New Year Resolution – Part 3

In recent articles we’ve been talking about New Year
Resolutions. We’ve already covered how to write them and also
long-term vs. short-term goals. In this article we’re going to
take a look at the exercise in a New Year Resolution.

A successful resolution must include exercise. Is it possible to
lose weight through dieting alone? Yes. Is it possible to
maintain a lower weight through dieting alone? Again, the answer
is yes. But is weight loss through dieting a healthy weight
loss? Probably not. Let’s look at why.

The #1 reason why dieting alone will not lead to a healthy
weight for life is that when we diet without exercising
(specifically, resistance exercise) up to 50% of the weight we
lose will be muscle mass. Now, this will vary from person to
person based on genetics, age, sex, hormone levels, etc. but an
average is that 1/2 of the weight we lose on that crash diet is
from muscle loss.

Why does that matter? Well, there’s a lot of reasons. Here are
just two:

1) Muscle is more dense than fat (takes up less space), so
losing muscle vs. losing only fat means that while the weight
may come off the inch loss will be slower. Losing five pounds of
fat will make us lose more inches (size) than losing 2 pounds of
fat and 3 pounds of muscle.

2) Another reason why losing muscle is bad is that muscle is the
fat-burning furnace of the body. It’s a well-documented fact
that 1 pound of muscle burns about 50 calories more each day
than 1 pound of fat. Muscle is an active part of the body,
generating movement and burning fat. On the other hand, fat is
really just a storage unit for excess calories. Fat doesn’t do
much of anything, and therefore doesn’t burn calories like
muscle. So, every time we lose 1 pound of muscle we are forcing
our body to burn fewer calories each day.

As we age, we all lose some muscle naturally. That’s a fact we
can’t change. But why speed things up by dieting without
exercising? Muscle helps us balance, protects our bones, makes
us look lean and firm, gives us strength for life, and burns
calories.

So it’s easy to see that our New Year Resolution should include
exercise and not just dieting. It’s not an exaggeration to say
that the reason many (most?) people fail with their New Year
Weight Loss Resolution is that they don’t include exercise. It
seems easier to try yet another diet, hoping that this year will
be different.

Well, now we know the facts! The facts are that dieting without
exercise (specifically, resistance exercise) will lead to muscle
loss. Losing muscle means that we are burning fewer calories
each day, and burning fewer calories each day means that it’s
harder to lose weight.

This process of going on a crash diet, losing muscle, putting
the weight back on, going on another crash diet, losing more
muscle, and so on is known as yo-yo dieting. It’s the reason why
so many New Year Weight Loss Resolutions will fail this year.

Let’s be different. Let’s be smart. Let’s exercise!

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