If your goal is to lose body fat through the right weight loss exercise, then you should exercise for the basic reason: Preservation and increasing of lean muscle tissue. The reason is lean muscle can help in boosting metabolism, and enable you to burn more calories.
Strength training versus cardiovascular exercise
Strength training plays an important role as weight loss exercise in building lean muscle tissue. 1 kg of additional lean muscle tissue can burn 16 to 23 calories per day. If you have 5 kg of additional lean muscle tissue, this mean extra 41,975 calories will be burned, which is equivalent of more than 5kg of body fat loss annually. You might ask: “Is it difficult to build lean muscle?” No, all you need are having right weight loss concept and developing a weight loss exercise plan.
How about cardiovascular exercise? How far does it help as weight loss exercise? Does it beneficial to your body? Of course, it does help in preserving the most important muscle of the body — our heart. However, cardiovascular exercise is not an efficient way to preserve lean muscle tissue. Study showed that even men who run regularly still lost nearly 2.3kg of lean muscle in their upper body over the course of 10 years.
(Note: 1kg = 2.2046 pounds)
We need to perform weight loss exercise that preserve muscle throughout our entire body, both upper and lower in order to lose weight effectively. Only strength training can let us accomplish this. The only exception to this would be elite athletes, who perform cardiovascular exercise at an incredible frequency, intensity and duration.
We need to consider the issue of external and internal forces while performing weight loss exercise. Cardiovascular exercise acts as external force which periodically helps in boosting metabolism for a short period of time. This will help burning some calories. Strength training helps in burning more calories as it internally boosts your metabolism and thus enables calories burning 24 hours a day. So, if you find your previous weight loss exercise plan does not work for you (not increase lean muscle mass), create a new plan which devotes 25% of your workout time to cardiovascular exercise and 75% to strength training.
Why we need cardiovascular exercise
One of my friends asks: “Can we perform strength training alone, since it is the best weight loss exercise to increase our lean muscle tissue?” The answer is no for below 2 important reasons.
1) Heart needs to be trained
Cardiovascular exercise helps the most important muscle of the body — our heart. When we perform exercises such as jogging, swimming etc, our heart will pump the blood that carries oxygen which needed by the working muscles. In the beginning stage of doing this exercise, the heart is not used to the activity. Your heart rate elevates and you start to gasp for breath in an attempt to take more oxygen so that they can be supplied to the working muscles. After a period of consistent training, your condition will improve and you are now more in shape although you do not perform other weight loss exercise. That means your body will turn to a more efficient blood and oxygen transportation system if you perform cardiovascular exercise consistently, and thus improve your overall health.
2) Prevention for aging process
Our aerobic capacity starts to diminish as we age. Few studies showed that by the age of ninety, most people who do not perform exercise could lose 50% of their aerobic capacity. Anyhow, we can reduce it to about 5% by including cardiovascular exercise in our daily life.
Calories burning guideline
It is advised to perform 30 minutes to 45 minutes cardiovascular exercise three times a week (not including other weight loss exercise) to reach optimal results and strengthen the heart muscle. Please refer below guideline on approximately how many calories are burned through various cardiovascular exercises in 30 minutes time.
Light housework like vacuuming: 70 calories
Brisk walking (3 mph pace): 165 calories
Cycling (moderate): 210 calories
Aerobic dance: 210 calories
Stationary bike (moderate): 200 calories
Swimming (moderate): 240 calories
Jogging (7 min mile): 390 calories
Running (5 min mile): 480 calories
Conclusion
Although cardiovascular exercise does not act as a good weight loss exercise to help building lean muscle tissue, it is important in strengthening our heart and helping in the whole aging process. In a healthy weight loss program, it is important to perform right weight loss exercise as well as develop a balance diet habit in our daily lives.
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