We all know exercise is good for us – but there is always debate about the best type of exercise for weight loss.
The most obvious choice is endurance-type exercise which is usually done at a moderate intensity or steady state. The rationale is clear. This type of exercise expends more energy than resistance training.
Others will stress the importance of resistance training and its effects on basal metabolic rate (BMR). Furthermore, increases in BMR have been observed after ten weeks of resistance training compared to endurance training and this may assist with weight control in the long term.
An alternative option is high-intensity interval training or HIT. Exercise is carried out at a low or moderate intensity with the caveat that several short bouts of high-intensity, often “all-out”‘, exercise are included. It is considered to be more time-efficient. However, such exercise is likely intolerable for many people due to its explosive, rather gruelling nature.
But the answer to the original question is simple. The best type of exercise for losing weight is the one that you will actually do. It doesn’t matter what research deems as the best exercise to do for weight loss – if you are only going to stick with it for 1 day, 1 week or even 1 month – then its not going to help you achieve your long term fitness goals.
Most people will not sustain a behaviour from which they derive no pleasure. The incentives for losing weight are obvious, but we humans are sometimes strange and forget very quickly the pros involved. The optimum approach is probably to combine different types of exercise to receive the benefit of each. Alongside this, some form of conscious control over energy intake must be considered because the reality for many is that what we put in our mouth is restricting our weight loss.
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