise intensity and time: For ordinary people to maintain health, it may be enough to follow the "Exercise 333 Principle" of exercising three times a week, more than 30 minutes each time, and a heart rate of 130 beats per minute. However, if you want to achieve your weight loss goal in this way, it is completely impossible. It is recommended that people who are determined to lose weight exercise for at least 1 to 2 hours a day and pay attention to the intensity of exercise. The maximum heart rate during aerobic exercise should reach "(220-age) X 80% to 90%", and weight training should reach "(220-age) X 90% or more".

【Intimate Reminder】：

Many people will weigh themselves every day at the beginning of their exercise. They will be very happy when they see the number decrease by 0.2 or 0.3, but will be dejected when they see it increase by 0.1 the next day. Their mood will go up and down with the scale, and they will be worried about gains and losses. Dr. Wang Lukai said that you should not develop the habit of measuring your body weight every day at this time, because exercise will cause sweating, and the weight loss effect seen in the early stages of exercise is not due to the loss of body fat, but water. It is recommended to change to measuring once every 1 to 2 weeks, which can more accurately show how much weight you have actually lost. In addition, when losing weight, don’t forget that diet control is the most important thing compared to exercise!