Most people think they have to exercise for numerous hours per week to burn the extra calories and lose weight. The popular belief for weight loss is the longer and harder the better.  But this is really not true for effective and lasting weight loss.  There are many people stuck at the same weight or actually gain weight despite multiple exercise bouts in one day.  Why can’t we lose more weight with excessive exercise?

Seventy-five percent of how low your body weight will go has to due with your diet. The remaining 25% is related to exercise and genetics. The New York Times Magazine had an article last week called Weighing the Evidence on Exercise. Eric Ravussin, a professor at Pennington Biomedical Research Center who’s been studying weight loss for years, said “In general, exercise by itself is pretty useless for weight loss.”  What he meant by his statement is that long hard exercise sessions increases your appetite to a point where you end up consuming more calories than you burn up by exercising. I have seen this happen to my clients for years. They want to lose weight so they start running or biking hard for an hour, five to six days per week. They become so hungry that they start eating way more calories than they burned up running. The end result is no weight loss or weight gain and an overuse exercise injury.  It becomes very discouraging but for fear of gaining weight they continue to exercise too hard and gain nothing – just lost time and injury.

I’ve seen it happen many times when a person is forced to slow down whether it’s for a vacation or the overuse injury.  Finally they find that they are not as hungry, eat less and actually lose weight.  You can reach a point of diminishing returns very quickly with exercise. If you perform too much exercise just to burn extra calories, you will ultimately become ravenously hungry resulting in overeating and gorging. In addition, too much exercise can lead to injury, burnout and insomnia, and a host of other ailments. Learn how to control your weight with your diet. You should exercise for maximum results in a minimal amount of time.  Be efficient and effective with a small amount of time – it really works best!

How to Exercise Without Getting Hungry…

• Short Interval Workouts: Strengthen your cardiovascular system for maximum results in less than 20 minutes, once or twice a week.
• Full-Body Strength Workouts: Muscular Strength and Endurance can be achieved in only two full-body strength workouts a week, lasting about 45 minutes each.
• Cross Train Easy Style:  Walk, hike, or bike easy for longer periods of time without putting undo stress on your body.
• Diet… Not the easiest thing but it can be with the right planning.   If you skip a meal, don’t.

Let me know if exercise makes you hungry and you still aren’t getting results from your hard workouts.  Let’s make it happen!