Weight Loss Exercises

At the beginning of the most asked questions to fitness trainers and Google, there are questions such as what are the exercises to lose weight, how do I lose weight, how does this belly go and how does the biceps grow ;) Except for the biceps, the reason is pretty clear: we're getting fat.

In Turkey, 21 out of 100 people are obese, and 35 of the rest are obese (1).

First of all, we have to accept that there is no magic way or trick to lose weight. The slimming process can be accelerated with some tricks, but you must have the knowledge behind weight loss to be healthy and sustainable.

Why are we gaining weight?

Gaining weight is mainly due to a positive calorie balance, meaning that the calories you take in are more than the calories you burn. When you want to lose weight, you have to reverse the balance. You will either eat fewer calories or burn more calories (negative calorie balance).

There are 3 ways to lose weight: eating less calories, burning more calories, or doing both at the same time.

Most people come to the gym to lose weight, it's not a bad option but it's incomplete. If you take in more calories than you need, it is very difficult to burn it with exercise. Let me explain this with an example: An average brownie is 400 calories; you need to walk briskly* for an hour and a half to burn those calories. It's nice if you have plenty of time and love to walk. But at the end of the walk you just burned the brownie, if you need to lose weight you need to work harder.

How to lose weight?

Exercise makes a small contribution to the weight loss process, while diet is the main factor affecting the weight loss process. If you don't believe me, take a look at the results of this 25-year meta-analysis (2). Those who diet only lose weight almost 4 times more than those who only exercise.

These results may suggest that exercise is unnecessary. I'm not saying this to turn you off from exercise. I want to show you the right path and help you save your time and health. Exercise is done to increase the level of fitness and health, but if you do it right, it will help you balance negative calories and accelerate your weight loss.

Let's get to the weight loss exercises

Weight loss exercises are the exercises that burn the most calories. What are these? Long-term cardio exercises such as walking, running, rowing, dancing and jumping rope.

Weakening exercise = high calorie-burning exercise = cardio.

Calorie burn does not differ by age or gender, how many calories you burn depends on your body weight and the effort of the exercise you do. For this reason, I have averaged 55 kilos for women and 75 kilos for men, in order to accurately show how many calories are burned in which exercise. In the table below, I have shown the calories burned by these people by exercising for 1 hour at different efforts (3).

Egzersiz	​55 kg	​75 kg
​6.0 km/sa hızla yürüyüş	222 kcal	306 kcal
10 km/sa hızla koşu	​606 kcal	828 kcal
21 km/sa maraton rekor temposunda koşu😅	1212 kcal	1656 kcal
Yolda yavaş bisiklet sürme (8-9 km/sa hızla)	198 kcal	276 kcal
Yolda hızlı bisiklet sürme (19-22 km/sa hızla)	462 kcal	624 kcal
Yavaş ip atlama (dakikada <100 atlayış)	510 kcal	696 kcal
Hızlı ip atlama (dakikada 120-160 atlayış)	714 kcal	972 kcal

The harder you do cardio exercises, the more calories you will burn.** The higher the effort, the higher the calories burned may sound; You may think that I can run faster and lose weight faster. For most people, this may not be that easy, because most people's cardio capacity (heart power, VO2max) is not high enough to run. Even if you're good enough to run, I wouldn't recommend doing "extra" cardio first to lose weight, as overtraining can damage your joints and muscles. The primary task of cardio exercises is to increase heart strength.

Message to take home: The best way to lose weight is to reduce the amount of calories taken with meals and support the negative calorie balance with cardio exercises.

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1. Türkiye Sağlık Araştırması, 2019: data.tuik.gov.tr

2. A meta-analysis of the past 25 years of weight loss research using diet, exercise or diet plus exercise intervention. International Journal of Obesity DOI: 10.1038/sj.ijo.0800499

3. Bisiklet ve ip atlama egzersizlerinin MET değerleri kaynağı: 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities: a second update of codes and MET values. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise DOI: 10.1249/MSS.0b013e31821ece12

* 70 kg bir kişi için 6 km/sa hız eforunda hesapladım.

** Yüksek şiddet egzersizler sadece egzersiz sırasındaki kalori yakımını artırmaz, durduğunuzda bile enerji sarfiyatınız normalin üzerinde olur. "Afterburn effect" konusunu başka bir yazıda detaylı şekilde anlatacağım.