Exercise and lose weight – is it possible?

Can you lose weight through exercise alone?
The answer is both yes and no.

For losing weight, diet is essential. But you get the best effect from a combination of good food and exercise, says a registered dietitian to NordIQ Life.

Do you need to lose a few pounds, but love food and eating? Then the good news is that it is actually quite possible to devote yourself only to training – and still lose weight.

In order to lose weight, you really only need to reduce your energy intake or increase your energy consumption. By increasing your energy consumption, i.e. by exercising, you can lose weight and continue to eat the same things as before, says the dietician.

Exercise increases your chances of losing weight

For those of you who need to lose a little more weight, however, it is significantly more difficult, if not even impossible, to lose weight with just exercise, if you do not simultaneously reduce your energy intake by reviewing how much you eat.

So, although food is the most important thing to focus on if you want to lose weight, exercise is still a good building block because it increases calorie burning.

Exercise has a host of other health benefits

At NordIQ Life, we always say that the most important thing is to start from yourself so that you find a way you can live with in the longer term. In other words, you choose whether you only want to lose weight through exercise or whether you also want to change your eating habits. However, if you engage in a form of exercise that increases muscle mass, you can lose weight a little faster, because more muscle increases energy consumption. So even at rest.

Then you should not forget that exercise is not only good if you want to lose weight. It also has many other health benefits.

… Others say that you should stop training

But it is clear, there are always widely differing opinions on how best to do to lose weight. Some even advocate that one should stop exercising altogether in order to lose weight.
A study published in Obesity Review shows that the body has its own system to regulate our energy consumption and that exercise could therefore only partially increase energy consumption.

For some people, energy consumption really increases as much as you might expect. For others, the body cuts down on energy consumption at rest to compensate for the energy used during exercise, explains Erik Hemmingsson, obesity researcher at the University of Gymnastics and Sports in Stockholm, to NordIQ Life.

That in and of itself confirms what we at NordIQ Life also advocate. That we all are and function differently, and that the important thing is to find a way that works for yourself.

Exercise to lose weight not a must

If you are one of those who have decided to lose weight, we at NordIQ Life have both knowledge, tools and community. When you become a member, you get an individually adapted calorie level together with your own diet program. There are no prohibitions, but you choose what, how and if you want to eat a little better and what, how and if you want to exercise – as long as you stick to the calorie level you have been recommended.